Author notes

Chapter 2, page 22

alschroeder

on June 6, 2011

Beautiful, pivotal page by the Red Death. Here's his comments:

"Here we finally get to see the ominous big bad of the whole story. Even though he's appeared briefly and to a smaller degree in this story and in "MindMistress", this is his first official close-up debut and I was honored to be the artist to present him. One of the challenges of these stories is to make sure each villain is unique. You didn't want Smiling Man to look too much like Joker, and you don't want the President to look too much like Smiling Man. To avoid that I not only gave him gnarly crooked teeth, I also gave him elaborate scarring on the side of the mouth so he would look unique even if we do have him smiling at some point. Not to mention the crazy burnt skin and threads of hair.

This was also the first time in-comic that I drew a standard lineup of our heroes so far. Just like when I talked about drawing Fusion that first time, everyone's style and attitude is approached a little differently. With stylistic touches that are reminiscent to their original creators but not just a simple reproduction of it. Yuuki gets a special anime-esque makeover, and there's still my on-going battle with MM's armor. Though I would say that the gold trimming on Hoodoo's costume came out pretty good if I may say so myself."

Another beautiful page by the Red Death this Thursday!

–Al