Page Deconstruction #7: High Expectations

Oh MAN, High Expectations.

Oh man.

So many things happened to you. So many things we have to explain. This is definitely going to be multiple parts.

First off, this entire sequence wasn’t even meant to exist! My plan for Chapter 100 was to hold a contest where people voted for a character to have a good day. It was going to use Twitter poll, it was going to be “character vs character” until it’d get down to just two characters, and the winner I’d write a happy chapter about. It was going to be momentous. I wanted it to be themed on the PWT from Pokemon Black 2/White 2, and it woulda included battle stances for every character, including original art whenever a character won (Like let’s say Molly beat Lucy, it’d show Molly tossing cookies at a defeated Lucy lying on the floor)

But that clearly didn’t happen because one fateful day I sat down and was like “hmm let me just doodle a sequence in my head” that involved Daisy bringing Paulo a chocolate pudding bowl with chocolate candy sprinkles.

As you can see, the entire initial sequence with Mike DIDN’T EXIST. Mike just decided to be snippy to Paulo out of nowhere, Paulo lashed out at Mike, Paulo grabbed Mike’s phone after Mike was being passive aggressive..

.. and honestly, the rest is history. 

This chapter just wrote itself as things continued to escalate and get worse and worse. With Abbey showing up, with Mike bashing Paulo against the table, with Mike screaming at Sue, with Paulo catching Augustus and Lucy hanging out. It was a domino effect of stuff and I just KEPT DRAWING IT OUT. 

Once I decided “Okay, this has to be Chapter 100”, I had to actually REALLY think and build explanations to things — like why is Mike so damn angry?? I mean, we all know why he’s angry and moody, but Mike needed something extra to push him a little bit over the edge, and that’s where you can see tiny thumbnails in the middle of the bigger thumbnails of me developing Mike’s mood for his eventual lashing out at the lunch table. Those are what became the actual pages 1 and 2.

Page 1 had quite the revising, it had Mike getting up out of bed and showering and eating breakfast and just being in a plain-poor mood — and Souppy told me we’ve seen this sequence plenty. And honestly, I agreed. 

This is where Souppy suggested Mike walk to school on a rainy day instead, and the sequence should be him fiddling with his umbrella and looking at his phone that is beeping out a weather alarm. I went with that — and honestly my lazy-ass was glad because uGHHHHHH having to draw all these panels of Mike doing shit around the house??? Souppy was suggesting an easier sequence that was also original! How nice when this happens :-[

I felt more sad about changing the final panel, but I did. Souppy thought it was too dramatic and cartoony, but I wanted it to show that asshole Mike was back, the kind of asshole Mike that rubs his temples and tells you you’re a parasite. 

This proceeded mostly as planned, there’s not too much of a difference from this and the final product.

..

oh except the sequence between Jasmine and Abbey didn’t exist.

YUP THAT WAS ACTUALLY COMPLETELY SKETCHED WITHOUT THUMBNAILING, I LITERALLY THOUGHT ABOUT IT AS I WAS SKETCHING FROM THE THUMBNAILS ONTO PHOTOSHOP

This was, again, a product of me thinking about the chapter more and what was necessary to include, and I really thought it was worth having Abbey and Jasmine have a conversation — because at one point Paulo runs past them — and Abbey is meant to be sitting happily with his Sophomore friends. But the last time we saw Abbey he wasn’t happy.

I guess he coulda just gotten over it and been with his friends, but I think it was worth showing Jasmine being a friend to him. Souppy wanted to revise this sequence a ton, and we did! 

(This is very hard to read, so open a larger version here.)

Souppy originally wanted to trim this sequence to only two pages, I thought it deserved to stay the 4 pages I intended. Then he tried to trim to a lesser degree, and even though the final sequence did stick to 4 pages, I did move panels around based on his ideas. But everything is essentially there! You can even see tons of differences in dialogue!

Just a small difference in Abbey’s expression from the final product, here.

This also went through some art changes. Souppy thought Abbey looked too dramatic in the first panel and holy shit did I agree, BUT I WAS TOO SAD ABOUT DELETING SUCH A GOOD FACE. IT’S SUCH A GOOD EXPRESSION, but I absolutely felt it was too dramatic. I thought altering the dialogue to be more upset would help the expression, but it couldn’t be helped. Sometimes you gotta accept that you can draw something great, but it can’t fit tonally and you can’t force it. That’s why archiving is so great!

I thought Jasmine’s panel one arm looked really goddamn weird and unnatural (Finding a reference of this hand gesture is tough).. but luckily I realised Jasmine should be extending her right arm for a more natural pose, because she switches arms in the second panel!! What a blunder!! I noticed that and fixed it for the final product.

The final panel went through a bit of a change as well, which is a shame as Abbey looked super cute in the original ;__; But a bit too passive, like he’s just being talked at I guess.

More to come!!