Hero Go Home

Yay, Digger has finally shown up and cured the jaggies! We’re saved!

Digger finally makes his first appearance. It’s about time.

I was modeling the interior of the airport, at least in some shots, roughly after Chicago O’Hare, and all the photos I could find have that checkerboard tile. When I was drawing this, I thought, “No, there should be carpet at the gate entrance, shouldn’t there?”

But having established the checkerboard tile in earlier panels, I felt obliged to follow through.

Then after I’d finished the art for this panel, I found a photo of a gate entrance which clearly shows where the tile ends and the carpet begins.

Oh well. If there’s ever a reprint volume, I’ll end up redrawing the first few pages anyway, probably.

More fuzzy dialogue. The transcript:

Redheaded Kid: Can we meet him?

Blonde Girl: Yeah, we want to meet Digger!

Griffin: Um…

Black Kid: Digger’s here?

Redheaded Kid: Yeah, he’s about to get off the plane!

Black Kid: AWESOME!

Blonde Girl: I’m gonna get his autograph.

Passenger: Son-of-a-…

Griffin: Um, kids, I’m not sure if…

Black Kid: I’m Kid Digger! Hyaah!

Redheaded Kid: I’m gonna meet Digger. This is so sweet!

Blonde Girl: HEY!

I ran into a big glitch when preparing this week’s strips, so the dialogue’s a little fuzzy and hard to read. Everything will be more legible by Friday. Sorry. Still learning the ropes.

The transcript:

Passenger: Jerk.

Red-headed Kid: Will Dig-Dog be with him?

Griffin: I don’t think he’s allowed on the plane.

Blonde Girl: What’s going on?

Red-headed Kid: Digger’s here!

Blonde Girl: The Digger?

Red-headed Kid: YEAH!

Blonde Girl: OHMYGOSH! Will he have Dig-Dog with him?

Red-headed Kid: I dunno! But it’s pretty cool, isn’t it?

Blonde Girl: YEAH!

Female Passenger: AS###LE!

Okay, I understand that things are moving very slowly now. I’m still finding my way on this pacing thing. It’ll get better.

Yes, I understand that the “Bastard” word balloon is confusingly placed. Just trust me that the pejorative is being used by the blurry shadow in the extreme foreground of panel 1, and not the goofy red-headed kid. I’ll try to avoid such confusion in the future.

On the other hand, I like the way the kid’s arm crosses the panel border in the last panel. I didn’t originally intend that, but I think it looks cool. Ross Andru used to do that all the time in Spider-man in the 70’s, and it made for very dynamic action scenes, like the characters’ blows were literally too powerful to be contained on the page.

Welcome to Hero Go Home!

Hero Go Home continues the adventures of Digger, a reluctant super-hero featured in short stories published previously in Jim Baen’s Universe and Daikaiju!3: Giant Monsters vs. the World.

One technical note: the linework in today’s strip is rough and jagged. I had some production problems starting out, but rest assured that these technical problems will work themselves out within a couple of weeks.

The strip will update every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I hope you’ll enjoy reading Digger’s adventures as much as I enjoy making ’em.