This is a fairly simple page, but I really like how it captures the mundane: a busy bar on a rainy night. There’s a lot of importance to this page; it’s the title drop, of course, but it’s also the start of some of the deepest (implied) backstory we get to our title character so far in the series (the writing––and holding back––of which, I write about more on the notes for this page).
The line art from this page. Click image for a larger look.
What I like most about it is that I feel the atmosphere of a warm, lively, but welcoming room is captured pretty well in the first two panels, something that needed to be nailed after the very menacingtoneofthepreviousscene.
Fun fact: the two folks in the extreme foreground of the second panel are the same drunk buddies seen walking around Lundy at the beginning of chapter two.
The two laughing friends in the foreground of the second panel are seen at the beginning of Chapter two walking around Lundy while a bit intoxicated as well.
Early in the development of Chapter 1, there were a few strict visual symbols I made sure to regularly work in to the book because they represented something important to the character of Long John. At least, important to how I understood him at that time. In many shots of the first two chapters, for example, Long John is framed between two strong verticals, representing how trapped he is in his own mind and past.
Obviously, as the work went forward and became more concrete and the story more detailed and the characters more nuanced, the abstract and, ultimately, uninformed ideas floated away for a more subtle approach to theme and storytelling.
The line art for this page.
Chapters 2 and 3 are really two parts of the same story, and knowing how much time it takes to make one of these books, the end of Chapter 3 had a long runway for planning. Of course, I knew what would happen in terms of plot, but the realization that Chapter 3 would literally end where Chapter 2 began––at Lady May’s storefront––and do so with the main character in a very different place than before felt almost poetic and classic (in the sense of a chiastic or ring narrative structure found as far back as Homer’s work in The Iliad and The Odyssey) and made the two chapter arc feel much more complete and literary than before. So, of course, I couldn’t help myself to try to have the story––once it hit a thematic middle point––move in reverse order while still moving the plot forward. That’s what two English degrees gets you, I guess.
So I formatted this page to broadly mirror the last time May went out back to find Long John waiting for her in the dark. Doing that––and being the English nerd that I am––really made this part of the story feel like a cohesive unit to me and that this story I was telling had all the narrative and thematic weight I hoped it would have, at least with the ability I had at the time.
Chapter 2, Page 5 – “A Light in the Dark” (click image to go to the page). The chiastic “mirror” page to Chapter 3, Page 31.
While the scenario may be similar, it’s clear a lot has changed in the interim. Long John has gone from a tired, broken, confused man to a confident, angry, man with a plan, setting up the back half of the rest of the comic. So, in a lot of ways, it’s a page that I’m really proud of because of how it culminates the story of Chapters 2 & 3, but I’m also very proud of the page itself. On a superficial level, I am please with how good the page looks on its own, which––after all of this deep thought––is a nice bonus on top of it all.
Sketch Fridays #81 – Freddie Mercury (drawn in Procreate on an iPad Pro)
This week marked the 29th anniversary of Freddie Mercury’s death from AIDS. While a morbid celebration, it’s honestly a little difficult to celebrate his birthday because he and I share the same birthday (#humblebrag).
However, after consuming over the course of fourteen months––buying one a month––Queen’s catalogue, I have become much more familiar with the work of Mercury and his band. So, this time around the anniversary of his death is a bit more profound.
This started as a normal drawing––looking to draw one of my favorite rock front men in my cartoony style. But the details ended up overshadowing the pose, which although it’s a bit of a cliché Mercury pose is still a striking one.
So, I made it into a silhouette and played with textures. Boom. Done.
This is surely not the most original tribute––and I could find a more meaningful one if I put my brain into it––but I didn’t want to miss the anniversary, especially as a coda to my long trek with them over the course of 2019 and into early this year.
At the very least, the drawing pulses with energy and controlled creative chaos, which are good descriptors of Mercury himself as a lead singer, which is one of the things I like most about him. Queen is a highly documented band, with a lot of footage of them in the studio, and in those recordings we see a Freddie Mercury who is decidedly not the flamboyant peacock we know from the stage. He’s reserved, quiet, circumspect, and professional. However, it’s not a battle between a “fake” persona and the “real” Freddie, it’s just who he is in that context, using what works best to get his job done in the best manner possible. In the studio and on the stage, you can always see him thinking every step of the way.
It showed me that, no matter which Freddie you saw, he was always working, getting stuff done (which is true of everyone in the band), which was especially poignant over the course of the final two Queen albums––Innuendo and Made in Heaven––where he quite literally worked right up until the very end.
On Made in Heaven, there’s a very strange but moody song called “Mother Love.” Freddie sings the lyrics, written by guitarist Brian May, with passion and performance despite being very sick and the lyrics themselves being a bit strange (as were a lot of May’s songs). Freddie sings the first two verses, the choruses, and a bridge, but May comes in to sing the final verse. Reading up on the song, it wasn’t because that verse had any particular importance to May; it’s just that Mercury sang most of the song and they broke camp to take a rest and come back to it later. Freddie never came back.
It’s an inspiring dedication to his art and craft, and I find I’m increasingly drawn to the workmen-like musicians than I am the aloof expressionists. So, long after his death, Freddie Mercury continues to inspire and will––through the sheer power of personality, charisma, talent, and ability––be finding new fans and inspiring more artists for years to come.
