Page 50 and Verbose Talking Dogs

Curtis Redmond likes to run his mouth!  And in case you were wondering and couldn’t tell, he is a black man, something easier to depict now that I can give him skin tone (though all you get is his hands here).  I think he is one of Alex’s favorite characters to write for, and he finds his voice fairly easily.

I like the idea of people being dressed up (except for Gus) for this meeting.  Seeing Redmond in a suit is funny to me.  I also thought it would be kind of interesting if his hair was so shaggy that it hung over his collar, dehumanizing him a bit more.  You might wonder where the dog ends and the man begins.  Wait for the nude scene I guess (not really!).  I picture it creeping down his back and chest a little, then being a normal man from there.

Imagine having a dog head and trying to live a normal life.  Kissing a woman!  Just gross and upsetting (and something I suggested we explore to Alex).  No wonder he is such a grump.

So yeah, more attempts at realism here.  The brad close-up at the end is actually the first thing I drew in this scene.  I wanted to really capture a quiet smoldering intensity as he listened to his outrageous new boss and his extreme stance on capes.  I like to start with the panels that I can envision the easiest and push the challenges back til last.

I tried something different with that profile shot of Redmond on the bottom left.  More of a stylized silhouette that I’m really happy with the way it turned out.  I want to keep doing more like that.

Kind of a lot of swearing in this scene.  And that panel marks our first drop of the f-bomb, something Alex has pushed for since Issue 3, and I always fought against (even just changing it when I drew the page without telling him).  It just takes things to a level I didn’t want to go to.  But I thought it was fitting now and goes well with our current tone.

You can’t write something for your grandparents to read forever, which was actually a legitimate concern of mine.  What can I say, I’m a family oriented guy who tries to honor the good name.  But that can get in the way of art, and I’ve read it’s a bad attitude to have.  So fuck it!  Sorry, Grandpa.

I guess my son won’t be reading this anytime soon.

Plus we’ve already had characters calling each other faggots, and I think once you’ve crossed that line swearing rules kind of go out the window.  Not that I want a lot of casual swearing, that is a crutch of poor writing and I don’t ever want to be a part of that.

On a different subject, this is page 50!  This story is really moving along, and I think we’ve done a lot in those 50.  As much as we could have/wanted to?  I don’t know.  It’s a pretty significant landmark in our story telling though.  The longest fully continuous story we’ve done to this point was the 40 page Issue 5, which was mostly a big fight that I choreographed mixed with some key points and dialogue Alex had written.  So this is pretty different.

It is a whole different challenge writing and drawing a longer story like this.  How far are we?  I don’t know, because it is not all written yet, so of course it isn’t laid out.  I do know the majority of what we have left to tell story-wise, and I’d guess we are around the halfway point.  Alex optimistically thinks we are quite a bit further than that, but I’m pretty sure he’s wrong.  I’m also pretty sure we won’t be done in time for the convention in May, but I’ll still try.

I will say this, things are about to pick up in excitement and pace very soon, so we are almost done with the set up phase.

Oh, and fans of the original, don’t worry, it is not just going to be a rehash of the comic book’s story.  That would be boring for you and us.  We’ve gotten plenty of fun surprises in store!