This chapter is basically what the original idea for Misfits was. A short story about two jerky magically girls breaking into a gated community and then getting arrested at the end.
Page 41 – 42
This scene wasn’t originally in the book. I added it because my editor told me if I started it on page 43, then the captions wouldn’t be clearly Elsie’s since her and Morgan’s voices are similar. There are slight differences but those weren’t clear in the first few of page 43. Generally Morgan stews on things more. Elsie are more right no thoughts and she doesn’t think as much.
So I used this opportunity to show more of Elsie’s friends and how she fights with them in a similar way to the way she fights with Morgan. I worked very hard on Elsie’s face in page 41 panel 4. I thought doing that over pulling on her face as her hands have run down it would be perfect. There are a lot of dumb photos save on my computer to get it right.
page 43 – 46
I liked the visual of Elsie just climbing out the window. I like how all the action in this scene came out. I wanted to make it be them immaturely hitting each other during all the exposition cause it solidifies their dynamic but also it’s more visually interesting than just talking to Cu. Elsie thinks she wins the bet because she just bet Lin that Morgan won’t do better than her, if both her and Morgan get zeros then they are equal and Elsie wins the bet. Lin definitely doesn’t agree.
page 47 – page 54
Elsie just flopping over is one of my favorite things for her. Her body language is always over dramatic. Those bikes are definitely stolen. You can tell cause they are boy bikes aka there is a high bar which doesn’t let you ride then with a skirt.
My favorite type of humor in comics is when there are similar panels to show a time beat. So Elsie’s Uuuuh… then thinking for two panels is an example of that. I also like how her guesturing came out when she says she is super hot.
I love the idea of the girls wacking their rings to turn them on. I thought it was perfectly in character for Morgan and Elsie. Here I wanted to show Morgan is a bit better at figuring things out than Elsie. She realized her punches had a bit of a kick last time. Plus I got to use the fun super tall and skinny panels again. I also enjoyed playing with the angles of all the shots with Morgan mocking Elsie while sitting on the wall.
I just had a lot of fun drawing them trying to climb up the wall.
page 55 – 57
I mostly wanted to establish some scenery and build a little tension here. It was a lot of fun to draw and block out. I also wanted to show Elsie having a harder time being sneaky since she’s got the big ass hammer to worry about.
The last panel of that last page should have been pulled out maybe a little to stress there are a lot of houses on the grid her. But hey! You can tell which house is Kimber’s.
page 58 – 61
Elsie is not good at stealth. This is also the biggest difference between her captioning a chapter and Morgan. Elsie is basically saying everything she thinks. Morgan is mostly being quiet and leading the way.
page 59 is something I felt would be important. Elsie starts her usual mocking of Morgan. Since usually Morgan takes off. She usually isn’t this close to Morgan as the anger visibly builds up. See that does make Elsie feel bad. I love the first panel of page 60 where Elsie feels bad and Morgan is her usual angry self. Why Morgan struggling to hold Elsie’s hammer I thought came out well that that last tear of panels could have worked better. Elsie is slipping after showing off and holding on 1 handed.
page 62 – 63
I use buttfaces as Kimber’s go to insult because I wanted to ensure that she came off as younger than the rest of the cast. I also don’t have her swear at after this first time. I decided to ditch the bandana after this scene cause it was annoying to draw.
page 64 – 67
I always like drawing stuff that is on fire. It’s fun to play with the lighting.
page 68 – 71
Again this is driving home the point from earlier that Elsie is the one who can make friends. Morgan just attacks Kimber verbally or with her powers but Elsie is the one who tries to reach out.
Page 72
This page is my favorite Misfits of Avalon page. I like doing the trick where the thought captions cover the dialog they aren’t paying attention and I like Elsie’s freak out at learning a dog is talking. I had fun drawing her face a lot during this scene.
Also, this is the first hint of how Cu finds them. He always appears after they say his name.
page 73 – 74
I liked drawing Morgan and Elsie sprawled out on top of each other.
This joke was basically how the original Misfits of Avalon pitch/short would have ended.
page 75 – 78
Billy makes his first appearance to show one of the other big differences between Elsie and Morgan is Elsie has a support system. As soon as Billy shows up I always put Morgan lower in the panel or looked down on her to make her look smaller.
Someone like Elsie is not going to believe in secret identities.