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Panel 1: Tomás is wearing a plain white button up shirt, notably missing his signature green cap. He still has messy hair and a scruffy beard, though. As he buttons the long sleeves of his shirt, he asks, "You're back already? I thought you were supposed to be at work."
Panel 2: The camera pulls back to reveal both boys are in what passes for a living room in this apartment. Daylight pours in from a bare window, touching a plain wooden coffee table and an old armchair. Next to the armchair there's an old boxy CRTV stacked upon eight milk crates, arranged 2 by 2. An acoustic guitar and ladder poke out from the corner near the armchair. The wall behind the TV was added sometime in the remodel that turned this loft space into a habitable apartment, and doesn't extend to the full height of the ceiling. The boys have pinned up posters on it (one appears to be a Los Crudos band poster, along with a Hi-Standard album cover).
His shirt buttons now done, Tomás pulls on a red plaid, fur lined jacket as he looks at Denver. Denver tosses his skateboard on the coffee table with his good arm. We can see his Effigies back patch as he says bitterly, "Supposed to be. Malika sent me home. Says I'll just get in the way with only one arm."
Panel 3: Tomás begins to answer, "Well, that tracks, but--" when he notices the skateboard. With a big frown, he finishes, "Whoa, dude. What happened to your board?"
Panel 4: Denver sits down on the old leather couch near the coffee table. Behind him, a note has been pinned to a support beam with a dart, and a shopping cart holds a large drawstring rucksack. Denver motions to the two halves of the skateboard, which are now lying on top of the coffee table next to a halfway-filled ashtray. With a look of disdain, Denver says, "Oh, this? Guy in a Benz is what happened."
From off-panel, Tomás replies, "That sucks, man. People are assholes."
Designing Denver and Tomás's apartment was a ton of fun, and I'm stoked you all finally get to see it!! (A lot of things here are taken from shared houses I've lived in in my own early 20s, haha!)
On a related note, a little while back I started doing one of those "one like = one fact about a character" memes on Bluesky, and there were a couple of facts that came up about Denver and Tomás. Now that we're spending time with the boys in their apartment, it seems like a good time to share them here, too:
- Denver may or may not just end up using Tomás socks if they get mixed in with his in the laundry (okay let's be real he absolutely does)
- Denver and Tomás got sent to the principal's office for their 5th grade science project: "Experiments on a Dead Mouse We Found in the Alleyway." In an alternate timeline, one of those kids may have went on to win a Nobel prize. In this timeline, they both earn minimum wage.
- Denver's first skateboard was a used one given to him by Tomás's older brother, Javi, which is the only thing Javi has ever done wrong in Mrs. Leary's eyes
Chapter 1: 2:45am