And thus, the mask match ends with El Bastarde claiming his first mask. Will he beat Doctor Pain’s total of one? I mean, that’s not a high bar, but he still needs one more to take the lead.
Next Week: Bombard unmasks. Find out if he wore the mask because he’s ugly RIGHT NOW by becoming a patron on Patreon!
The hardest part of drawing this strip was deciding that the lines of the Bull Ring needed to match up to create a continuous image if you put panels 1 and 2 side by side. Who’s going to do that? Nobody. But I spent a lot of time measuring things and making guide marks so that it would work.
I really like the aesthetic of separate entryways. North America hasn’t used them a ton (TNA did for a while, that’s the only instance I can think of), but I always think it looks really cool. Dragon Gate’s methodology for it is probably more practical than the way I’ve set up the Bull Ring, but one of the great things about comics is that your set-building budget is unlimited.
Next Week: El pre-match promos. Read it now by supporting HEAT on Patreon!
It only took 372 HEAT strips for the first chair shot to occur! Part of that involved figuring out how to either justify folding chairs existing unchanged in a thousand years, or to come up with a way for the floating chairs to hit somebody in a way that looked good. On the plus side, it means nobody is going to bother booking a Chairs match in the HEAT universe anytime soon, if ever.
Next week is the annual Christmas Special, followed by some time off before jumping back into things in January.
So much mask tearing. What did the masks do to deserve such acrimony!?
Edmonton Expo has come and gone, and I’d like to thank all of you who stopped by the table to chat and get books signed. I will now go into a multi-day coma to recover from three and a half days of continuous social interaction. Next stop, Kelowna Entertainment Expo!
Next Week: TV! Read it now on Patreon!
Apparently late dodgeball games make me forget to update the comic. I’m very smrt, y’see.
I really enjoy time travel jokes about time moving forward at normal speed. So I made one. About hitting people.
Next Week: Koala Mask makes another appearance, so nobody will give a shit what else happens on the page.
I was listening to the Live Audio Wrestling podcasts recapping New Japan Pro Wrestling’s G1 Climax tournament last week and John Pollock was talking about the frequency of countout teases but the lack of any actual countouts. It’s kind of the reverse of WWE’s policy of ridiculously inconsistent counts so that guys can do whatever they want on the floor without having to worry about the count, and then every few months having someone be counted out to the confusion of the audience. In HEAT, I approach countouts as an actual way that wrestlers will try to win a match. Hence Dick the Bastard piledriving a guy on the floor and then making no attempt to actually get him back into the ring, or the wild brawl from the Invincinator/Law vs. El Gangster II/Dr. Fat tag match from the Super Max Challenge.
Next Week: Buster Pallas is an angry, angry man with a ham-shaped head. Also, a G1 Climax cameo!
With Tiger Khan making his last appearance for a while, I had to squeeze in one last Punch-Out!! joke.
I seem to have acquired the plague, so that’s all the news post I can muster. To bed!
I don’t know why, but the frog-ish ring announcer with a crazy French moustache amuses me to no end. Also, Tiger Khan is totally not just the wrestling version of Great Tiger from Punch-Out!! That’s crazy talk. You’re crazy. NO MORE QUESTIONS.
Tiger Khan may be the first character to get an overly elaborate entrance robe, but he will absolutely not be the last. Ridiculous entrance robes are a ton of fun to draw, especially when, for the most part, I only need to draw them for a panel or two. You may notice very few wrestlers get ridiculous designs on their tights like many modern wrestlers have: it’s because I don’t want to have to draw it over and over again from many angles. A character like Randy Orton with his random-ass tribal pattern tights and his full-sleeve tattoos would make me want to bash my head against my desk.
In other news, I’m the Artist-in-Residence at Happy Harbor Comics, so on Friday and Saturday afternoons I’ll be there working on War of 1812 pages (or whatever else I end up working on), so stop by if you want to chat about HEAT or comics in general, or want any tips or critique on making your own comics.
Next Week: We go from Punch-Out!! to Street Fighter II. Richard the Lionheart isn’t a big fan of the transition.
And we’re underway with HEAT Volume 3! We’ve jumped about six months forward in time, but I’ll be filling in some of that time over the coming months. What I can fill in now is that Evseedub is all about hexagonal elements in architecture, and that apparently energy beings have the ability to function as ring announcers.
I went to a Royal Rumble party last night. The drinking game happened. So… yeah. I know Rock won the WWE Title, and I watched it happen, but I had no idea what actually happened until I read a show recap on the Torch this morning. Also, fuck you, Dolph Ziggler. What are you doing that’s making the WWE start-stop your pushes, and why did you have to go out so quickly after Antonio Cesaro? I HAD TO DOWN TWO FULL DRINKS BECAUSE OF YOU FUCKS.
Next Week: Princess Caroline does stuff.
It’s Christmas Eve, so count this as my gift to all of you. Ignore the fact that the Monday schedule was set forever ago with no awareness that Christmas Eve would be a Monday, and with the assumption that I would have gone on break by now. Check back tomorrow for a special bonus update with the annual Christmas Special, and then on New Year’s Eve for the last page of Volume 2!
Next Week: VICTORY!
