Epilogue Vignettes

I'm done with the narrative, but had some doodles about what would happen next. Backgrounds, finishing every figure, even separating panels had pretty much fallen to the wayside. The drawing style is pretty simplified, too. - I'm not on vacation anymore and didn't really have the time or energy.

So what would you do after all the "we regret there won't be a wedding" messages have been sent?

April has one more year of school:



Anthony's life goes on:



And Liz?

August 26

31.


In the end, I don't have any words. There's no single phrase, heck, no single reason to give here. She doesn't need somebody else to run to. She doesn't need a big fight. She just needs to know that she can't remain herself and marry Anthony.

And I didn't make Liz happy about it - I was going for anxious and sad in the first panel, wistful in the third. She really wanted to fulfill her family's expectations, to be married, to have it "all work out".

August 25

30.


Remember James? Poor, poor James?

August 24

29.


I actually changed this a bit from when I first started drawing (mid July) to when I got to this (not long ago). I got more annoyed with how issues of character were dealt with in the real strip - such as when John says Anthony will make a great husband (and thinks "or else" with no real bite).

I'd always figured Anthony wouldn't be able to cope, and go to therapy, if Liz left town for an indefinite amount of time to go look for April. I hadn't decided he would try (ineffectually) to harm himself, and be forced to go to therapy in the few days Liz was gone, but I think it fits.

Also, the passive voice "she wasn't harmed" instead of "I didn't harm her" is deliberate. I think Anthony has a very poor sense of responsibility. (I've read that that type of phrasing - 'the knife went in' instead if 'I stabbed' - is used by criminals with undeveloped consciences.)

August 23

A triad for Saturday:

26.

When touching up, I realized I'd put Dee in a babydoll top - there's no way she owns anything remotely stylish, so I fixed it to be tunic.

27.
This is one example of where I wasn't even consistent with the drawing style within a panel. April is a more cartoony version of herself than Dawn or Liz. Her hair is now a bit less crazy because I figure she's been told to lay off the styling gel.

I figure Liz would reconnect with her friends in a crisis. The way that I wanted to do the shift to Spruce Narrows meant that happened off-panel.

28.

This time Dawn didn't have to hear about the incident from Therese. I'm guessing it's been heard about all over Milborough.

There are books about how to craft T-shirts into different things - I've seen one whose piece de resistance was 16 white T-shirts sewn up to become a (rather nice) wedding dress. I can imagine Dawn looking at it and thinking "no, you'd want the skirt less blocky..." and designing from there.

But at least it's explicitly a hobby, and not confusion about her work.

August 22, Part II

25.


Aunt Bev has to show up eventually, of course.

(I need to post a second one to get over the Friday awfulness.)

As seen in the last few bits, I kept some of the oddly-childish-speak we see with April - such as an' and hafta. But I changed her style when she ran off. If nothing else, the need to disguise herself when running away would prod her to actually dress in fashions that teens wear today.

August 22, Part I

24.


I'll be posting more over the weekend.

August 21

23.

August 20

21.


22.

I like giving April even crazier hair, but I can't draw it very consistently.

August 19

20.


(I already mentioned I'm sure I'm not being realistic about police procedures, right? :)

August 18

19.


Definitely not my my best artwork. And, although what's said needs to be said, it became a Wall Of Text in the middle.

BTW, I am quite sure this is comics-y, not Real Life. I doubt this is what would happen if a police officer tried to take a few days off to go help an investigation beyond his jurisdiction. However, I'm not trying to be educational about police work.

I'm not trying to be realistic, but I did check a few things. Some locations, I'm not sure how many, require busking licenses. Also, I did check about summer festivals, that you can fly Thunder Bay to Winnipeg (on two commercial carriers, actually), and from the fictional location of Spruce Narrows, you should be able to hop to Thunder Bay quickly. I only kept the 2 days' drive to Spruce Narrows because I'd seen it declared so. It's not that far from Toronto - you can drive there in one day (a long day, admittedly).

August 17

17.


18.


These were pretty successful at getting well-lit photos to make the B&W versions clear. Again, I didn't shade Paul's hair black like I should have.

August 16

15.


16.


For those keeping track: Start of July + a few days + 19 days = we're somewhere in the July 20s

August 15 : Meanwhile, somewhere outside Milborough

14.


This is a case where I redrew - it's actually a cut & paste job on panel 3. Why? Well, I have some trouble keeping my dialogue succinct. This may not be very succinct, but compared to how it used to look, well:

WARNING: WALL OF TEXT ALERT!

Yes, I know Paul's hair should be black, but I didn't fully shade it. I was trying to keep some of the texture.

This was a bottleneck. There will be more tomorrow.

August 14, Part II

13.



Definitely not on the good end of the art quality, but I like to think I captured a nice "O, the horrors" expression on Dee.

I really pity the poor psychologist, considering the disconnect between what Elly's been focusing on talking about vs what the real problem is. Says volumes about Elly's focus now, as has been snarked on at length by other parties.

August 14

12.


Welcome to the Foobiverse folks - wow, thanks for taking a look.

When it comes to Jim, you've had a couple of strokes and been shown to only be able to reliably say "yes" or "no". Moreover, your wife and others talk around you, or interpret without trying any probing "20 questions". Your granddaughter seems to be acting like a nitwit about this wedding and thinks you approve - and that your late wife approves, too, because her dress fits. So how do you make your objections known?

Well, you might try something else, but this was just too good not to do.

I don't think Jim & Iris have necessarily heard about the Howard / Anthony stuff, but just how Anthony acts now ought to be enough to lead to some objections. And I'm being generous by implying that the "happy" couple visited Gramps.

I don't think I'm contradicting anything about Iris' life. She wouldn't have to mention any quiet sadness in her life with George before. And I find it plausible that someone from George's generation, who had probably seen people blown to bits before his eyes in WWII, might not have been good at doing anything else with grief except ignoring it. (It could also go the other way and make a veteran sensitive to the tragedy of life, of course, but not in this story).

Similarly, I don't think I contradicted anything about Dawn - she hasn't been extremely present post-HS, so she could have witnessed things as I put them. The strip has shown some of her being away (online: Ottawa), arty (and maybe in strip: graphic design work - but nothing says she got work right off the bat) and engaged to David. I toyed with Therese coming directly to Liz to warn her, but didn't find that plausible. Therese may have moved, or travel to Ottawa for business (it's an easy day train-trip). I figure Dawn & she like the same Second Cup in Ottawa, probably the one across from the Starbucks in the office building area near Parliament, and ran into each other.

I'm still working on improving the photo upload of my drawings - this time, I improved the lighting. It's a lot closer to uniformly lit, which makes selecting the BW levels easier. I've gotten a lot of good advice about inking cartoons, but the fanfic isn't being done real-time now - I mostly drew it in HB pencils on vacation and am mostly touching things up and de-scrawling my lettering, with only a few drawings or re-drawings now (this one is actually one of those re-drawings). I also have done squat in the way of inking. Ever. So I don't think I'll be bringing any inking to this project, but I really agree I should learn to do so in the future.

August 13

11.

August 12

9.

"April hasn't exactly been treated well" is an understatement.

10.
Trying "levels" to get the B&W to come out OK - the lines aren't uniformly grey, so it will never be exactly right.

I think this is exactly how Anthony would handle any emotional turmoil on Liz' part. I also think the reactions of Iris & Jim's neighbours to her previous visit - a woman getting out of a car and walking in in full bridal dress - would have been a hoot.

August 11

7.

8.

I did say the art quality is inconsistent, right? Just checking. (Yes, this is still at the therapist's office. And for those keeping score, the story shown through early July, with the start of dress-fitting, would have gone on as normal. Including the out-of-nowhere vintage couture skills. Hearsay and retcons, however, are fair game)

August 10

4.

(silhouettes are actually pretty annoying to shade in pencil)

5.


6.

I'm trying a variety of things to make the photos legible at full size. Always seems to work better on the snaps which tend toward sepia rather than white backgrounds. #6 Has been improved with some contrast work.

OK, so let's get the story going

2.

3.

1.

And it begins...