The strangest gal I ever hadnever happy ‘less she’s mad.Oh, I got a woman mean as she ca

The strangest gal I ever had
never happy ‘less she’s mad.
Oh, I got a woman mean as she can be,
sometimes I think she’s almost mean as me.
—“Mean Woman Blues,” Elvis Presley (1957)

It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin’
#16 - Crimson Caravan

Collaborative Issue!
Guest Artist: Esseress

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Notes / Original Pencils / Transcript:

Notes:

Girls’ night! Girls’ night!

I want this issue to speak for itself so I’m going to cut right to gratuitously thanking our latest guest artist, Esseress, who did a completely phenomenal on these five pages. We’ve been working on it for a long time and I’m over the moon to finally bring it to you now on this blog. I love writing this comic, and I loved doing the lettering and composition for it, but mygoodness do I love Esse’s art. It was a real privilege to have that art as part of It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin’, especially since the artist was such an immaculately pleasant collaborator. If you’re reading this, thank you again for such a fun project (and talking about Naruto with me lol).

Original Pencils (click for full size):

This issue was one of my most fun composition challenges yet because something that you want to avoid in comics as much as possible, I think, is talking heads. You want to avoid shots that are static, overly repetitive, and uninteresting. Now the challenge is, how do you do that when your whole comic takes place in a small storeroom and is nothing but a conversation between two characters?

Playing with angles and expressions, and using repetition intentionally with the percussive referent of Agnes cutting into the floorboards, made for some really suspenseful page layouts that complemented the script in a major way. I’m especially proud of the third page, with its quick cutaway to the exterior of the office and the cutting continuing beneath Agnes’ dialogue. Also, did you notice that you only ever see Agnes’ left side this issue? You never get to look her in the eye this issue, and given how cagey she’s acting, that evasiveness was an intentional compositional choice. It was satisfying to pull off, but hear me, it took a lotof planning in the thumbnail stage to pull off well.

The other fun challenge of this issue was lighting. When you’re in a closet a night and don’t want to be seen, how do you see? The delightful answer was to have Agnes actually use that damn flashlight she wears on her shoulder; attentive readers will notice that this is the second time she’s used it in the comic, with the first time being back in Boulder City at the end of Volume 1. Hmm…guys, I wonder if it’s a bad omen that she only seems to turn it on when she’s about to commit or assist in a murder…

Speaking of lighting! One last fun hiccup about this issue was the final page. The script I wrote called for it to transition from night to morning between the first and second panels, but in a case of unforeseen and magnitudinous pedanticism, it was while coordinating the lighting on that page with Esse that I looked up the actual time of sunrise in the Mojave Desert for the time of year this issue takes place, which is November 5th if you’re curious. Turns out the sun shouldn’t be rising until after 7:00 AM, which hardly makes McLafferty the exceptionally early riser her planner says she is. That’s not to say it’s actually7:00 AM in the comic…go ahead and play the CinemaSins ding for the wrong sunrise time, or whatever. And it’s not like any of you would have known or cared if I didn’t say anything! It was just too weird of a writing quirk to not bring up. The lesson, folks, is to always remember your temporality when writing. It’ll help you sleep a lot easier.

Transcript:

EXT. CRIMSON CARAVAN, night. The lights are out and everyone in the caravan compound have retired to their barracks for the night. From inside one of the compound buildings comes a soft sound.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH…

INT. CRIMSON CARAVAN OFFICE. AGNES SANDS is bent over on the floor of a storeroom, carving into the wooden floor with her bootknife. ROSE OF SHARON CASSIDY leans against the door behind her.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH…

AGNES:So…have you ever killed anyone before?

AGNES continues cutting into the floor without looking at CASS as she speaks.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH…

AGNES:And I don’t mean a raider or fiend or something, nothing in self-defense. I mean in cold blood.

CASS:You mean like you killed those Khans?

(NOTE: *IKROAH #14—Lou.)

CASS:Hmmm…no, I guess I haven’t. When it comes to bloody vengeance just for myself…

CASS:…be gentle, it’s my first time.

AGNES doesn’t react to CASS’ joke. CASS becomes equally serious.

CASS:…I’d imagine this ain’t yourfirst rodeo, the way you asked.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH…

CASS:I mean…this Benny guy, in Vegas. When we catch him, which notch on your blood-spattered bedpost is he?

AGNES stops cutting into the floor, raising her knife. CASS’s expression tightens with concern. The silence is uncomfortable.

AGNES:Second.

CASS:Oh, thank God.

AGNES:What?

CASS:No offense, but the way you got all serious, I worried for a second you might be some kind of serial killer nutjob.

AGNES:No, no, I’m sorry. I was just…thinking. I really know how to meet the wrong men, apparently.

CASS (smiling): Deadmen, right?

AGNES frowns. Her knife plunges back into the wooden floor.

SFX: SKRITCH, SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH…

CASS:Wanna talk about it?

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH…

CASS:Not like we have anything elseto do.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH… 

AGNES:I really don’t.

CASS:Fine. That said, though, I didimagine this whole revengething being a bit more…exciting. Can’t say I like being stuck in a closet.

AGNES (smirking): You get used to it.

CASS:Why,though? You picked the lock to her fucking office like a cheap office toy. Why not break into her barracksand we shoot the bitch now?

AGNES:First, because that’s a great way to get us both killed.

AGNES keeps cutting as she speaks, deeper and deeper into the floor.

AGNES:Second, you want her to knowit was you,so we have to get her awakeandalone.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH…

AGNES:Third, her planneron her desk confirmed what I already suspected—that she’s an early riser—so we’ll see her soonerrather than later,while the rest of the company is still asleep.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH…

AGNES:Fourth, we want to send a messageto everyone else.So it has to be at least a littlespectacular.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH...

CASS:Oh…you’ve really thought this through.

SFX: SKRIT-

AGNES stops cutting. She slowly lifts her knife out of the floor.

AGNES:Yeah.

CASS:Where’d a medicget so good at murder?

AGNES rises from bending over the floor to a kneeling position, turning back towards CASS and frowning.

CASS:Sorry. You probably don’t want to talk about that,either.

AGNES:Maybe another time. For now…

AGNES leans back, kneeling over an intricate cross-hatch, about three feet in radius, of deep cuts and gouges into the floorboards in front of her.

AGNES:…just trust me.

EXT. CRIMSON CARAVAN. Night turns to early morning, and ALICE McLAFFERTY, the boss of the caravan, walks up the steps of her office and enters.

AGNES (from inside, whispering): Alright.Now.Quickly.

From inside her office, a door is kicked open.

SFX: DTHUMP

ALICE:What the hell, who are you—!?

CASS:Rose of Sharon goddamnCassidy, of Cassidy fucking Caravans,youbitch!

ALICE:No, you’re—

SFX: KABLAM

The sound of a shotgun going off in the middle of the compound wakes up the whole caravan. Crows scatter from the courtyard while guards start rushing towards the office door.

AGNES:Alright, now let’s go!Shoot the floor here where I—

SFX: KABLAM

The guards close in on the office while wooden shrapnel falls from a new hole in the floorboards of the office, and AGNES and CASS drop through to the ground outside, and crawl away from the caravan guards under the hut just as they reach the McLAFFERTY’s front door.