Shit Happens: Year One

Finally, the start of the second year of 'Shit Happens, which we're calling Year One.'

It's technically something like two and a half months into Year One, but I took a break for some personal business (trip to London, medical procedure, the complete rewiring of my brain by an illness, the death of one of my great personal heroes) and to give myself some time to plan out a better overall arc for the coming months.

I'm still working some things out, but I've got some of the plots nailed down, as well as what will be the overriding theme of the coming months. This is no longer a webcomic in the conventional sense: I'm using it to tell a long form sequential story while also giving myself the opportunity to experiment with different art styles and different ideas about comics. I don't care if I sound pretentious or like I'm getting ideas above my station, because if I'm going to fuck this up I'm going to fuck up spectacularly.

As to this strip itself, it was originally supposed to be in high contrast black and white, but after I spent, oh, an entire day drawing the first panel, I decided to do it in pencils. The aerial shot is quite lossely based on somewhere near where I live, though I altered the architecture for the whole of the block on which the Dead-End Bar stands.

Best bit: the front-on shot of the Dead-End Bar, because it was a fucker to draw and I'm glad it came out the way I wanted it too.
Worst bit: that it wasn't black and white as intended; washed out detail on the first panel thanks to the scanner not picking fainter lines up.