SR 1 PAGE EIGHTY-NINE

This information may SHOCK and DISTURB you, but here goes…

I have not been to many sports stadia. 

I’ve been inside the Kia Forum and the (*long, heavy sigh*) “Crypto.com Arena” a few times to see bands play, but the one and only time I went to a stadium to see a professional sporting event was in my freshman year of high school.

This was at Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs American baseball squadron. It was the endpoint of a walk-a-thon fundraiser from my school, St. Patrick’s High School for Boys. I don’t remember who we were raising money for, but it was probably the school itself, as the Catholic church is famously poor and unable to fund education on its own. Not sure how walking raises money, exactly… I assume people bet on how many of us would live? Dunno. All I knew was I hated moving and didn’t care about baseball, so I would’ve preferred to just doze in class like any normal day.

I must have been dozing when it was announced we all had to wear our official St. Pat’s walk-a-thon shirts that day. BIG MISTAKE. About a mile into the Death March to Cubbies a car suddenly rolled up beside me. Inside was an enormous hulk named Rudy, St. Pat’s Dean of Students and pope-appointed(?) disciplinarian. 

“Are you a rebel?” Rudy deadpanned from the darkness of his automobile. Not a “walk-a-thon” for Rudy today, I noticed.

“Uh… No?” I said. And that was true. Young Aaron was no Pee-Wee Herman, Dottie.

“Where’s your shirt?” Rudy’s voice was honed razor sharp through decades of cutting through teenage bullshit. I knew any word thrown toward him would be sliced in half long before it could be believed, but I had to try.

“Shirt? Oh! It’s in my bag.”

“Why is it in your bag?”

The question puzzled me. Why wouldn’t the shirt be in my bag? Why would anyone be wearing their dumb souvenir shirt if they didn’t have to?

“Look around you. Everyone else is wearing the shirt. But not you, the rebel.”

Before I could throw another word, Rudy requested my presence in his office first thing Monday morning. And with that, he left me in a cloud of exhaust and deep existential dread. I’d never been to the High Inquisitor’s office before. As a certified honor roll Good Boy, this was unthinkable. Had I crossed into another world? Could this the beginning of a dark new Aaron??

There was no way I could concentrate on my first-ever pro baseball game that day. No, this was not the day to develop a deep appreciation and/or basic understanding of America’s pastime. My mind was feverish, fixated on all the agonies that awaited me in Rudy’s chamber of torture come Monday…

Turns out: Zero agonies! Rudy said he’d gone over my records and determined I was indeed a certified Good Boy. He suspected I was lying about not hearing the shirt announcement (obvious rebel tendencies), but was willing to let me off with a warning this time. There would be no crucifixion at St. Patrick High School for Boys that morning. (To be fair, it was more likely “detention,” but still!)

Rudy did, however, demand I get a haircut. This would be a recurring theme throughout my time at St. Pat’s. To this day, I still sometimes imagine Rudy rolling up to me in his car and barking from the darkness, “Cut it or I’ll cut it for you, Mr. Alexovich.”

SR 1 PAGE NINETY

I think I said a while back that the white pencil techniques in this first book didn’t work, but you know what? This page looks pretty good! Especially in the first panel here, the way the white pencil brightens up the chains toward the bottom is really nice. Maybe I could’ve become a serious white pencil whiz if I’d stuck with this.

I also really like Skarsdayle’s outfit in this scene. A character in an all-white outfit was a good idea for such a heavy black Sharpie-markered scene. And of course, a person like Skarsdayle would want to stick out in any scene. She’s basically an inverted silhouette here.

It just occurred to me: Skarsdayle and Rivet Hed were way ahead of the curve in giving everyone’s job to A.I., weren’t they? Wonder how good these roadies are at their job.

BACK TO THE PRESENT!

Kind of weird that we hit the sport stadium page this week. It gave me an opportunity to write about how I never go to sports stadia at the precise moment every couple years I would actually be sort of interested in watching some live sports.

Anybody else watch the Olympics at all? It’s fun! Highly recommend the Olympics. Gymnastics and diving are incredible to watch because how can humans do that? But I also like some of the more unusual events, like horses jumping over whimsically themed hurdles, people shooting arrows from bows more complicated than your average Transformer, and whatever beautiful madness briefly gripped the breakdancing competition. Good stuff!

My contribution to physical excellence is, of course, the intense distance drawing displayed in my 240-page new book, SHOCK CITY, out in less than a month!

NEXT WEEK: THE CHAIN GANG.