Page 119 – 120
These two pages are because I wanted to ease someone into Rae’s thoughts. So to start I just have her focused and competent. Her asking the lady for directions are also to establish she is good at lying, but in a small way at first.
Page 121 – 122
These fighting pages are to show how the monsters were getting made. Since Rae is more on the ball she gets there before stuff gets too bad and we get to see that “Arthur’s” blood is the key to everything.
Page 124 – 127
Here we get full force Rae when dealing with the other girls. Sometimes the captions are a little cramped because Rae thinks more than the other girls and I didn’t want to drag this scene out two much. I did have fun with the acting between Elsie and Morgan as that fight, particularly when Elsie flicks some of her float at Morgan.
While writing Rae’s thoughts I made things colder and more calculated than when Kimber was mad at Morgan and Elsie.
Page 128 – 134
So this is the first really big exposition scene. I wanted to set it up a lot of the questions the girls don’t get answered until the end. Also, I wanted to keep pushing that Elsie, while having the simplest motive, its also the one with the clearest right and wrong.
Kimber’s crush on Rae is subtle through the first book but I also wanted to keep it childish to show her being younger than the rest. So I thought the beat of her wanted to sit next to Rae would be a good beat. Rae’s look at Kimber I thought would be a good hint that Rae is picking up on Kimber’s enthusiasms for the two of them being close.
Cu and Rae are are the two big liars. So I had fun writing Rae trying to trip him up without showing too much of her hand.
Rae completely ignoring the fighting to focus on her own goals is another ways to contrast her from the group and to show she is much colder and detached than the others. But that she is also very focused on her goals and isn’t paying attention to their personal details.
Page 135
I really liked this bit about with Elsie thinking Billy is buying drugs. I wanted them to tease each other but still have it be clear they liked each other.
Page 136 – 140
Once again, Rae is basically ignoring everything the other girls are saying. I made Elsie one of nine and figure it is probably hard for her or any of her siblings to have any kind of private time never mind romance
This whole scene is to show Rae is good at being manipulative and is also away of how she is appearing at all times. She mostly dresses the way she does for situations like this. Because of that she is the only one who can safely talk to a cop.
Page 141 – 142
I think drawing and making firing for fire is one of my favorite things art related. Also I really like the Dimiter Martin joke about indifferent graffiti. So when ever I have a place with stuff written on it I have at least one indifferent graffiti. So “SU 151 is okay.
Page 143 – 148
This whole fight is when they start really communicating. They have a few problems similar to the ones before and that is basically the first half of the fight. It’s a lot of them bumping into each other and them hurting each other’s chances against Arthur. I especially liked that Rae ruins Kimber’s attack twice. So while Kimber, Elsie, and Morgan actively fight a lot, Rae isn’t much better at being in sync with her teammates.
Page 149 – 154
Things start to go better after Arthur’s big attack that knocks everyone down. Elsie and Morgan stop rocks from falling on each other. I tried to use skinny tall panels because those two are still in a cramped space.
Morgan recognizes the alter from her dream which is why she figures out that’s what needs to go. I didn’t want that to be 100% obvious though.
I like big flashy pages of Elsie wrecking shit.
Page 155- 158
As the girls escape I again wanted to push that Elsie is the one that thinks about other people. She is concerned about Arthur even before finding out who he is. Rae on the other hand only cares about number 1.
I wanted to wrap the book of with some quick character beats to reenforce who each girl is before the book ends. So we get some bickering, Rae smoothly lying, and Kimber’s getting excited about Rae agreeing with her. Then Billy coming back with bruises is to make it clear he is Arthur. I didn’t want “Who is King Arthur” to be a big mystery, more “When will the girls realize Billy is King Arthur” Also, Billy is the obvious choice to be Arthur because Arthur was Morgan La Fey’s half -brother. I always wanted Arthur to have that same connection.
I liked ending on the beat of Elsie not hiding their superheroing at all.