Making of "The Beach" (Part 2) (Patreon)

(Continued from Part 1....)

This page started as 4 panels, but I realized Fran's expression in the 2nd panel would be pretty dull, so I moved the speech bubbles around to make the top a wide panel instead. This allowed Joel to be visible with that umbrella, immediately indicating they had just arrived, as opposed to just having Fran with the towel, which could have just been her shaking it out much later.

I was very pleased with Coop's "False Ad-Bertizing" line. That's not actually something the real kid has said, but I can still remember exactly the crazy way he used to talk -running it around in my head until I conjure something funny and believable!

Someone on Twitter made this edit and said it was better:

Rudeness aside, 😅 they're not completely wrong if better = shorter, but I thought it would be interesting to share with y'all why I didn't go this way!

For every comic, I do endeavor to make them as short as possible, (less words = more viral, almost every time!) but sometimes I can't, or choose not to. This was the latter. I could have gone with the framework suggested above, but squeezing those wide panels down to fit my page size would have lost a lot of the beach vibe. Also the Litterbox family had never been to a beach before! I wanted to make it feel like an event and give the reader a little more, rather than rushing them to the finish line! 😁

With 2 pages in mind, I went to work trying to make them all count! As I said in part 1, the kids seeing the beach for the first time was an important moment for me. I love drawing shots that are a bit different, especially if they have interesting lighting! The background on that one I did not enjoy, but it would have felt weird having them go to some secluded beach, so I figured out some background scribbles to suggest activity.

I guess you could argue that the 2nd to last panel isn't needed? But I feel it helps clarify the joke, plus "False Ad-Bertizing" come on! That's GOLD! 😜

Hilariously after this person's complaints, this comic actually did amazing numbers on Twitter! Might even end up being in my Top 5 for the year. Honestly not sure why, because going in I didn't really expect it to do that great being a 2 pager and all! Just goes to show you never know!