Sooner or later I need to do a chapter that flashes back to Aimee getting hired at the diner, or even just a chapter that shows how bad her anxiety can be. So far I’ve done more telling than showing, on that front. In the meantime, her safe-space won’t feel so safe, between Mercy’s 180 and Mary just casually claiming to be a werewolf…
The good news is, Daisy’s new assistant manager isn’t Rose, as she feared! I’m not sure she’d find this to be much better, though.
Something I can’t quite convey on the page – the way I hear the characters in my head, is Lily has song-bird like inflection to her voice, like Disney’s Snow White, or the good witch from The Wizard of Oz. She’s chipper nearly all the time. Mercy, on the other hand, sounds much more like Maleficent. Her words just ooze bitterness and spite. But on this page? Mercy’s doing an impression of her sister (Lily) that’s so spot-on, for people who know her I doubt it could be anything other than unsettling.
Lily’s cute-sense must be malfunctioning…
Corgi-Daisy returns! And also wolf-Mary, but who says Mary’s Monster Month has to be about her?
Almost two years in the making, Daisy is finally going to face off against her nemesis, Candice!
This chapter was originally planned as a direct follow-up/extension to The Dark Corner. But by the time that chapter’s last page was completed, I was too burned out to continue it for another 8-12 pages. I’d told myself that I’d get back to it after taking a break and working on other ideas, but those ideas, work, and more burn-out kept me away from it for a year and a half. Once I’d finally started it, I’d managed to get the first seven pages drawn & assembled, but work kept me from finishing them for several more months…
Some additional info on this chapter –
The first page was a originally all there was supposed to be. I had the idea back in April, but had to set it aside because of my rule about wolf-Mary being a Halloween-only thing.
After posting the first page, Brian Christy asked Daisy’s werewolf form might be. I couldn’t resist – “A corgi, of course!”. I was joking, but the idea was too cute not to draw.
Lily & her husband, Don, might be considered last-minute additions to the page, if there was actually time to plan any of it. Like corgi-Daisy, Lily’s reaction was something I couldn’t resist, although it made it more difficult for me to fit everything onto the page. The whole page was so spontaneous, I didn’t plan ahead for how everything would fit together.
Since my one-page gag was now a multi-page story, I needed an ending. More importantly, I needed an ending that would sweep the entire werewolf thing under the rug… one of my rules – usually in regards to pinups – is that nothing is canon unless I put it in a comic. But since wolf-Mary isn’t supposed to be canon, I’d backed myself into a corner. Having the whole thing be Violet’s idea ended up being the best fit. It also gave me a chance to use another gag I’d been sitting on – Mary’s info-dump, and Daisy & Vi’s reaction. The downside is that bit was meant to be the ending to a whole different story, so now I’ll need to think of a new ending for that one.
I was hoping to draw more of corgi-Daisy before posting the final page, but I ran out of time. An animation job came my way just as I was finishing the first page, and it kept me busy for most of the month. Now another job looks like it will keep me busy for the next couple of months, so those corgi-Daisy ideas may have to wait until next Halloween…
Dammit Mary, cover your snoot next time!
Mary’s Monster Month is here again!
And that’s it for this chapter!
Mary-Anne took me a while to figure out… All of my other characters’ personalities came together fairly quickly, but Mary’s eluded me for years. She had started out as a chainsaw-wielding maniac, but there’s only so many directions that could be taken in. After that she was more “ambiguously crazy”, then accident-prone and a lumberjack’s daughter, then a handygirl… by trying to make her fit in with the rest of my characters, I’d ended up making her extremely boring.
Now I’ve taken her back to her roots, more or less. She’s back to being ambiguously crazy, and with her talk of staking vampires, she may get to use her chainsaw in the future… even if it’s just in her head.