Picture series change the way stories do when they are retold — a word at a time, until the heroine is someone else. A frame is made in one week, another a month later, and by the third month the woman in the first frame is a stranger to the woman in the latest one. The cause is rarely the rendering; it is the re-writing. She was composed from memory at every job, and memory edits a little each time it is asked. A card written once and pasted every time keeps its wording.
Five lines that never change
Age and build. One number, one build, stated plainly. Hair. Colour, length and the way it is worn. Face. Skin tone, features and expression. Signature. One small repeatable detail. Wardrobe register. The fabrics and cuts the series lives in. Everything else — the desk, the window, the hour — belongs to the line for this page, beneath the card.
The habit that holds a series together
Paste the card, write the page, judge the result against the card, and file the scores with the set. It is unglamorous work, and it is the entire difference between a set that reads as one woman and a folder that reads as a crowd.