This one’s title sounds like it’s from a sci-fi anthology book. Also, I was doing really good remembering that Mondays exist until yesterday. Stupid Monday.
I really dig the Japanese streamer-throwing during wrestler introductions, but it turns out it’s as much of a pain to draw as it is to clean up.
Next Week: British wrestling chants are the best.
Ragnar’s Revenge is a move that is really simple as a pro wrestling move but kind of difficult to draw. Unlike a lariat, the running headbutt requires the top of the head to hit the opponent’s face, but the attacker’s body needs to end up slightly to the side so that the move doesn’t end with him bowling the other guy over and then tripping over him and face-planting. It’s also hard to make it visually distinct from a diving shoulder tackle, but that’s the lesser of the two problems.
We’re in the home stretch of volume 2! And I’m already halfway through drawing the first chapter of volume 3, in which we’ll be seeing our first female wrestler in the comic (who is not a particularly good representative of that group – females or female wrestlers), and a battle royale. Because I’m an idiot and keep writing things that are hard to draw.
Next Week: Well now there’s twice as much blood as there was a few seconds ago, but will it be enough to earn the Super Max Challenge Cup?
Hart Attack jokes are kind of like the title jokes I write for Johnny Law matches: awful puns that I don’t feel even the slightest bit badly about thoroughly abusing. I think this might be my favourite page in this match, mostly because of how much fun it was to do all of the motion stuff while Dick is bouncing back and forth on the ropes. The motion of him slamming his helmet into Dos was more of a challenge than a joy, as I ended up drawing and erasing various attempts at it for a few hours before finally ending up with one I liked (that process included erasing what I had thought the night before would be the completed panel because I realized the next day that I hated it).
While you can clearly see that I eventually settled on having Dick and Ron use a modified Hart Attack as a tag team signature, you didn’t see the whole whack of other moves I considered first. If it was a tag team move from the late ’80s/early ’90s and I could figure out how to work a headbutt into it, I worked out a spot involving it. I came really close to using the PowerPlex (anybody else remember Power & Glory?) with a diving headbutt replacing Paul Roma’s big splash, but I couldn’t come up with a sequence I liked for it.
On Wednesday: Three count or kick in the back of the head? Both are fine choices, whatever floats your boat, really.
I suspect reporters that have to cover press conferences would agree that they would be improved with wild brawls that need to be broken up by security. At least then they’d have more than the one good quote that everyone ends up using to write about.
On Wednesday: It turns out that prison league wrestlers are still considered to be, y’know, in prison.
This page was pretty sparse, visually, which is why I added the very detailed background in the third panel. I’m also glossing over the fact that I forgot that yesterday was Wednesday because I am an idiot. There was also some commentary on this page in the script, but it didn’t really add anything so I cut it.
In other news, I finished HEAT page 93 last night, which takes us until roughly mid-December. It’s also the last page of what will be the first print collection. Now I just need to compile all the extras, and format the pages, and do all the other jazz that makes it an actual book. What kind of extras are people interested in? I was thinking perhaps some script pages and perhaps a bonus match (which may or may not be drawn by me).
On Saturday: Is Kong down and out, or is Richard the Lionheart incredibly screwed?
Remember my rant about hot tags in last comic’s newspost? Yeah… Chris Jericho-branded hypocrite right here, because I’m too lazy to read ahead in my own comic. I’m about 10 pages ahead of the site right now in terms of drawing comics, so by the time I actually post things it’s about a month since I’ve drawn them. Making it even harder to remember what’s coming up is the fact that I’m currently up to page 94 in the script. Speaking of writing, Hugh’s last line is pretty much an encapsulation of my approach to the sci-fi elements of this story.
Also, if you haven’t seen it already, scroll down to check out a thing I’m trying out in the blog section. It’s an interesting way to get more background information on the world of HEAT without me trying to shoehorn it awkwardly into the narrative. The accompanying illustrations were supposed to be knocked off in like an hour… three hours later, they were done. The background on the Jebediah Mudd picture really kicked my ass, but I think it turned out pretty well. It also gave me some practice drawing the WrestleDome, which I needed.
On Saturday: A long, insane story about a moose. Also, punching.
Usually when I write a HEAT page, I’ll write out all of the dialogue and, by the time the script is printed out so I can start drawing pages, it’s pretty much finalized. Minor tweaks while I’m drawing are fairly common (splitting lines or small additions or deletions), but for the most part the lines I wrote in the script are the ones you read in the comic. When I wrote this page I couldn’t come up with a line I was happy with for Mad Doc Crockett, so I just wrote that he shouted obscenities and figured I’d think of something later. And then I kept on writing and forgot about it completely until the blank page was sitting on my desk next to the script and I realized I didn’t have a line there. I again tried to come up with something funny and terrible that he could yell, and again, nothing. Then a light bulb went off in my head and I took it in a kind of bizarre, abstract direction, which you’ve just read the results of.
On Saturday: The run-in continues!
Early update! I’m going to the Prairie Wrestling Alliance show in Edmonton tonight, and the auto-update thing was jackassey last time I tried it, so I figured I’d just post the page earlier than usual.
So now we finally know what Dick the Bastard’s finisher is: Ragnar’s Revenge. Which is pretty much just a headbutt with his viking helmet. It doesn’t sound very impressive, considering some of the intricate, flashy finishers being used nowadays, but there was actually a fair bit of consideration put into it. The first drawing of Dick had him wearing a viking helmet (for no reason, really, the Ragnar Rasmussen/Mad Doc Crockett backstory came later), so naturally I figured he’d use that somehow as a weapon. The obvious solution was to make his finisher a headbutt, which I initially thought was kind of boring, until I realized how versatile it was. The typical form of Ragnar’s Revenge is basically what Dick does to Wooly Bully on page 26, which is kind of like a diving shoulder tackle, except that the impact is made with the helmet instead of the shoulder. But he can also do it off the top rope, either to a standing or prone enemy (which is, incidentally, what’s happening in the current site header). Or as a springboard move. Or as a counter to some moves. With all that variety, I could probably write a year’s worth of matches for the comic and never have Dick use it the same way twice.
Also, one more follower for @HEATcomic on Twitter = bonus art. If I get to 20 followers, bonus update! Dooooooooooo it.
On Wednesday: Classic Wrestling Moment #3, featuring Laredo, Living Legend, and the Super Max Challenge.
I think this may be one of the few cases where the panel that looks like it was the hardest one to draw actually was the hardest one to draw. Dick cracking the Bully in the face with his helmet was tough, especially considering the scale issues I’ve had with the two of them. It was also hard to make the impact look as cool and devastating as I wanted it to. I think it turned out fairly well, though.
Also, if you didn’t see them earlier, I posted some links to YouTube wrestling videos that amused me.
On Saturday: 1… 2… ? Follow @HEATcomic on Twitter to see the preview image!
