Still a Trade Secret

Page 128

Still a Trade Secret
Cartoon Brian

Still a Trade Secret

Original Release Date: September 29, 2009

This is one of my more favorite pages. It catches the readers up on what Bee Man is up to, but does so as an aside that is sufficiently goofy, but completely without consequence to the main plot. There's an added level of humor here in that this is clearly an attempted sale of Kentucky Fried Chicken's secret recipe, but Bee Man is oblivious to the significance of this under-the-table deal. His (Its?) single purpose is revenge. Plus, bees don't know anything about fried chicken or its associated secret recipes, or money, for that matter. It doesn't mean anything to him. He ends up with a briefcase full of it, but all he cares about is his new coat and hat for the purposes of traveling incognito so he can better murder Mike!

The long shot in panel one is a bit simplistic and sparse in certain details, but still shows a lot of improvement where landscape artwork is concerned. My style doesn't really lend itself to sweeping, photographic landscapes, so it will never reach that point, but this is the type of panel that, just months prior to drawing this, I would have looked for any excuse to avoid drawing. I call that progress.

Lastly, this is another example of the "crappy, yet convincing disguise" trope that is always funny. This disguise is atrocious, which guarantees it will work.