If you go way back to the first few pages of the original Henchmen story (The VIXX Saga, if you’re new around here…) you’ll see that one of the first rules of being a smart Henchman is knowing when it’s time to leave. It’s like the old Kenny Rogers song – you gotta know when to fold ’em. Unfortunately, the new boss makes a classic ‘Rookie’ mistake….
I wish I had been able to use more of new Henchman (Henchperson?) Lowla in The Rookie, but a lot of her work was sort of ‘behind the scenes’ in this tale, and I was trying to keep the story to a tight nine pages. She’ll be showing up more prominently in the next story arc Origins. and will play a more critical role in the tale.
The Rookie will conclude with next week’s installment, and then I’ll be taking a short break as I prepare for Comic Con Honolulu on July 28-30, where I’ll be hunched behind a table in Artist’s Alley. Drop by and say Hi if you have a chance!
If you’ve been reading Henchmen for Hire for any length of time, you know I have a fondness for sound effects. I started really getting into comics towards the beginning of the Silver Age Marvel Lee-Kirby era, and of course this was also the time when Adam West’s Batman was one of the biggest things on TV. I think all the ZAPs and POWs of the period sort of burned into my brain and became an essential part of the comic experience.
Every now and then I’ll try to leave an image like the one in the first panel without any sound effect, and it will always look too dull and ‘quiet’ to me. It’s not for everybody, but I think the sound effects are part of the fun, and they lighten up action scenes that could be pretty heavy without them. I enjoyed the Deadpool movie, but I found it a little too violent (I know it’s supposed to be like that, but I still had a hard time with it) and I wonder if there were a few BAMs and WHAMs mixed in, it might have taken some of the hard edges off for me. Like I said, not for everybody….
