I Have No One to Blame But Myself

Sep 10, 2022

Issue 4, page 9.

Have you seen the clip where it’s just a preacher saying ‘ya done f@cked up’ over and over again?

Issue 4. Page 9.

This is Meredith, and I have made DECISIONS.

I can’t actually post the script, because there are spoilery spoil spoils as the page goes on. Here, however, is the description of Panel 1:

Panel 1. Essex and Pax, back in their gear and walking the streets of the city (let’s start with them in the Narrows (like where they found Freyal in issue 1) and they’re working their way up toward the precinct. They’re both back in uniform. LATE MORNING.

I approach every page with some level of: ‘I’m going to do better today, than I did yesterday.’ And this page had a lot of potential. City backgrounds. A little more rigid than a natural setting, but I’m good with them. Morning light. Ooo. That could be fun.

People that actually occupy this city? F@ck me.

I read this page and knew it was going to be a long haul. First, because I can never seem to cram enough small city effluvia into a scene to satisfy my needs. Especially one like Kiros. Everything is built on top of each other. Lots of cues from Hong Kong and narrow New York streets. Has to feel lived in. Has to have lots of niddily little things. And trash. And uneven ends. Might have to free hand it a little bit.

And yeah, that took a while.

But now there have to be PEOPLE. …Or people things.

There has to be. I don’t buy that this is a city without people. Nobody else will either. Could I get away with it? Probably. Kelly gives me a lot of slack, bless her. But I, tragically, have a low threshold for my own bullshit. And, more pressingly, a CRIPPLING anxiety that you will all one day discover that I am actually a lazy little trash panda and drum me out of the industry forever.

Fear, the great motivator.

Here’s my little confession. I’m liable to put anybody in a crowd.

That dad I saw with his toddler yesterday? Yup. David the Gnome? Sure. That robot from Laputa? We can get that silhouette in there. If I put Totoro in, would we be sued? Hachishakusama? ABSOLUTLEY. Chewbacca? No. Bigfoot. No. Just a mass of animate hair. Yes. That looks right. I wonder if I can get away with all the Straw Hat Pirates. Slenderman was in the last issue. Did you spot him? Might put him in again and again and again.

The truth is, I can design characters all day long. But the second you tell me a scene will require exactly a whole lot of that, my brain goes bye bye. It’s a manufacturer defect. I blame the factory.

So yeah. A lot of the time I have to do a crowd scene, I just pop over to Twitter and see what kind of people like things folks are posting, and into the comic they go. Selfies, fan art, mascots. Yes, please. Give me more.

I have a whole ’nother page of this.

And I wanna be happy when it’s done.

I have no one to blame but myself.