Rise to Power, Part 5

Rise to Power, Part 5

Posted by Brian • August 2, 2016

Original Release Date: June 24, 2008

This was a challenging page to draw. It's difficult to come up with lots of creative ways to show characters doing things without revealing their faces. The subject matter didn't help matters much. Drawing a page where somebody dies is not something to be taken lightly. When I started drawing comics, I killed off characters left and right. I thought it was cool. I thought it added shock value. But, in a sense, I became a killing machine. Characters dying didn't mean anything anymore because it happened so often, and the other characters moved on, unaffected. Granted, I was nine and didn't fully comprehend or appreciate life, but it still taught me a lesson later in life. Killing characters has to be approached with some degree of remorse, even though these are fictional characters. The deaths have to mean something not only to the characters in the story, but to the writer, as well. Otherwise, the reactions of the other characters won't be believable, and the implications of that death won't resonate with the readers.

I talked last time about this being a serious story taking place in an absurd world. This page is one of the darkest of the series, and demonstrates how nasty the Hired Goon Association can get. This was an opportunity to show readers that, despite the raucousness and unprofessionalism of the hired goons we have seen so far, this is a ruthless organization out for themselves, one that won't hesitate stooping to new lows to get what they want. Stu was too close. He was trying to do the right thing. He paid for it dearly.