Whiskey river, take my mind,don’t let her memory torture me.Whiskey river, don’t

Whiskey river, take my mind,
don’t let her memory torture me.
Whiskey river, don’t run dry,
you’re all I got, take care of me.
—“Whiskey River,” Shotgun Willie (1973)

It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin’
#15 - Vegas Outskirts

Collaborative Issue!
Guest Colorist: @malpaislegate​ / @socksual-innuendos​

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Notes / Original Pencils / Transcript:

Notes:

MAN that’s gotta hurt!! Volume 2 kicks off with a bang, literally if you count the gunshot and honorifically if you count Socks’ knockout color job on this issue. Look at those lovingly rendered bullet wounds!! Muah!!!

It’s been a relief having a month off from the comic as I handled a bunch of other things but there’s a lot to look forward to in Volume 2, as you can probably tell from that very forboding fist clench at the end there. Will Agnes and Cass get the revenge they’re looking for? Can they make it big in Vegas? Will it keep right on a-hurtin’? Find out next ish as Cass leads Agnes to meet the first of their new “friends.”

Original Pencils:

The pencils for this issue are like an autopsy report of all the things that can go wrong with your art if you don’t plan ahead and pay attention. Listen, friend, to my tale of woe, and learn from my mistakes so they don’t become yours!

First, you can see a lot of places where there’s floating objects, empty backgrounds, and incomplete heads. Part of this is because I always intended to just copy and paste repeated elements across each panel instead of drawing them multiple times, but other times I was forced to just because of my lack of planning. The top three panels on page two, for example, required me to draw the background I’d use for them on a separate page.

Second, you can probably tell that I actually had to flip the two raiders around in the final lineart because I forgot to keep the hands their were holding their guns in consistent—and since I couldn’t flip the middle panel on the second page without ruining the composition, I decided to flip all of their other appearances so that they’d be lefties. I doubt you even canseamlessly wield those particular guns left-handed.

Third, the size of the cart that Agnes and Cass are kneeling behind changes CONSTANTLY and is dramatically oversized from the third page onward. After inking these pages, it took a lot of work to correct the inks and shrink that cart in each panel, but fortunately it came out looking good.

And finally, I completely redrew the second panel on the fifth page because it wasn’t until I had already handed he pages off to my colorist that I realized having a second profile shot of Cass so soon after a first one was just…redundant and lazy-looking. So I went back to my sketchbook and whipped up a much more unique, striking angle (I also just wasn’t satisfied with the quality of my art on that panel, so I’m very glad I redrew it). But again, my failure to plan ahead bit me in the ass and my redraw attempt wound up taking up a lot more space than I thought it would, so after inking it I had to basically surgically remove it from the other inks.

I’ll be honest with you folks: part of the reason that I work in such simple, thick, high-contrast lineart is because it’s very easy to make corrections and adjustments with stuff you could technically color in Microsoft Paint.

Transcript:

EXT. SOMEWHERE IN THE MOJAVE, morning. AGNES SANDS and ROSE OF SHARON CASSIDY stand over the wreckage of a caravan, scattered over a dirt road.

CASS:Hell.

EXT. SOMEWHERE ELSE IN THE MOJAVE, midday. Looking over a second wrecked caravan, at the bottom of a ditch.

CASS:Fuck.

EXT. PRE-WAR HIGHWAY OUTSIDE OF VEGAS, mid-afternoon. AGNES and CASS survey a third wrecked caravan.

CASS:Shit. The proof is in the pudding. Or the pile of ash, rather. These attacks were done with Van Graff guns for Crimson Caravan caps. I’m sure of it.

As CASS explains her theory to AGNES, a short distance from the caravan two RAIDERS peer at the two of them from inside a barn at a ruined farmstead. They have snake-bite tattoos on the sides of their shaved heads and are holding rifles.

CASS:The scorchmarks and residue in the wreckages? That’s energyweapon shit. Plasma and laser. Silver Rush special. Not like it’d be the Brotherhood. And Crimson Caravan must have bankrolledthis fucked-up little hunting trip themselves.

The RAIDERS move out from the barn, sneaking up on two passers-by who’ve stopped at the caravan wreckage.

CASS:That explains why they bought me out…they needed the last loose end to saddle up back west with a tidy sum.

(NOTE: *Agnes delivered it and Cass signed it in IKROAH #7—Lou.)

CASS:It’s a racket, Agnes: torch the local competition and it’s win-winforboth the f—

SFX: KRAK

A gunshot rips out from one of the RAIDERS’ rifles and sears across CASS’ shoulder.

CASS (gasping): —uckers.

CASS slumps down beneath the overturned caravan wagon on the road, clutching her shot shoulder.

CASS:—Aaggghghhhhhhh.

AGNES:Cass! Are you—

CASS:Fuck!Agnes, get down you moron!

AGNES ducks behind the cover of the wooden caravan wagon just as another gunshot splinters the top lip of it.

SFX: DTHWAK!

The RAIDERS advance on CASS and AGNES’ position, firing at them from off the road.

SFX: KRAK

AGNES leans over the top of the wagon with her pistol, returning fire.

SFX: BTAK BTAK BTAK

AGNES lands a shot right in one of the RAIDERS’ guts, and she drops her weapon and falls down.

SFX: SPLUT

CASS, leaning out the side of the wagon, takes as careful of aim as she can with her shotgun by holding it with her good arm. Trembling, she fires, connecting with the other RAIDER.

SFX: KBLAM

The would-have-been RAIDERS are dead.

AGNES:…were those the Van Graffs?

CASS:No. Just some vultures.

CASS leans back behind cover to sit against the bottom of the overturned wagon again, wincing from her shoulder injury.

CASS:Ugghhn.

AGNES (slipping off duffel bag): Cass, your shoulder—

CASS:Yeah, it’s been shot. I’m pretty fucking aware.

AGNES (unzipping bag): Quick, can you take your shirt off—

CASS:What!?

AGNES: —so I can dressthewound,Cass!

CASS:Oh! Good! So you weren’t coming onto me on what remainsof Griffin Wares Caravan.

CASS starts removing her shirt while AGNES produces a bottle of something from her duffel bag, and dampens a rag with its contents.

CASS:And since when are you a fucking field medic,anyway?

AGNES:2269. NCR Certified.

CASS:What?

AGES: Yeah. I’ve been one kind of doctor or another since I was six.

CASS:What?

AGNES:Now hold still, this is antiseptic.

CASS:Since you were six!? I…shit, wait, hang on, Agnes—

AGNES pressess the rag onto CASS’ shoulder wound, and CASS winces instinctively. But, confusingly, there isn’t any pain.

CASS: …isn’t this supposed to sting like hell?

AGNES: No, not really. It’s an acetic acid solution. Vinegar,basically.

AGNES begins cleaning the wound with the rag.

CASS: I thought you put alcoholon wounds to clean them.

AGNES: That’s…a common misconception. It’s good for tools, maybe, but too strong for skin. And it can complicate healing if you apply it directly.

CASS: So you’re telling me, all my years, I’ve been wastinggood whiskey only making my boo-boos worse?

AGNES: I mean…it’s better than nothing in a pinch,but…

CASS:Well, then. Thanks for the lecture, doc. Can you just pass the whiskey anyway? Shoulder still hurts like hell regar—

AGNES hands her the whiskey bottle. She’d already gotten it out.

CASS: —dless. Oh. Thanks.

AGNES unspools a roll of bandages in her hands, then begins wrapping it over CASS’ shoulder and across her chest..

AGNES: So. It’s a relatively minorwound, more of a deep grazethan a real gunshot.

CASS: You’d know allabout real gunshots, huh?

AGNES (unfazed):Uh-huh. I can suture it if necessary, but for now, these bandages will be fine. Just hold still. How do you feel?

CASS:I feel fucking pissed,Agnes!

AGNES recoils, taken aback slightly.

CASS: As I was sayingbefore I got shot in the shoulder—which, however “minor” the wound, is realfucking close to my head, Agnes—this wasn’t some random attack. These caravans, mycaravan, got hit by the Van GraffsandCrimson Caravan. It ain’t just some tragedy anymore. Now I’ve got names. Places. Faces.

AGNES resumes bandaging CASS.

CASS:I told you—ow!Don’t pinch my tit, dammit—

AGNES: I said hold still.

CASS: —I told you, when you told me about this guy who shotyou…when I let you drag me out of that fucking outpost…and when we went to Boulder City…that I would do the exactsame thing in your shoes. Now, it isthe exact same thing. Thisfucker shoots your eyeout,thesefuckers ash my caravan…thesesamefuckers I sold my own goddamn nameto on a piece of paper. I mean…what elseare we doing out here, Agnes? Getting shot at by Khans and Raiders just for kicks? Are we just fucking around?

AGNES finishes bandaging CASS, then leans back,pensive.

AGNES:No…no, I really guess we’re not.

CASS:That’s what I thought.Your friend in Vegascan wait. Help me get mine, and we can get that shitheeltogether, and that’s a prom—

CASS raises her arm  to shake her fist as she speaks, straining her shoulder injury.

CASS:—mmmmmmghhhh.Ooww, oww, oww, oww…

CASS grabs her shoulder in pain while AGNES looks off in the distance and stands up. She looks out towards the horizon—towards VEGAS, and the pre-war casinos and hotels that still gleam and glitter in blinding sunlight.

Her fist clenches. Her brow furrows. Her body tenses, all over, staring at that city, that place.

The caravan wreckage remains alone on the highway, brahmin bones long picked clean by scavengers.

AGNES SANDS IN: IT KEEPS RIGHT ON A HURTIN’

VOLUME 2: MAKE IT BIG IN VEGAS