In the last few pages of The Epic of Sally, I have a opposing examples of how I come to the expressions my characters use. Also, I’ve got an example of a subtle script change that might interest readers, that I did for foreshadowing purposes.
Most of the time, when I draw a panel, the expressions that I draft are exactly what was in my head and are great! They need at most a couple minor adjustments to make them carry the right weight. However, sometimes I end up with something very different from what I originally envisioned. Sometimes it’s a mistake, and sometimes I realize that I need something that can better carry the story. Expressions are amazingly powerful in comics. They don’t just communicate the emotions of the characters, and convey their reactions to each other’s behavior. By the amount and kind of energy displayed, (enthusiasm, anger, wakefulness, thoughtfulness, calmness, etc.) they set the pacing of that panel. Some expressions invite the reader to linger and try to figure out what the character is thinking. Others repel us, or carry us on to the next panel. Some are deep and some show that the character really isn’t thinking much of anything at all. And the two examples today are excellent samples of these opposites.
First is this expression, from this page:
It is not what I intended for the panel. I was originally going for something more discerning, with a frown and a tilted head, showing that Sally had just noticed his shirt and was thinking about it. But that’s not what came out of my pencil! All of a sudden, Sally was moving to the right, breaking off the conversation and taking a parting shot, and this proud, loud mouthed sneer painted itself across her features! It kind of startled me, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep it there. I was, frankly, rather disappointed in her. She was being mean!
But, as I looked at the whole page and thought about where this scene was going and how it fit into the whole story, I realized that not only was Sally really acting according to her motives, but that the reader needed to see her doing this. It’s really not easy to empathize with this expression and her attitude. It shifts your sympathies to Carl, for the most part, which is fine. And, after a book and a half where the readers are invited to put some emotional investment into Sally’s plight, a little shock from that creates some push and pull. It creates tension. It also illustrates something important when understanding some of the dynamics of bullying: shit rolls downhill.
Now, two pages later, we have the expression in the upper right hand panel of this page, where Sally is saying she’s sorry. The original sketch looks like this:
If you compare that to the final page, you’ll see a huge difference in the expression. After the display of thoughtlessness Sally demonstrated in the last couple of pages, I really didn’t like that original expression. It continued that nonchalant disregard that was so needfully irritating into a scene where I needed Sally to actually repent. She’s starting here to see the errors of her attitude, even if she still feels somewhat justified in her anger and frustration. She’s genuinely sorry for yelling, and maybe a little worried that what she has in store for Carl is maybe not what she’s supposed to do. She’s gonna do it anyway, though, when the adults are busy, by the way.
So, I had to change it. I worked really hard at it. On the final unscanned page, you can see a great deal of eraser marks around her face. I wasn’t able to get her mouth just right until her eyes fell into place, and then it still took some work. I’m pretty happy with the results, though. And the progression of expressions (or the back of Sally’s head) present a believable development of the scene, carrying us from the last page to the next. Which brings us to the text in the last panel. You’ll notice a change there as well!
This comic asks a lot of readers in the first fifty pages, in terms of accepting weird things. There’s over 13 years of background development and previous comics, canon, that we need to adhere to. Introducing it all is kind of bewildering! It’s supposed be, really. It’s just as bewildering to Sally as it might be to you, maybe even more so. And she’s not even catching all the little details some of you have noticed! Her mom’s occasionally pointy ears, for instance. We’re about to learn more about those really soon.
But it occurred to me that it might be too rushed and too bizarre to get into the ominous “you have a heritage” dark fantasy hero talk in one page. In fact, I realized at the last minute that couching that talk in familiar phrasing would work best for the reader and also help explain why Sally doesn’t quite register what’s being said right away. There’s also good reason that her mom gets hedgy when talking about this subject, and tries to come at it from an oblique angle. So I changed the wording in the last panel.
It’s kind of amazing how taking out the reference to “family” and having Brenna take personal responsibility for Sally’s emotions completely changes that last panel. It suddenly turns from ominous weird stuff to possibly misdirected parental guilt. Which is exactly what I needed to usher the reader into the next page where we will develop it more. But, I’m changing the original wording of that page, too! It’s still too direct and weird. But also, I need to tie it into a conversation from earlier in the comic, the third page to be specific.
We’re just past the mid way point of what will be the first trade paperback. It’s time to start bracketing the introduction with the story that we started, and then deliver on it. And, you are about to see how I’m going to go about doing that.
One of the reasons I feel comfortable making this blog post is that it should help those of you who are reading this story week to week. Most people will read it in a sitting, so they’ll have much less time to wonder, worry, and forget why they’re confused. The questions that they’re asking themselves will still be fresh in their minds when they turn the page. Those of you who are sticking with me through these grueling production stages deserve a treat, I think. I hope to write more of these if you like them!
Working with Expressions originally appeared on Drawing Contraption on 2013/09/18.