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EMPOWERED & SISTAH SPOOKY #5 thumbnails, pt.1
🕑 Added 2019-10-03 13:01:01 +0000 UTCWhoops, forgot to post these in September!
Above are my thumbnails for issue #5 of 2018's Empowered and Sistah Spooky's High School Hell, a six-part miniseries written by me, drawn by Carla Speed McNeil, and colored by Jenn Manley Lee. Previous roughs from issue #4 are here; and more info on the overall project here.
Now, with the previous issues, such as #3, I posted the thumbnails only in their original "quad" format, as seen above. Howeva, it's occurred to me that the roughs might be more appealing if I cropped 'em to show a single page at a time, as seen below.
Note that page 1 above was intentionally deceptive. If you've read the actual book, the page seems to feature a scene of the Infernal Service Provider trying to browbeat Theresa into "going blonde" when granted magical beauty. Ah, but the punchline is that this is a different character entirely, who does wind up knuckling under to the ISP's pressure; the payoff to this scene doesn't occur until the end of #6. Not sure if any readers figured this out in retrospect, though.
I'll attach Carla's actual page (with dialogue), so you can see the deception more clearly:
And back to my thumbnails:
Yeahp, as we'll see, Ashlee above was the character from the page 1 flashback.
Injury to eye motif. Ouch!
Ouch again!
Ehh, not sure the reflection bit with the water worked out as well as I might've liked.
Emp and Spooky touching in a comforting manner? Quite a change from their first interaction in the very first Empowered story.
Ehh, the single image of duct-taped Emp in panel 1 above isn't quite enough to justify using the "damsel in distress" tag, I think.
Yeahp, the Infernal Service Provider's getting a tad frustrated.
Included some side notes with the cropped thumbnail above.
The "collective pool of magic" image, which recurs throughout this issue and the next, was a great way to visualize the functioning of the shared magic between Spooky and her ex-classmates. Just wish I'd thought of the riff a few issues sooner!
Above is the first of a series of one-page scenes depicting Emp and Spooky under magical siege by different blondes. I'm rather proud of the 11-panel(!) page above, with poor Emp getting stuffed into a locker and Spooky suffering the surprisingly common nightmare of being unable to recall her locker combination.
Note that Carla's final art below made locker-stuffed Emp's distress look much creepier:
Huh. Maybe I should've been posting Carla's pages accompanying these roughs all along, for better "compare & contrast" purposes?
Anyhoo, stand by for the rest of issue #5's roughs next week. I might continue the "thumbnails vs. Carla's final art" riff, if you fine folks find it interesting or helpful.
Comments
KranberriJam
Emp's expression on the first panel of page eight is pure gold. I would love to continue seeing your roughs next to Carla's; I was planning on re-reading the issues and comparing them to your thumbnails once they were all posted.
