Commentary after the jump

Ah, the magic of comics and having big things happening by implication.  I'd have loved to have a couple pages to really give a sense of the chaos and confusion caused by the wagon overturning and having everything thrown topsy turvy, with some nice shots of the reins twisting around and all.  But the truth of it was that I had more than 21 more pages of story to shove in and not enough space to do it in.  I've said this before and I'll keep saying it.  Writing for a single issue is pretty tough unless you just want to air things out and give them a lot of space.

But when you're paying for the artists to draw that seven-page-coffeeshop scene, you look at pacing a little differently.  Might not be a good thing.

So in this case I gave myself all of one page to get this piece of the story out there.

And really, by not showing all of what went on, we get heightened tension and confusion.  Is Webster okay?  Did the wolf eat him?  Is the wolf right out there just waiting for someone to stick their head out and get it bitten off.  This all pays out a bit more over the next couple pages.  The confusion is amplified by the unusual panel layouts, which start out pretty straightforward on the top of the page and then get a lot crazier along the bottom, with the "camera" at dutch angles and reinforcing the feeling of the world being turned round and round.

Funny, but I never noticed the wolf sound effect in the last panel until just now.  And I wrote the damn thing.  Guess I wasn't paying as much attention as I'd have liked to.

Oh, and "CRUNK" might be my favorite sound effect in the whole book.  Makes me wanna dance, it does.

See you all back on Wednesday.