Page 46
Masjid means mosque.
↓ Transcript
Panel 1: Maida waits by a giant lion head sculpture at one end of the square as people mill about around her.
Panel 2: Zaynab approaches from a distance. She's wearing a black and white dress and the same hijab she wore at school. Zaynab: "Hiya."
Panel 3: Maida: "Hi. The others aren't coming?" Zaynab: "Well, not bodily, no. Maria doesn't like crowds and Safia's masjid is out in Glacier Ridge."
Panel 4: Zaynab: "You didn't go to masjid today?" Maida: "Um, no. I had poetry club after school."
Panel 5: Maida: "Anyway I don't have a masjid to go to. My aunt is Hindu and it's just me and her right now."
Panel 2: Zaynab approaches from a distance. She's wearing a black and white dress and the same hijab she wore at school. Zaynab: "Hiya."
Panel 3: Maida: "Hi. The others aren't coming?" Zaynab: "Well, not bodily, no. Maria doesn't like crowds and Safia's masjid is out in Glacier Ridge."
Panel 4: Zaynab: "You didn't go to masjid today?" Maida: "Um, no. I had poetry club after school."
Panel 5: Maida: "Anyway I don't have a masjid to go to. My aunt is Hindu and it's just me and her right now."
I just noticed Chapter 1 is 32 pages long. Is that a coincidence or an homage to the classic form of staple-bound comics?
Short answer, it’s just a coincidence.
Long answer, it’s not at all. My goal, at first, was to make each chapter the length it might be in manga, which is about 20+ pages. My chapters ended up being longer than that after I’d written them. But they were still short enough that I could print the first chapter as a minicomic, which I’ve done, and yeah, it’s a multiple of four because it had to be. Although if it hadn’t worked out to 32 exactly, I would’ve just added some extra content to make it fit.