Tuff-Girl Versus The Amazon Cheerleaders, Second-Half Draft

Here I present the last six pages of twelve of a “Tuff-Girl” feature to appear in issue number two of Unstoppable Tuff-Girl, each from thumbnail sketch to rough draft layout.

Page 7: Although not scripted, there are numerous little things about the costumes that I have to track from panel to panel. As the story progresses for example, Tuff-Girl loses her jacket and skirt. With the eight cheerleaders, their uniforms get torn in various states. Then I complicate things further by returning Doctor Dockter’s hat not present in the first rough layout.

Page 8: The change in panel three to have Tuff-Girl struck across the face rather than being socked in the gut was to better carry off their size differences. As a result, space opened up for the sound effect.

Page 9: Panels 1 and 2 are actually four panels, and I sure hope is reads that way in the final book. I had toyed with the idea of making it two-halves of a single long panel. The other complication of my own devising, is keeping track of the cheerleaders. In the script, the cheerleaders are generic. I wanted to avoid having cheerleaders recovering too soon in a panel right after Tuff-Girl knocks her down in a prior panel.

Page 10: By the fifth panel, the story unavoidably addresses the audience space in the auditorium. Here I opted with empty seats to suggest that most of the spectators have run off for fear of being hit by a stray pom pom or something.

Panel 11: Finalizing Tuff-Girl in profile in panel 2, makes Dr. Dockter more of an incidental and less another participant when it’s about Tuff-Girl talking down the cheerleaders. I think in panel 3, I got tired of panels with eight girls standing around. I don’t know if it was the right decision. With panel 5, I make use of a common comic layout device, silhouettes. A panel of silhouettes, breaks up the page layout, and works because the surrounding panels contain the same characters without all the visual details.

Panel 12: I changed the camera angle in panel 2 so that it didn’t contain another vertical element on the same page as the 3rd and 5th. The girls of panel 3 were re-positioned for the same reason.

Next: Inking.