Long John

Of the second round of characters I created for the comic, Bishop was the first one named. Like with many characters, their names have dual meanings for me, but initially Bishop was named after the town of Bishop in the Eastern Sierra Nevadas, probably known to most for being relatively close to the skiing destination, Mammoth Lakes (which was referenced in Chapter 4). What was nice, of course, was that it is also the name of an X-Men character introduced when I started reading as a kid. Because of the unique name––and its chess-related associations––it inspired the name for his colleague, The Rook, which just added to the overall strange naming schema used throughout this series.

That being said, I really like Bishop. He’s a mercenary, but not necessarily a “bad guy.” He doesn’t really hold grudges and has genuine respect for people. He is, as is evident by his reappearance in the series (and is not him just telling tall tales), a true survivor. His return was already hinted at, though, for those that have the physical copy of Volume 3: Making Smoke in the “white page” that comes at the very end of the story, where we see a shadowy figure stumbling through the woods, leaving a bloody trail behind.

n.So, it excited me to bring him back in what is much less of a traditional antagonist role than how we previously met him, and we definitely get to see a much more well-rounded version of him as a character this time around, too.

I’ve talked about how, with Long John, I often used hiking as a way to sort scenes out and get out of writing dead-ends. While this scene was definitely not written that way, I used the moment of a hike on the trails in beautiful Cronan Ranch to really reflect on how Bishop would return. All I got out of it was the dialogue in the first panel, but it was inspiring enough that I stopped mid-step to write it down. It also became a nice tent pole to build this opening scene around, knowing that this mic-drop entry was something I had to get to and get out of into the next part of the scene. Even though it was only a single line, it really became the spark that made this entire scene come together.

Another case where I redrew a panel I had originally drawn in haste. The top is the original art, below is the redraw. The original was a bit too cartoony and, most embarassingly, he was looking at the ceiling? Click for a larger version

The thumbnail design for this page. Pretty messy! Click for larger version.