SR 1 PAGE THIRTY-FIVE

I’ve never shoplifted anything on purpose, but I did it accidentally one time, and if I’d been caught it would have been the most humiliating moment of my life.

A lot of you are probably familiar with the PREVIEWS comic catalog. It’s this enormous brick of a thing that comes out every month with listings for every book, toy, shirt, weapon, state secret, etc. your local comic shop can order for you. Apparently there’s still a print version, even though the internet has been popular for decades. When I was 15 and the internet was still useless, I loved PREVIEWS. Sometimes I think I loved it more than the actual comics! (Being a comics enthusiast is often more important to people than the actual comics.)

So one day at age 15 I went over to Chicago Comics to grab my weekly comics and the latest copy of my best pal PREVIEWS. I did not shoplift it. In fact, I paid like three bucks for it. That’s right, in comics you have to pay for catalogs. Don’t think the J.C. Penney people ever tried that.

After conscientiously paying for both my comics and my enormous collection of ads, I scurried home with my loot, dreaming of the sights I’d see within. 

I got a heck of a sight in that copy of PREVIEWS, that’s for sure. A copy of Cherry Poptart fell right out of the middle of it.

Oh, you don’t know Cherry Poptart? I didn’t either! Turns out it’s a long-running Archie Comics-style hardcore porn comic. I was 15.

It was immediately obvious what had happened. Somebody (likely another underage somebody) had tried to hide a copy of this porno comic in the PREVIEWS behemoth, then chickened out before buying it. I had unwittingly completed this diabolical crime.

Now, as a teenager I should’ve been celebrating my new acquisition, but honestly I could still feel the bullet whizzing past my ear. What if the clerk had seen that? What if he’d called my parents?? What would my parents think of my terrible taste in pornography???

I dutifully bagged and boarded Cherry Poptart alongside my new Shadowhawks, Cybersforce, etc.

Let’s see, anything about this page… Oh yes! Social anxiety and goth clubs. Let’s roll that into the next one.

SR 1 PAGE THIRTY-SIX

Yeah, so Sera’s freaked out about going into the crowded music venue. I was, too, when I first started going to shows in college. 

The first show I ever saw was the incredible “electronic junk punk” legends Babyland at a little hole in LA called THE SMELL. Social anxiety kept me pressed up against one wall at the very back of THE SMELL, but damn it, I was there. Very proud of myself! Within a few months, going to shows didn’t trigger my anxiety at all anymore. I think the key is that nothing’s expected of me at music venues. Being part of a big crowd standing around waiting for a show is no problem. It’s the chaotic, unfocused nature of trying to be sociable at parties that stresses me out.

If you hurtle forward to the beginning of book three, you can see Sera’s opinion of show attendance has gone through a similar evolution. Because yeah, why wouldn’t it?

TECHNICAL CORNER: Panel four doesn’t quite work here. There’s a whole conversation going on through the balloons on the left, but the expression on the bouncer’s face exclusively relates to the “OOOOOH!” on the right. It’s clumsy, because that excited face can’t possibly apply to the bored dialogue on the left. All the dialogue you put in a panel should feasibly be coming from the expression you’re pointing it toward. Really needed two panels here.

Also in panel ten, the “Holy, uh…” looks like it’s coming from Tess. But now I’m getting nitpicky.

Still like that bouncer design. I think there was a guy working the door at the Troubadour with a hat like that? Or maybe The Key Club? Definitely not THE SMELL. They couldn’t even afford a door on the bathroom!

BACK TO THE PRESENT!

Started doing thumbnail sketches for SHOCK CITY book two this week. This is one of my favorite stages of making a comic, because it strips the whole process down to just two things: clarity and emotion. No getting trapped in detail muck, just tell the story and serve the vibes. I always love the way a comic looks in rough thumbnail form. The trick from that point on is to refine the drawings without losing all that cool energy. Heartbreaking when it doesn’t work!

SPEAKING OF COOL ENERGY. Have you pre-ordered SHOCK CITY book one yet? Pre-orders are crazily important in publishing these days, so I’d sure appreciate it! If you click the image below there are like half a dozen different vendors (Amazon, B&N, Bookshop.org, Target, etc.). Thanks for your support!

NEXT WEEK: TRAVIS PLAYS BASS.