SR 1 PAGE FIFTY-NINE

Why is Sera’s bed floating?

Why wouldn’t it be floating? It would be crazy for it not to be floating! If you can float your bed and choose not to, you should go to jail.

Because of her crazy supernatural powers, sleepytime is probably the only time Sera feels physically vulnerable. No matter how crazy things get during her waking hours, she can always launch a burst of ectoplasm like squid ink and fly away. But squidding requires consciousness. While unconscious, it’s better to get up in a safety zone. Like a tiger in a tree, basically.

The first piece of furniture I ever bought as an adult is my handmade wrought iron bed. The frame is all black and twisty and asymmetrical, with huge spirals at the end of each wriggly post. The smithy called it the “Burton Bed.” It’s AMAZING, a real work of art. I spent way too much on it back when I was 23 and thought ZIM would last forever, but I’m glad I did. Sure, it made paying bills more harrowing for a while, and I couldn’t see a doctor for several years, but come on…it’s the BURTON BED.

One day I will be buried with the Burton Bed. If Ami wants to keep sleeping on it for a while she can just let my carcass moulder in the corner until the time comes.

Just noticed there’s maybe a little inconsistency in the backstory on this page. Tess says Sera hasn’t been heard from in six years, but we know she goes to college, visits comic shops, etc. She’s not exactly a shut-in. Maybe Tess just means Sera hasn’t been in the news for six years? Okay, sure, just talked myself into that.

SR 1 PAGE SIXTY

SPEAKING OF BACKSTORY. The name of Zoe’s inn, “The Mended Wing,” has some of that.

It goes like this: When the witches still ruled Crestfallen (1700’s-era), what appeared to be an angel came crashing through the front window of a tavern on Regrettable Avenue. The poor battered creature looked like it had been through a meat grinder. Over several weeks, the family who owned the tavern nursed the “angel” back to health, but their patient never spoke a word to them. Even stranger, none of the town’s witch rulers would even acknowledge the angel’s existence. What was it?? One day it simply flew away forever, a permanent mystery. But the tavern owners quickly developed a reputation for great kindness and hospitality. And three centuries later, Zoe Mirolette discovered she was a descendant of that family.

Never found a place for that story, but I still like it.

TECHNICAL CORNER: So much white pencil on these pages. For my first comic designed specifically for print publication I decided to go all-in on un-printability. All those faint little details just disintegrate in the presses. If you’ve noticed the background stuff looking a little wobbly on these pages, it’s because working out perspective by erasing white pencil on sharpie marker is…tricky? Ill-advised? Psychotic?

Remember I still wasn’t using Photoshop very much at this point. I would try to get these pages 90% done at my drawing table, then bring them into PS to mess with levels and do the lettering. The backgrounds in the last two panels here look like a copy/paste job, though, so I guess I wasn’t TOO masochistic.

Kelton sleeping upright in a chair with his backpack on still makes me laugh. It’s an enormous room with plenty of space to lie down, but somehow that didn’t occur to him. And Tess certainly wasn’t gonna point it out.

BACK TO THE PRESENT!

Yesterday was my partner Ami’s birthday! So of course we went to a local Pasadena cheesery and gorged on various fancy cheeses. Then we came back home and gorged ourselves on a delicious cake prepared by our multi-talented friend Drew Rausch (check out his brilliant comics HERE!). So yeah, lots of gorging. What’s the point of having a birthday if you don’t gorge, right?

(Gonna go gorge on animals at a zoo this weekend!)

NEXT WEEK: FIVE AMERICAN WITCHES!