As always read this:
Before you read this:
Page 6:
Welcome to Locke’s “Old Vegas” hideout. This is one of my favorite settings in the whole series because if you look around Locke is SUCH a college bro. At the time this was what I envisioned as a bad guy’s bachelor paradise. Now I just find it kinda funny. In between Locke’s thieving gear are beer bottles and pizza boxes. Dude has a kegerator for f---‘s sake. It’s almost like this was written and illustrated and illustrated by someone fresh off college bachelor life. One detail that I like that no one ever noticed is that the floor is scattered with locks and hand cuffs. What I was going for there is that Locke sits and picks locks for fun like someone might do a rubix cube.
The motorcycle in the second panel is a Buell Lightning. I was working for Harley-Davidson at the time and was really into those Buell bikes. (No, I never rode.) Also, I misspelled Jor-El in this panel. I understand if that is a deal-breaker and you don’t want to continue reading.
Page 7:
The Lifetime joke is one I find cringey now. Ha ha, 22 year old Tim. Feminine things are lame. You’re pretty clever bud. No wonder you couldn’t get a date. In some branch reality I could totally become an incel. Lord knows I was flirting with it at this age. Mercifully we live in this otherwise horrible reality in which I grew out of that. I’ll stand by that soccer joke though. Soccer is boring.
Oh, and hey! Here comes the plot! Zach Camran was the party guy from the last scene. We’ll have to see what Locke’s stake in this is…
That last reaction panel on this page isn’t half bad. My art style is still coming together in this arc but that drawing looks reasonably close to the finished version of Locke.
Don't @ me.
Page 8:
The talking head news lady on these pages is VERY inspired by the hologram news people in Batman Beyond. In my head she has that same voice. You may not be able to read them on a screen but the news crawls are also jammed with Easter eggs.
The first one on page six says:
“Notoriously criminal “Locke” escapes from Orcus Penitentiary.“
It’s a bit out of character for Locke to not take pride at being called notorious but it could also be argued he’s mad he didn’t even notice.
The first TV on page seven says:
“…the dow jones industrial drops again today as the recessio…”
I never really delved too far into this but the world of Reckless Life is taking place under the backdrop of a severe economic depression. This was before the great recession by almost ten years. Why couldn’t I have predicted something more fun?
TV 2 says:
“…cession worsens. Louis Martinelli found not guilty for extor…”
This is a juicy one but unfortunately had no pay off. Reckless Life was originally envisioned as a three volume story. The three volumes were New York, Las Vegas and Washing DC. In the New York chapter (to be told in flashback and prequels) Locke is just getting his start and has a run-in with a NY crime family. I never told this story. Maybe I still will. We’ll see. Another fun fact: I subtlety named people, places and things in Reckless Life for people in my life. My dad’s name is Martin and that’s what inspired that last name. My dad is not, in fact, a crime boss.
TV 3 says:
…f extortion charges… Department of Investigation a…
Another nod to something I only started to pay off later is The Department of Investigation and Intelligence, or “The Eyes” for short. My idea here was that the FBI and CIA had merged into one mega (shady) agency. This was an idea that would have (will?) get much more screen time in the Washington DC arc.
NEXT WEEK: Locke intends to get even for… something?