Comic Report #131 - Keep It Rolling

Okay so! I'm committed to trying to get as many of these pages drawn as quick as possible, and I'd just put one up a day or so ago, so here's the rough sketch phase of the next page for you. There's no time to dilly-dally, we gotta keep up momentum. Today I got most of the next page to share with you, and I think by next week I should have a good bit of progress towards completing the page. It definitely won't be ready this month, but I think I might be able to get two pages done in November, since Thanksgiving is at the very end of the month. That's then, though; for now, here's where I am.

This is the first big action shot of the sequence, so I get to start doing a lot of the really actiony stuff I really like drawing the most. Panel one opens with an upward swing from Amy's brick-in-a-blanket, catching her attacker under the chin as he attempts a horizontal swing set up at the end of the previous page. The prominent feature of this panel will be the big round swinging whoosh shape and the jagged impact bits behind the Gravekeeper. I'm planning to work the lyrics into the major shapes of the shot- in Amy's blanket and then in the wedges around the impact jaggies on the right side. For these types of pages lyrics need to be integrated with the action itself so while the eye is tracking through the implied motion of a panel, it also follows the flow of the lyrics in time with the accompanied, official studio recording. "Flow" is extremely important for these pages to work, and that sums up as a blending of action lines and lyrical presentation, and I think this panel does a pretty okay job of showcasing that.

In between this and the next panel I have this little sliver-panel there. My initial plan is to have a cropped shot with enough detail to imply Dale is looking behind him at the guy he knocked over in panel one of the previous page reaching for the gun he had on the couch next to him on the page before last, so when he gets walloped in the next panel the intent of the action is clear. That's gonna be a bit tricky to get the right perspective to convey all the details I need, the narrowness is essentially a line-of-sight action line- Dale's head on the right, the gun on the left, the guy on the ground with his hand reaching in between. This panel represents the first quiet little "hey" in the track, so that word will need to be in there as well. I left this rough since I wanted to get the easier panels done first so I had more to show today.

Likewise, I skipped over blocking this panel in because I haven't fully visualized how I want it all to flow. Amy's shot is an upswing to the right, I initially thumbnailed this panel as a downward swing to the left to complement it, but now I have to fill in the specific details about the action that I didn't really work out in my thumbs. In the first panel I have a clear line of action- Amy's brick blanket is swinging up, and I can draw her attacker with his neck bent, his chin up and his face meat pushing up as well to sell the direction and bluntness of the blow. Dale is swinging down at someone below him, and I'm trying to think how I can sell that- drawing the head lowered relative to the shoulders, eyes higher up? Actually, as I'm typing this I realize I saved a scrapped take on another layer I can share with you:

 The impact isn't quite there. I'll need some more time to figure this one out, so I left it as it is and moved on to the rest of the page, which I had a much clearer idea about.

In the lyrical flow of the song I wanted to use the louder of the two "HEY's" in this thirty-second block to represent a shift in the flow of battle. The other Gravekeeper from behind the desk has a shotgun so he takes shots at our guys. In the first panel the three scatter around the shot, with Monday putting an arm around Amy to kinda imply he's helping her out with a very daunting task of initiating contact with the Gravekeepers. I'd initially planned Mr. Shotgun firing a shot in each of his three panels as the camera rotates around, to emphasize each burst of lyric, but when I actually drew it out I felt like shot, pump, shot had more flow to it, because the last panel is about Dale, Amy and Monday seizing a moment to get right up into his face, and having a pump panel implies that rhythm. This sequence of panels has a little time-saving mechanic to it- in the first panel it's clear Mr. Shotgun is firing directly at the crew, but in the second and third panel the camera rotates while he's still firing "forward", so I can imply that he's still shooting at them without having to draw them in all the shots. Efficient!

For the last panel I wanted to conclude this burst of action by having the crew all gang up on the last guy. There were three guys in this room and two were visibly conked out, so now it's three on one and they're all right in his face. I wanted to imply the suddenness of their approach in the moment between the shot-pump-shot rhythm by piling them all into the panel, crowding Mr. Shotgun into the corner beneath Dale's door-shield. I thumbnailed the door thickness shape as being really curved to help imply the chargeyness of the action, but in sketching it out I don't think I've quite got it curved enough, it could be chargeyer. I also need to fit HURRY HURRY HURRY HURRY into this panel somewhere, so some tailoring will still need to be done. But, I got this much in so I'm happy with that.

And that's what I got for you today. I'm gonna keep rolling and get as much done as I can for next week. Thanks for checking in! Until next time, have a nice week.