Author notes

Strip XXI: Party Night

J_Scarbrough

on Nov. 9, 2022

I just love how the layout and composition for this strip turned out!

Whenever drawing Levana as a vampire, I generally have two very specific rules of thumb:

1) She never shows her ears (to show how closed off she is from the rest of the world).

2) She never smiles. Ever.

Needless to say, it felt strange to draw Levana as a vampire (sort of) and have her smiling at the same time . . . of course, it's mainly to show how miserable she is as a vampire, but from a stylistic perspective, I can also see another reason why it was best to never draw her smiling: somehow, her smiling with fangs just looks . . . not right . . . the upward curvature of her mouth does not work well with the fangs if you ask me.

I actually had some internal debate about Levana's costume choice: for a brief while, I had actually considered having Levana dress up in her old outfit again, with the skull t-shirt, the striped sleeves, the camo shorts, the fishnets, and the boots, since that was her signature look . . . but I ultimately decided against it, because I figured Levana would want to rid herself of everything that was associated with her previous life as a vampire - not to mention, that was part of the whole point of her completely changing her wardrobe as a mortal, to reflect her new perspective on life. Plus, I also figured it'd be fun to see her in more of your traditional lady vampire attire, with a long black dress.

Either way, pretty clever costume idea, huh? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, eat your hearts out dudes! Laura will surely have a lot of fun as a pirate; I once dressed as a pirate for Halloween as a kid. Also, being the puppeteer that I am, I essentially had to include an obligatory MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND reference here.

[right]Next week: pirates and vampires and devils, oh my![/right]