Joyce and Walky!

This can’t be a storage closet!  It doesn’t say “Storage Closet” on the inside of the door!

One of the biggest “gets” of crossing over with Fans! was Joyce having another Christian to interact with at an important time for her to do so.  She’s just rediscovering the faith she had wiped away, and seeing her actually kneel and pray with Rikk is a step that would definitely have been obviously missing from her arc’s staircase otherwise.  The rest of the It’s Walky! main cast is decidedly secular.

(my brain quickly ran through the other squad members to see if I could have given her a prayerbuddy elsewhere, but…. Joe is Jewish, but not religious… Tony?  He’s seen too much, and, like, he’s already been dead and resurrected, so he’d be, uh…  Mike definitely not…. Walky is supposed to be her spiritual foil later, so he’s out… and Dina is as Atheist as you come)

Yep, hadta be Rikk.  Yay, Rikk!  He himself was also having his Jesusy troubles, so they’re a very wellmatched pair here.

Also, I adore the panel composition on the bottom row.  The two are separated into their own panels, despite kneeling next to each other, while the word balloons connect them.  It’s very evocative of the two worlds they’re from being joined together through fellowship.

The image of Rikk and Joyce praying together was one of the first ideas I had for this story. The consequences of it took a lot longer to figure out.

I forget how the back-and-forth went on this one, but I know “This sure beats doing it alone, that’s for sure” is David’s line, and it’s a great one.

“Out-of-context eavesdropping” can be an aggravating trope at times, and I had leaned on it a lot already, especially in the bit Alisin references in panel 3. So the only way I could justify using it here was if we also pushed past it.