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Plague Rat – Chapter 5, Page 35

Description

Panel One: Head and shoulders shot of DJ and Cal. They're facing the viewer. Cal is behind DJ, adjusting a pair of headphones that's he's placed on DJ's head. DJ is blushing, with one hand almost touching Cal's, and the other figeting nervously. They are both smiling. "I've never worn headphones before," DJ says. "Really?" asks Cal, "Do they feel okay?" "Yeah."

Panel Two: Closeup of Cal's hand as he turns up a volume knob on the record player. He says, "Then here -"

Panel Three: Closeup of DJ's face in profile, mostly of his hands on the headphones. His eyes are closed. Cal continues, "- We -"

Panel Four: "- GO." Extreme closeup of the record player needle as it moves.

Panel Five: DJ sits cross-legged on the floor, looking confused with his hands on the headphones. Behind him, standing in front of the record player and holding onto the record sleeve, is Cal. Cal is also wearing headphones and looking down and slightly over his shoulder at DJ, smiling a bit. Music notes float around DJ's head. "Huh?" he says, "This is 'Moonlight Sonata'. Cal, I alre -"

Panel Six: A jagged, scratchy panel, with a closeup of DJ's shocked face as the beat drops. The background looks digital, and the edges of his face break away in an electronic, glitchy effect. SFX: THOOM THOOM THOOM THOOM

Panel Seven: Cal is now on the floor next to DJ, smiling as he says, "It's called a techno remix. Do you like it?" DJ's eyes are closed and he's smiling broadly as he says, "I love it!"

 

Author Note

I figured Cal would start DJ off with something a bit familiar, rather than throwing him into the deep end of Metal or something.

The hardest part was the frame of DJ hearing those sounds for the first time! I hope I managed to get across the idea of "electronic music" before Cal says what it is. My wife's healing from surgery continues to go well, and we're... Doing not too bad, all things considered. Gotta keep on keepin' on. 

<= Click here and vote for Plague Rat to see one of the panels in full color!

Stay Safe, Friends!
Bran

Chapter 5 Progress Tracker

I tried to find way to embed my tracker into the site so that it automatically updates from Google Sheets, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to make it work.

All I can offer you is the link, so if you want to follow my progress and see where I am:

Chapter 5 Comic Progress

If you know how to do this, please drop me a line so I can add it as a widget or something! I’d really like for everyone to be able to see it.

Early Comic on Patreon!

Yep! I’ve set up a Patreon for the comic, and I’ve decided to keep things dead simple for now.

For $1, you can see next week’s comic early!

That’s it.

No fancy membership tiers with merch, no digital download packs, no interviews or super-special content. I know what my plate can hold right now! I did set up patron goals so that I’ll add a bit more when I get people, but by the time I hit those numbers I know I’ll be in a good place to handle it.

Those are pretty simple, too – When I hit 100 people, I’ll add some extra art each week, when I get to 200, I’ll put everyone two comics ahead of the site, and when I have 300 people, they’ll be 3 pages ahead. It’ll still only be $1, though.

Will I set it up so that I keep putting people ahead as the numbers grow? I dunno. I know three pages ahead isn’t that hard for me to do, but more than that? I guess we’ll see. ^_^

But for now, I have a simple Patreon page where you can see next week’s comic right now for $1.

https://www.patreon.com/Rabbit_Dance_

Thanks for hanging with me for so long! I appreciate it!

-Bran

Off to the Printer!

Hey! I’ve got the first issue of Plague Rat DONE and it’s being printed right now!

I was fortunate enough to find a local printer and I can literally just go pick them up when they’re ready. It’s a run of 100, which is a great start. I’ll be putting the reminder up on the website after the con, and adding in a few fun bonus items for people who order physical copies.

I’ll keep you posted on how things are going here, and of course, you can always check out the Discord for more immediate news and to ask questions.

Two Comics This Week!

That’s right! I’ve been having technical and health issues, but I managed to finish two pages at once so you’re getting page nine right now and page ten Wednesday. I set it up for noon EST, so unless the time zone went wonky on me it should update as planned.

If you want to watch me work on the next page, come on over to Twitch and hang out in the chat! Obviously you’ll learn the occasional spoiler, but I try not to talk too much about plot elements unless I’m actively drawing it in front of you.

But in good news, we are vaccinated! We both got the first dose of Moderna, which means we’ll be 100% ready by the time Steel City Comic Con rolls around in June. Evie has a table with her books there, and my goal is to have a finished first issue there, too.

I know I’ve been late a lot, but what’s been getting me are the background elements. To remedy that, I’ve been learning Blender, a 3D program, so I can have whole rooms ready to go. Clip Studio Paint has the ability to import 3D models and render them as linework with textures and all, so this should speed things up quite a bit! I actually have a lot of experience in 3D modeling and animation, so all I have to do is learn how to do it in Blender vs 3D Studio Max. It’s a bit of a curve because Blender *thinks* in a way Max doesn’t, but I’m getting the hang of it.

Actually, the cart you see on page nine is a 3D model that I made in Blender! The horses and wagon wheels are 3D models purchased from the Clip Studio Assets library.

Well, I’m off to bed. Enjoy the new page!
– Bran

Late Comic!

Last week’s comic took longer than I expected and this moved things out of whack, but don’t worry! I should have this week’s comic up by Friday night. I’ve already got the whole page sketched out and I’m working on the inking.

If you want to watch me work on it and chat with me / listen to me ramble, I stream on Twitch pretty much every night, and some late afternoons. My username is Rabbit_Dance_, or you can click here.

Until the next update – Stay Safe!
– Bran