Last week, you could see that in comparing the final page to the working draft, there were a couple changes made, mostly to Quinlan’s expression in the first panel. This week, Rachel and I ran into a similar but not altogether identical problem, where we get somewhat far along in the process and decide that some changes are needed to make everything fall into place.

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The issues at play in the original draft that we ended up changing have a lot to do mostly with keeping the beats of the action flowing consistently across the panels. For example, the original draft had a bit too harsh of a transition to that third panel where Kenosh is raising his hand. A beat seemed to be missing between panels 2 and 3, which we ultimately solved by giving Kenosh a transition line to say that connected panels 2 and 3 a little better.

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The bottom row also was tweaked, as you can see. Quinlan’s reaction was nice, but showing Kenosh hesitate with his hand up in he air, poised to strike, was a really important beat that we ultimately decided we just didn’t want to cut away from. We bumped Dakkan’s anticipatory reaction one panel earlier and gave Kenosh another panel of his own before he lowers his hand. The timing and intensity of the scene are maintained, though we unfortunately loose Quinlan’s reaction during the sequence. One can only show so much on the page, however, and it was a necessary sacrifice to make.

The week after next, Rachel and I will be at New York Comic Con, wandering around, attending panels, hanging out, and showing off Beyond the Western Deep to folks. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time this year to print up nice perfect-bound books (compounded with our printer of choice going out of business), but we’re still going to try and get some material printed up to show off. This of course means that the Chapter 1 books won’t be a purchasing option for a little bit longer, but we’re going to see what situations evolve from NYCC along that route.