His huge shadow towering over little Shez, showing her helplessness, becoming HER shadowed face in the bottom panel full of rage and determination and strength was a genius choice. Your visual storytelling is so so good.
Thank you!!! Credit where credit is due, the shadow outside the first panel was originally just a regular horizontal gradient, it was my lovely guest artist Miss Kory who suggested making the shadow silhouette connect across the whole page!
This is one of my favourite pages of the entire chapter 🥰
I’m gonna cheer for her. She’s gonna get where she needs to be.
S-H-A-N-Z-E-Y !
SHE’LL GET STRONG AND KILL THAT GUY !
S-H-A-N-Z-E-Y !
KICK HIS BALLS AND MAKE HIM DIE !
ok, wanting Shez to beat his ass aside… this page is so, so gut wrenchingly sad and also painfully real for so so many abused children.
At 13 your biggest worry should be about like. Sweat in new and weird places lmfao not ‘I have to be strong enough to protect not only myself, but the adults in my life who should be protecting me.’ It’s so sad. My teeth hurt after this page, Rusty. 😔
Wait, I remember everyrhing started with discussing a measure of a well-placed balls kick. So does that mean the story ends with Chris never having any more kids ever? If so – Shez is a savior of not only her family, but others as well))
I consider myself pretty lucky when it comes to upbringing, nothing too horrible (phisically, at least) ever happened to me. Yet even I am all too familiar with the feeling of helpless terror mixed with anger that this panel provokes.
I guess no woman can ever grow up free of this shadow in current world…
I think you summed up how even the threat of male violence is a.torment in and of itself for women and girls. Mediocre men (the “well he’s NEVER hit me” types) benefit from the acts of violent men. Suddenly the women they leech off of should be grateful because he doesn’t do worse.
But seriously, who would even notice? The way I understand it, he has very little contact with the outside world. No blood relatives checking in on him, no friends, no neighbours, no co-workers (except I suppose for other fraudsters, but they’d likely assume he’s hiding from the law or is in prison if he stopped contacting them). Kill him, burry him in the backyard, or feed him to one of those very Australian animals. No one’s gonna know.
on one hand I’m thinking “yes Chris NEEDS TO GO”. Shez I’m such a fan B)
on the other hand, I’m so sad bc no child should EVER have to contemplate violence in order to protect themselves and their family… but ofc shez has no choice 🙁 neither did all those girls out there who have resorted to violence to escape their abusers.
I’m betting that shez didn’t actually kill Chris, bc I am not optimistic that she would escape the “justice system”, which is so quick to punish female victims while minimizing the actions of the male abuser. So the fact that she and her family are all together now makes me think that they escaped without leaving a body. Im hanging on my seat waiting to see how events play out!
I’m fully on board team Shez Kills Chris as long as she does no jail time for it. (in real life the justice system is so skewed even blatant cases of self defense end with the woman in jail because how outrageous for a woman to EVER defend herself or a man to face real consequences)
KAY SO THE COMPOSITION IS SO POWERFUL this has to be like one of the absolute most satisfying compositions for a comic page i have ever seen in my life. I wish every page of every comic could look like this one, though that is not feasible and also this banger of a page deserves to stand out anyway. HUGE thank you to Miss Korry for the suggestion to make the shadow be like. Extended and connect. the power of that visual choice. She has an extremely artistic and creative mind to come up with that. I hope she understands the POWER of what she helped you achieve in this page. And of course she wouldn’t have even thought of that suggestion if you had not already build the composition’s foundation yourself. GREAT work Rusty GREAT suggestion Kory.
Also the visible brush strokes around Shez’s eyes. Lots of little things in this page making this extremely striking composition. If the eyes were Clean the page would lose so much of it’s power. I love that little bit of roughness there and the intensity. Also I can be a huge TEXTURE fiend so I like that it gives the page some texture there.
The text right in-between her eyes? HONE IN ON THE GOAL. The placement of the text here is another little thing that lets us know Shez is going to have unwavering focus in trying to accomplish that. You put so much thought into this composition, and if there’s some of the things you didn’t even Think of are definitely finely honed artistic instinct.
Reminds me of Shez’s very first time trying to fight him. That page was JUST like shonen protagonist going up against bigger monster she would inevitably fail against AND THEN WE HAVE THIS PAGE. You are so aware of the genre, and also people who are Aware of the genre can also have a very good sense of what’s happening.
It was just so hard for me to get too heart-broken because of the awareness of those shonen-type of stories. I never feel wrecked up over Shonen Young Boy because he ALWAYS trains and wins in the end. It’s just SO COOL to be seeing this with a girl for once. There’s all these shonen boys out there who face SERIOUS trauma no one of that age should ever face, but he’s not broken by it, only made stronger, only made cooler. Men always are made More Cool by their trauma in stories, while more often women end up Broken and Delicate because of their trauma.
Only shonen girl I know if is Maka Albarn, who is everything to me, and who’s manga source treats her so disgusting and degrading as it does all women. The anime is better but still, there’s some Serious Yeuch Moments. It’s so hard to watch anime as a woman, for real. I basically Don’t anymore, because it only seems to be getting worse.
I also love the CONTEXT of this page HAHAHA Like Shez just told a huge group full of women “SO I WAS PLANNING TO MURDER HIM” like that tells us so much about the kind of person she is. I love it. She doesn’t soften it, she doesn’t like, try to make it more palatable, just YEP I WAS DEAD SET FOR REAL GOING TO KILL THIS GUY.
But I know Shez wouldn’t confess being involved in a murder that could get her in trouble. Depending on how the story she is telling goes, I might have to go “hmm, is that what REALLY happened, Shez? 😉 Listen Shez, I know that For Real, it was actually YOU who killed him, and that makes you so much more cool of a character to me…..” straight up I get this image of way later in the story where Shez reveals to Jaden “Nope I actually killed him I just only share that information with people who I KNOW I can trust with it” maybe at some point when Jaden just had to be Really Violent and she isn’t sure it was the right thing to do. And Shez is just like “HEY SOMETIMES WE HAVE TO BE VIOLENT FOR REAL TO PROTECT WOMEN I DON’T REGRET DOING A MURDER” HAHAHAHA but yeah that’s all just my silly little thoughts. If shonen boy can kill a monster or enemy or whatever that is WAY bigger then him then WHY CAN’T SHEZ? Tho I know whatever story you wrote is definitely going to be good fantastic. Shez doesn’t NEED to murder this guy to succeed. She did what she sought out to do for real – she saved her family. She is a hero and we all love her.
I don’t know if this is my Favorite page, my Favorite might be one of the ones with Alex in it. She is an Angel to me. But this is absolutely one of the best pages in LB for real. It’s Very Powerful. As Shez deserves. Congratulations on making this character just as badass as she deserves to be. The AGP have no idea how lucky they are that Shez prioritized checking on Jaden instead of chasing them down.
side note, going back to double-check and make sure I was remembering right, that Shez stayed behind with Jaden and ended up seeing that Ask The Cast page where age 8 Shez wanted to be a RockStar Musician and shfjsdhkfskdh ksjhdfkj hsdf that childhood dream didn’t last very long her priorities changed so fast aaaaaAAAAA
( I also remember liking Maka from Soul Eater… But the stupid mini skirt always bothered me (and of course it and her having small breasts was used against her and had to become a part of her character, ugh). Plus jesus the gross-ass fanservice BS. Blegh! ) The woes of being a weeb girl who wanted the power fantasy battles that only shounen scratched, but having to sit through abhorrent misogyny or women simply not existing as collateral :/
Re: Shez being an unreliable narrator of sorts… I LOVE that your mind went there. I can’t say too much for spoilery reasons, but I am going to have some things to geek out about with you by the end of this chapter. (Always happy to geek out via email too XD)
And yesss, omg. AGPgang are legit so lucky Shez didn’t find them first. Free non-surgical “bottom surgery” anyone?
And oh, little magician rockstar Shez. That was a year before Meriam met Chris U_U
26 thoughts on “CH12P15”
wool
LET’S GOOOOOO
anon
GET HIS ASS SHEZ!!!! FEED HIM TO THE PIGS!!!!
anonymoo
His huge shadow towering over little Shez, showing her helplessness, becoming HER shadowed face in the bottom panel full of rage and determination and strength was a genius choice. Your visual storytelling is so so good.
rustyhearts
Thank you!!! Credit where credit is due, the shadow outside the first panel was originally just a regular horizontal gradient, it was my lovely guest artist Miss Kory who suggested making the shadow silhouette connect across the whole page!
This is one of my favourite pages of the entire chapter 🥰
Brazillian Terf
BASED BASED BASED BASED
Charly
God poor Shez… I wanna taker her and my family away from that man… I really really hope Shez and Miriam get to see a therapist after all of this…
And I really hope Shez’s sister doesn’t take this man’s side 😭😭 I see that happen so much with kids who don’t have to deal with the abuse themselves
Tenbelow
HAHAHAHA GREAT PAAAAAGGGGEEeee
essay style comment later this is wild elation comment
rustyhearts
Knew you would love this one, breastie ❤️
Blais
I’m gonna cheer for her. She’s gonna get where she needs to be.
S-H-A-N-Z-E-Y !
SHE’LL GET STRONG AND KILL THAT GUY !
S-H-A-N-Z-E-Y !
KICK HIS BALLS AND MAKE HIM DIE !
Norm L. Esbian
ok, wanting Shez to beat his ass aside… this page is so, so gut wrenchingly sad and also painfully real for so so many abused children.
At 13 your biggest worry should be about like. Sweat in new and weird places lmfao not ‘I have to be strong enough to protect not only myself, but the adults in my life who should be protecting me.’ It’s so sad. My teeth hurt after this page, Rusty. 😔
rustyhearts
Rubbing your jaw muscles so gently. 😔💔
werewol
let’s goooooooo – that last panel got me hype!!!!
Tyto
Wait, I remember everyrhing started with discussing a measure of a well-placed balls kick. So does that mean the story ends with Chris never having any more kids ever? If so – Shez is a savior of not only her family, but others as well))
I consider myself pretty lucky when it comes to upbringing, nothing too horrible (phisically, at least) ever happened to me. Yet even I am all too familiar with the feeling of helpless terror mixed with anger that this panel provokes.
I guess no woman can ever grow up free of this shadow in current world…
rustyhearts
A very good guess, re: future events!
I think you summed up how even the threat of male violence is a.torment in and of itself for women and girls. Mediocre men (the “well he’s NEVER hit me” types) benefit from the acts of violent men. Suddenly the women they leech off of should be grateful because he doesn’t do worse.
Crypty
*STEVE HARVEY VOICE* YES!!!!!!!!
KILL!!!!!!!!!!
Mary
We’d better get a sweet training montage to make up for all this trauma.
rustyhearts
Ms Mary, please prepare yourself to be delighted.
Wooloo
This rom-com has turned into a shonnen for women and I love that for us!
rustyhearts
From rom-com, to psychological horror, to shounen for women – LB’s got it all 😎😎
Vitamin C
But seriously, who would even notice? The way I understand it, he has very little contact with the outside world. No blood relatives checking in on him, no friends, no neighbours, no co-workers (except I suppose for other fraudsters, but they’d likely assume he’s hiding from the law or is in prison if he stopped contacting them). Kill him, burry him in the backyard, or feed him to one of those very Australian animals. No one’s gonna know.
Jay
SHE LOOKS SO COOL!
Shez Appreciator
Shez was already my favourite character. Now she’s my even favouriter
andy
on one hand I’m thinking “yes Chris NEEDS TO GO”. Shez I’m such a fan B)
on the other hand, I’m so sad bc no child should EVER have to contemplate violence in order to protect themselves and their family… but ofc shez has no choice 🙁 neither did all those girls out there who have resorted to violence to escape their abusers.
I’m betting that shez didn’t actually kill Chris, bc I am not optimistic that she would escape the “justice system”, which is so quick to punish female victims while minimizing the actions of the male abuser. So the fact that she and her family are all together now makes me think that they escaped without leaving a body. Im hanging on my seat waiting to see how events play out!
Ada
I’m fully on board team Shez Kills Chris as long as she does no jail time for it. (in real life the justice system is so skewed even blatant cases of self defense end with the woman in jail because how outrageous for a woman to EVER defend herself or a man to face real consequences)
Tenbelow
KAY SO THE COMPOSITION IS SO POWERFUL this has to be like one of the absolute most satisfying compositions for a comic page i have ever seen in my life. I wish every page of every comic could look like this one, though that is not feasible and also this banger of a page deserves to stand out anyway. HUGE thank you to Miss Korry for the suggestion to make the shadow be like. Extended and connect. the power of that visual choice. She has an extremely artistic and creative mind to come up with that. I hope she understands the POWER of what she helped you achieve in this page. And of course she wouldn’t have even thought of that suggestion if you had not already build the composition’s foundation yourself. GREAT work Rusty GREAT suggestion Kory.
Also the visible brush strokes around Shez’s eyes. Lots of little things in this page making this extremely striking composition. If the eyes were Clean the page would lose so much of it’s power. I love that little bit of roughness there and the intensity. Also I can be a huge TEXTURE fiend so I like that it gives the page some texture there.
The text right in-between her eyes? HONE IN ON THE GOAL. The placement of the text here is another little thing that lets us know Shez is going to have unwavering focus in trying to accomplish that. You put so much thought into this composition, and if there’s some of the things you didn’t even Think of are definitely finely honed artistic instinct.
Reminds me of Shez’s very first time trying to fight him. That page was JUST like shonen protagonist going up against bigger monster she would inevitably fail against AND THEN WE HAVE THIS PAGE. You are so aware of the genre, and also people who are Aware of the genre can also have a very good sense of what’s happening.
It was just so hard for me to get too heart-broken because of the awareness of those shonen-type of stories. I never feel wrecked up over Shonen Young Boy because he ALWAYS trains and wins in the end. It’s just SO COOL to be seeing this with a girl for once. There’s all these shonen boys out there who face SERIOUS trauma no one of that age should ever face, but he’s not broken by it, only made stronger, only made cooler. Men always are made More Cool by their trauma in stories, while more often women end up Broken and Delicate because of their trauma.
Only shonen girl I know if is Maka Albarn, who is everything to me, and who’s manga source treats her so disgusting and degrading as it does all women. The anime is better but still, there’s some Serious Yeuch Moments. It’s so hard to watch anime as a woman, for real. I basically Don’t anymore, because it only seems to be getting worse.
I also love the CONTEXT of this page HAHAHA Like Shez just told a huge group full of women “SO I WAS PLANNING TO MURDER HIM” like that tells us so much about the kind of person she is. I love it. She doesn’t soften it, she doesn’t like, try to make it more palatable, just YEP I WAS DEAD SET FOR REAL GOING TO KILL THIS GUY.
But I know Shez wouldn’t confess being involved in a murder that could get her in trouble. Depending on how the story she is telling goes, I might have to go “hmm, is that what REALLY happened, Shez? 😉 Listen Shez, I know that For Real, it was actually YOU who killed him, and that makes you so much more cool of a character to me…..” straight up I get this image of way later in the story where Shez reveals to Jaden “Nope I actually killed him I just only share that information with people who I KNOW I can trust with it” maybe at some point when Jaden just had to be Really Violent and she isn’t sure it was the right thing to do. And Shez is just like “HEY SOMETIMES WE HAVE TO BE VIOLENT FOR REAL TO PROTECT WOMEN I DON’T REGRET DOING A MURDER” HAHAHAHA but yeah that’s all just my silly little thoughts. If shonen boy can kill a monster or enemy or whatever that is WAY bigger then him then WHY CAN’T SHEZ? Tho I know whatever story you wrote is definitely going to be good fantastic. Shez doesn’t NEED to murder this guy to succeed. She did what she sought out to do for real – she saved her family. She is a hero and we all love her.
I don’t know if this is my Favorite page, my Favorite might be one of the ones with Alex in it. She is an Angel to me. But this is absolutely one of the best pages in LB for real. It’s Very Powerful. As Shez deserves. Congratulations on making this character just as badass as she deserves to be. The AGP have no idea how lucky they are that Shez prioritized checking on Jaden instead of chasing them down.
side note, going back to double-check and make sure I was remembering right, that Shez stayed behind with Jaden and ended up seeing that Ask The Cast page where age 8 Shez wanted to be a RockStar Musician and shfjsdhkfskdh ksjhdfkj hsdf that childhood dream didn’t last very long her priorities changed so fast aaaaaAAAAA
rustyhearts
Bahahaha I just knew you’d love this page >:3C
( I also remember liking Maka from Soul Eater… But the stupid mini skirt always bothered me (and of course it and her having small breasts was used against her and had to become a part of her character, ugh). Plus jesus the gross-ass fanservice BS. Blegh! ) The woes of being a weeb girl who wanted the power fantasy battles that only shounen scratched, but having to sit through abhorrent misogyny or women simply not existing as collateral :/
Re: Shez being an unreliable narrator of sorts… I LOVE that your mind went there. I can’t say too much for spoilery reasons, but I am going to have some things to geek out about with you by the end of this chapter. (Always happy to geek out via email too XD)
And yesss, omg. AGPgang are legit so lucky Shez didn’t find them first. Free non-surgical “bottom surgery” anyone?
And oh, little magician rockstar Shez. That was a year before Meriam met Chris U_U
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