With this sequence, I wanted to show little Ronni, left to her own devices and with no adult supervision, getting into a fight with some bullies and losing. Koen has two children, and he is often drawing images for their school functions and such, so he really has a good feeling for drawing kids.
Originally page 3 was going to be the opening page of the comic, but I got a crazy idea about a flashback and decided that after the cliffhanger of Ronni getting her brains bashed in we'd detour to our oh-so-confusing string of variant covers (which, for the record, we still have one more of those at the end of the issue). And then cut to Lil Ronni... so first Koen designed her.
Ain't she adorable?
The glasses, the overbite, the band-aid on the knee. Yet you can still see those distinctive forelocks and the mountain of hair are already there. Plus she looks like she is wearing Punky Brewster's hand-me-downs. When we talked about coloring it we went back to one of my favorites, where only Ronni is colored, due to her red outfit to make her stand out. I would have loved to do the entire book this way, but then we would be missing out on all of the cool effects Koen does with color.
To my mind this is something formative for the character. We see her spot trouble, intercede on behalf of a victim, only to become a victim herself and lose to superior force. I figure there are moments like this in people's lives that shape who they are and who they will be. And in this case, trying to be a hero gets Ronni trounced... not unlike the modern day. And another piece of the puzzle fits into place. Well, hopefully.
Hope you enjoyed the Lil Ronni flashback. And here is the page in its original form...
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