This is the best one.
I've drawn a lot of pictures in my years on planet earth but nothing I have ever done makes me more proud than Third Wheel. This story finds me at the top my game in both art and writing. I hope you enjoy it.
The title comes from a turn of phrase I got a lot of mileage at this point in my life. A lof of my friends were getting married around this time and I was emphatically not. I spent a lot of time as a, say it with me, third wheel. That gave me an idea and it became this story.
Cover
This image of Daniels remains one of my favorite RL images ever. I love it. Locke less so and in fact, in re-packaging these pages for webtoons I found a different version of this cover that had Locke in a similar pose but firing to the left. It's much better. Oh well. Still not a bad cover.
If the size feels a little different it is because at this point I changed RL to a digest-sized comic ala Scott Pilgrim or manga. I still love that smaller format.
Issue 1, Pages 1 and 2
Right out of the gate this page once again makes it look like I hired a new artist. As the series went along Reckless Life became more "design-y" and less representational and this page makes that statement right away. There's a weird fish-eye perspective and the panels almost kind of bleed one into the next. I'm never going to be the best draftsman that ever lived but I am pretty good at design and this is when I started leaning into that. There are extra outlines, more sound effects, oddly shaped speech bubbles, reverse silhouettes, and all kinds of stuff that isn't remotely real but looks cool. I never looked back on that.
Issue 1, Pages 3 and 4
Okay, this gun-firing sequence is rad. Cool sound effects and zipatone dots and JUST enough of a suggestion of who is pulling the trigger. The black panel gives a muzzle flash effect pretty well too, Great job, 2005 Tim. You're killing it.
Speaking of killing it, geez, this nameless character just got smoked. That's definitely more blood than we've seen in RL to this point too.
Oh hey, look, it's Dylan Daniels! He's back and looking MUCH better than ever. Aside from the rigor-mortis left hand, Daniels is looking like a badass here. At this point in the series, Daniels had become more popular than Locke with a not insignificant number of fans and I get it. He is a badass. Especially in this very important scene.
What's in that briefcase? Read on!
NEXT TIME: Locke has issues.