Cartoonber 2024

Cartoonber is an annual challenge hosted by the Cartoonist Co-operative, aimed at providing cartoonists with an experience to work with other artists to complete a project. Extenuating circumstances led to my group not finishing the challenge, but we got two good pages out of it. Joan Zahra Dark wrote the scripts, I did the lineart, Jessi Eoin did colors, and Bruce Delo did lettering. You can learn more about the Cartoonber comics challenge here.

Panel 1: An individual with a buzzcut dyed blue and a cigarette in their mouth climbs a ladder into an attic. In the corner, a sheet covers a box-shaped object. Buzzcut says 'hey, hey, it's ok.' Panel 2: Buzzcut says: 'I know that you're scared' Panel 3: Buzzcut pulls the sheet from the object and says 'But I promise' Panel 4: Buzzcut holds out a hand to a child cowering in the remains of a rusted cage where the sheet was. Buzzcut says 'They're never going to hurt you - ever again. The child says, 'What they did to us... I can still feel their hands across our back.. I still hear their lumbering breath when I close my eyes...' A flashback montage of the child, cleaning a wound on their neck, fleeing from an unseen pursuer, and hiding under their bed. The scene then cuts to the present, showing buzzcut comforting the distraught child. The child says 'That's never going to go away, and it haunts you too! How can we live with that?'