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Panel 1: Elena continues from the last page, off-panel, ""...but wait until you go on tonight at 8pm." The caption reads, "Now." Three boys are playing instruments in a small practice studio. Flight cases, guitar amps, and ephemera stand around the corners of the room. On the walls behind them, a poster looking awfully similar to a Ted Leo & the Pharmacists show poster in Chicago and a Yeah Yeah Yeah's album cover hang on the wall.

The figure furthest to the left is a young Black man wearing a denim battle vest (the type of vests covered in patches and pins favored by metalheads and punks) over a dark T-shirt and jeans. He has a black baseball cap on that has a white S logo on it. This is Stef Martin, the youngest member of the band. He's playing a silver P-bass.

In the center, the drummer sits behind an orange drum set. He has shoulder-length, shaggy brown hair, and is wearing a white T-shirt with a green and orange band logo on it. They match his orange wristbands and green Castro cap. This is Tomás Shipman, Tennyson's ever-cheerful drummer. He's tapping his drumsticks together in a count-off, yelling cheerfully, "One, two, one two three four!"

To the right is Denver, wearing a Black Led Zeppelin t-shirt. A bright yellow guitar strap is slung over his shoulders, and just the neck of his red guitar pops up from the bottom of the panel.

Panel 2: A close up of Stef, the bassist, his eyes closed beneath his baseball cap. Stark, evenly spaced together lines of music denote the even strumming of his bass guitar.

Panel 3: Denver plays a chord far up the neck of his Gibson Les Paul, frowning slightly. The lines symbolizing his music swing wildly from high to low.

Panel 4: Finally, the drummer, is grinning as he plays the drums, his music lines broken up in a staccato pattern. Beneath all his scruffy beard stubble, his giant grin is wide enough to make up for how neither of his bandmates weren't smiling at all.

Panel 5: An empty panel. Someone (Stef, the bassist), interrupts the playing and says, "Wait, wait, hold up. This sounds fucking awful."
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AT LONG LAST, the rest of the Tennyson boys!!! I'm so excited we're finally here. 🥹 

As an aside, if you follow me on Bluesky, you may have already seen this. Otherwise --

I made a little point-and-click mini-'game' in the spirit of 00's browser-based games where you get to look at Denver's stuff and bug him a little bit! Introducing: Denver's Junk Drawer! It's most fun if viewed on desktop and seems to work best in Chrome, but it's almost completely mobile responsive, so really, enjoy it on whatever device you prefer. (It's spoiler-free, and only has some clues as to general plot.)

A screenshot of the "DENVER LEARY'S JUNK DRAWER" website. The visible text reads, "Welcome to the junk drawer of Denver Leary!

This site is most fun if viewed on desktop.

Click around! Have fun! Maybe discover a few secrets..."

overlaid a wood background with a cassette tape and satire newspaper from a Dead Kennedys album.

Making these little multimedia toyboxes was an idea I had when trying (and failing) to fall asleep some weeks ago. It's been a blast brushing up on my CSS coding and learning new JavaScript to create this from scratch! Every Tennyson boy is going to get one of these point-and-click toyboxes, although Denver and Daniel's will the the most sprawling. Denver's will also get more stuff added to it eventually, but I needed to ship this out or I would never stop tinkering with it, haha! 

You can find a permanent link to this site (plus some other stuff) at the new Extras page.

Alright, I can't wait to kick off this scene with the band. See you next Tuesday!