[blog] Year 4, Comic 23 - Dibs
โ Notes on Year 4, Comic 23 - Dibsโ
Guys.
GUYS.
SAMWELL UNIVERSITY MENโS ICE HOCKEY IS THE D-I MENโS ICE HOCKEY CHAMPIONS!!!!
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
PEW PEW
PEW PEW PEW
FINALLY. IT ONLY TOOK 500ish PAGES, SEVERAL PLAYOFF RUNS AND FOUR YEARS OF FICTIONAL NARRATIVE. And it also took ERIC BITTLE as the captain to do it! WITH THESE WELLIES.
โSWAWESOME! ๐
โ Bitty finished his thesis! Tuh! Barely. After texting Jack for 30 hours straight, he had a fairly decent draft which needed a thorough revision. So, of course, Eric Bittleโs lovely team threw him a FINISH YOUR FUCKING THESIS PARTY, a week-long ordeal where Bitty was placed under house arrest and his baking was monitored by government satellite. We canโt be sure if he actually had an ankle bracelet installed, but itโs quite possible one was put in placeโฆBut hey, itโs okay, everyone dropped by to cheer him on! ๐
Bitty: Jack! Oh, you sweet pea. You came to deliver me respite from this dreadful ordeal!
Jack: Nursey said the Haus printer was broken
Jack: (slams printer on the kitchen table) this is the one me and Shitty shared at Samwell. Bye. Good luck.
Chowder: Wow! Free printer!
Bitty: (befuddled) Chowder! He bolted outta here without kissing me!
Chowder: Because you need to finish your fucking thesis.
Tater: Hey, B! Write, write, write!
Bitty: Youโre just here for pie.
Tater: (eating pie) Pie, pie, pie!
โ And DEX IS CAPTAIN. Like Nursey said, Dex is the most brainwashed SMH kid of them all. Itโs like when youโre a child and want a pet and One Parent is against this proposition, but after 5 months of pet ownership that One Parent has that pet as their phone background and sometimes calls you the petโs name, instead of your name. You worry that the One Parent loves Pet more than you. They absolutely do and you brought this on yourself.
Anyway, thatโs Dex, who wasnโt sure heโd fit in at Samwell as a freshman, and now knows how to bake better than most people. He can also produce jam at the drop of a hat. Sacred knowledge for all future SMH captains. Superstition?? Sure???
โ Whiskey. Hi, I love Connor Whisk. I love writing a character who is not Bitty. Whiskey moves in mysterious ways, and heโs a fun foil to Bitty, with Bittyโs need to be accepted and liked by nearly everyone. Also? Writing a character whose desires, motivations, and intentions remain ambiguous is a great feeling. One might be tempted to project on to Whiskey or to make assumptions about Whiskeyโs relationship and self-perceptionโฆBut thatโs precisely what Bitty did!
Bitty and Whiskey are so different, and I loved writing this episode!
Huzzah! Please check out my process from that scene in Bittyโs (Whiskeyโs) room:
PANEL 8
Thumbnails: I wanted to pin down Bittyโs expressions, even in the thumbs. And to be totally honest, Whiskey reaching for Johnsonโs shut-out pucks?? Slightly random. He needed an action during this scene. Boy do I love when characters interact with background props, though.
Roughs: Is it truly a Check, Please! page if I donโt have a near-isometric downshot on the characters as my wide shot? No.
Inks: There is one (1) lego Jack Zimmermann on a shelf.
Flats.
Final.
Panel 10
Thumbs.
Roughs: Whiskey has to convey a ton of emotion when he says โI canโt be like you.โ (Not, note, โIโm not like you.โ Or โI donโt want to be you.โ Hm.) The roughs here donโt really nail that expression, but I think I get closer in the inks? Bittyโs response is acceptance if notโฆapproval?
Lines: Whiskeyโs eyebrows relax a little bit. Heโs less worried than in the roughs and more confidentโฆOr maybe heโs just not that much of an expressive person. You decide. But Whiskey is both stating a fact here and perhaps even setting a boundary?
Flats & Final. NOTE. I wish there were another like 3 panels between โI canโt be like youโ and Bitty initiating the handshake. AWKWARD SILENCE? The lighting attempts to tell a story here. Whiskey is in the shadows. Is this what he means when he says โI canโt be like youโ?
ยฏ(ใ)/ยฏ
โ Bitty isโฆ.graduating. Thatโs pretty much all he has left to do. Almost.
โ Up Next: 4.23 - Class Day.
And Haus keeping!