In which Our Hero is accosted by his biggest fan.
This page was thumbnailed three or four times (not totally unusual; I thumbnailed the chapter title splash oodles of times before it was finally completed) and drawn, in its entirety, twice. The first go at penciling & inking this one was towards the end of 2009, maybe a little before or after FallCon (so, sometime in October, I guess), and had some really awkward staging in the top row of panels. (Okay, it’s still a little odd, but I think it works.) Come February and a bit of free time (so rare and precious), I decided to pitch that work and start fresh. The result is what you see here. Normally I wouldn’t have thrown out days of work, but it’s a new year, and marks a new beginning of sorts. Not in the story, of course — we’re picking up right where we left off — but in terms of getting the work done, rededicating myself to a regular (weekly, for now) schedule, and putting out the absolute best work I can given my current skills and the time I have to complete it in.
Colored and assembled while listening to: Depeche Mode’s “Policy of Truth,” Lacuna Coil’s cover version of “Enjoy the Silence,” and Daft Punk’s “Digital Love” (among soooooooo many others; that’s just what I remember and jotted down).
