For those wondering, L.C. = Lieutenant Colonel = Maxima

Originally I had envisioned Stalwart coming out of the portal and clobbering Maxima, somewhat ineffectively, but that would have meant that his intention was to punch Opal, which would have left her as a wet smear on the asphalt. He’s the second strongest member of the team after Max when she’s maxed out. (Everyone who is the best on the team at something is usually the second best at it after Maxima when she’s maxed out. Achilles being the notable exception.)

If Opal really wanted to distract Max and endanger Stalwart, she would have aimed his hand at something else. A buttock or boobock, for instance. I considered drawing that actually, but it’s such a predictable thing to happen in a comic like this. Not that it’s off limits, comedic groping is always on the table, but I’d like to find a more creative use for that particular trope.

I wasn’t sure how to draw it in the space I had, but the portal Stalwart is coming out of in the last panel is moving around him, forcing him through it. It will also snap shut a second later, or else Max could easily speed through it and probably clobber Opal before she saw it coming. Not that a rocknado would slow her down all that much either. The difficult part about writing a powerful character like her is always having to have an answer for “why doesn’t she instantly beat everyone always?” For the majority of the fight, she was using the ambush as an opportunity to shake down the team, ready to step in if needed, but as to why she hasn’t stopped Opal herself yet, basically she’s waiting to see if the team can without her, and she feels she’s fast enough to jump in at the last second if she needs to. We’ll see.

I’m working on the next vote incentive, but for some reason I’ve decided on a rather ambitious piece and I’ll have to post it in stages. The upside is that the nature of it requires it to be full color, so I won’t leave it as pencil like I have with quite a few in the past. Since basically every page in the fight is a big ‘ol spoiler of some sort, I haven’t been streaming much lately, but stuff like vote incentives would be fine to stream actually. I’ve set up a Picarto account, which I guess is the hot new art streaming site. If you sign up there you can set it up to email you whenever someone you follow starts streaming, which is probably the best way to get notified besides twitter. I’ll only be able to do it on the occasional evening when I get a little ahead on the comic, so if watching my very slow art interests you, sign up.

Totally unrelated to the comic, is anyone watching The Strain? I think I like it better than Penny Dreadful, which I like better than True Blood.

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