Welcome to the first issue proper of Wet Frontier! A series about the lives of mermaids in the Wild West! Why the wild west? Because.
I must have made this issue far back in 2021. When I first started Wet Frontier, I was experimenting with how to do a webcomic in the vertical format so there were a lot of learning experiences involved with how I approached styling these pages. It's embarassing to come back to these, but in a way it also makes me proud to see how far I've come.
Shi hi hi hi. I remember this issue. I had so much fun making it the most pointless second issue ever. Nothing lost, and nothing gained. This is what Wet Frontier is all about to me.
It was at this point I was feeling more comfortable with the vertical format, and the pace of the stories I wanted to tell considering how my workload was going.
Going back to this, I would really like to bring back those "post-it" logos introducing characters. They were an idea I got from One Piece that I had kind of abandoned in my wild ambition to finish this storyline and move on to another. But I would like to try it again.
The design of Ava and her goons were inspired by Vertigo from the fighting game Primal Rage. I loved the game so much on my Genesis back in the day. I have no idea how a little kid got access to that game, but somehow I did. And I adored using Vertigo's long range tail to play keep away. It is the snake way to snap at the foe!!! Hisss!
I really like the panel of Lucy smacking Bernie and Lucas, that was a complicated panel for me to color but I am proud at how it came out to this day.
I had so much fun making an underwater fight, even if I hadn't the slightest idea how the dynamics should actually work. But look, bubbles make me a happy guppy!
The elbow in the gut was one of my favorite panels so far. Just so strong and visceral there!
You wanna talk about complicated panels? You think that page in black and white was complicated? No, it was getting Ava's tail to look like it was moving while her being stand-still. All this underwater stuff man, it's bonkers.
At this point I was kind of rushing things out, so the backgrounds started to vanish the farther in I got, making way for bare sand bars and empty ocean. But perhaps I've said too much, Ki shi shi shi shi.
That big slam sure is impressive isn't it? I bet you wanna know what Lucy's work out regiment is? It's a healthy diet of kelp koral and kleptomania... wait, that isn't it! I was just looking for words that start with K! Oh, I am so ashamed of myself! I must commit myself to forty lashes! Wait, that won't work, my eyes aren't big enough.
Oh woe is me, squid man Chico D. Mar!
Oh dear Lucy, stick to bartending. Comedy isn't your forte.
If there's one thing I regret from these early pages, it's how I depicted Stuckman's bar. I never really could figure out how to get the lighting correct. Consistency has never been my strong suit, so some panels just really come out overly brighter than others. Oh well, I'm still proud of them in a way, at least as a way to show my growth.