[blog] Year 4, Comic 22 - Check

★ Notes on Year 4, Comic 22 - Check ★

CHECK,PLEASE!: STICKS & SCONES IS OUT IN BOOKSTORES

While I’ll be sharing updates every day this week, if you just can’t wait to read the end of the comic, you can still order the book online, call your local bookseller for curbside pickup, or download the book for Nook or Kindle.

Barnes & Noble especially seems to have CHECK, PLEASE!: STICKS & SCONES in stock for contactless curbside pick-up and for shipping!

Thank you!!

☆ ☆ ☆ NOTES ☆ ☆ ☆

✔ BITTY!!!!! Bitty!

✔ Eric Richard Bittle!!! ERB.

✔ He’s a stereotypical hockey player!! That tooth!
Jack: I’m totally in shock but also, weirdly, extremely on board with this look. 😳

✔ He checked someone. And what a first check.

✔ …That flashback. Let’s talk about that flashback.

I don’t want to spell out everything, since you, the reader, can put two and two together. Bitty’s fear of checking is tied up in more than just physical pain. It’s the fear that if he’s hurt that badly again, he’ll be attacked for something he can’t control and that he can’t hide, no matter how desperately he wants to. The fear that someone will know. Because he wasn’t strong enough. Much to be said on this front, but I’ll let you mull it over yourself. And yes, Bitty definitely got concussed after that pee-wee tackle.

And remember that comic from Year One?

✔ The color palette for that pee-wee check sequence is a little psychedelic to show how terrified Bitty is. Greens and oranges and magentas. I actually got the idea from watching Beasts of No Nation, which is a rough and disturbing movie, but I loved how unsettling the hallucinogen pink-foliage scene was. So there ya go.

✔ But he got up. And he gets up pissed. Eric Bittle is sick and tired of people knocking him down and making him feel bad for who he is. He’s sick of it. And so he goes for it. Bitty’s check, took a lot of reference and I wanted it to feel EPIC. So yes to the dutch angle, yes to the action lines, yes to the up-shot angle of this massive stadium. In Check, Please!: Sticks & Scones, I’m a little sad that this wasn’t a double spread!!

Original thumbnails for Comic 4.22. I’ve had some of these storyboards in my head for years. Thumbs:

Zooming in on the first thumbnail. The horizon line is tilted and there’s some sort of FAST lateral movement happening in this check. Bitty is going for the kill. We’re right along the sideboards, near the benches.

Roughs:

Gotta say, this was super tricky to draw!!

Inking: The composition and clarity of the image started coming together during the lineart phase. The action lines provide so much information about the movement and impact of Bitty’s check.