i am not your superstar

So as mentioned this is the graphic novel I am going to do next, starting with four or five pages I drew in 2003. I can't remember if I showed you these panels. I figure it will probably not be called I am not your superstar which is the title I originally gave it, although I'll decide later about that (I was planning to call my second one Camouflage or perhaps Bricolage (I looked up bricolage in wiktionary, actually looking to check the spelling because I wasn't 100% certain of that, but I saw that it said 'see trash fire', so that kind of led me more in that direction...). 

The top half is good, the bottom half is abandoned - I photocopied this page, cut it in half and continued it in a different direction. 

I'm really looking forward to working on this, I have a whole new cast of characters for the present-day stuff (the woman is the only important character in the above as far as I'm aware, although the guy with a bull on his shirt, Dominic, might play a pivotal role in the story as I'm formulating it, but let me tell you, 17 years later he hasn't aged well). 

In the 2003 pages she is referred to as Desiree but I have decided that is too much. But with people you have to think not 'what sums them up' so much as 'how did their parents sum them up with precisely nothing to go on', so at the moment I am calling her Posey but I think that might change. l guess she is a bit over 40 right now, which means she was born in about 1978, makes sense, she was 25 in the 2003 pages, now she is a very high-ranking public servant with a daughter aged about 15. That's as far as I've got so far. It feels very promising though, I hope you agree. I am going to do this one in colour. 

Re: her name I actually wanted to call her Monica which would have been perfect but that would be pretty unfair on Monika Fikerle who deserves better! 

unknown new old project

Having more or less finished my debut graphic novel I feel like I might be on a roll and I am kind of inspired to do another. I started one in, I think, 2006* which probably needs resolution. I only did the first chapter (hmm - vague memories of starting up a chapter 2). I published this as a little comic book (maybe ten copies?)** with another unfinished story, but whether my plan was to work them both up into full-length works I don't remember (I actually think not - the sub-story was probably only going to have three or four instalments). I have to say that looking at these pages (some of the originals have been shredded in storage, by the way, which is kind of bizarre, but I think I have photocopies of everything) I must say my drawing was considerably better 15 years ago compared to now. 

I really didn't know where I was going with this story, though I was definitely pushing the envelope in a few directions, many of them possibly even unresolvable. The two main characters were both immensely unlikeable: this semi-naked man, Julian, who is kind of a hippy but/and also a thoroughly unself-aware misognynist, who can't come to terms with anything about his own awful perspective both on the two women he lives with and his son. The woman above who loves him completely one-sidedly, is basically vacuous. I have to say that looking at this now - whether the work itself reveals this or it just brings it back for me - I was 'not in a good place' in 2006.

There was also a sub-plot about the son's friend who is seemingly abducted with the inference that he is murdered, and I remember thinking I didn't really know if that was going to be the case or not, and torn between what you can't do in a comic and what is a cliche. If I pick this up and start again, I will have to make sense of those issues. 

For Persiflage, I was really keen to rule all the frames and then draw around them for a fairly regulated but slightly organic feel. In this instance, clearly I didn't give a loose root about the frame shape and I was relying on feel. I don't know how I feel about that now but if I want to use these pages as is then I will have to stick to that format I guess. 

I do like the challenge of picking up something I started when I was 40 or so and seeing it to conclusion. I think I might have a better handle on how to guide a narrative now (I know that's arrogant, I'm really a beginner, but whatever, it's not my day job or anything, I can just dabble in this stuff for my own amusement, right? Right). 

*Probably 2007, as I discuss it briefly here

** Possibly more because I recall giving it two different titles, neither of which seemed adequate, and drawing two different front covers, although that said whether I printed copies of both I don't remember at all. 

I'm a regular Ub Iwerks

I have written my graphic novel script far in advance of what I've drawn, so tonight I conjured up the characters I've had in mind for some time now. Artur is the kind of apprentice tape op in the studio where we see Sherman making his 'serious' album in the 70s, the one where the Eagles are scheduled to come in and do harmonies the way they did for Randy Newman on Little Criminals. Steve is the producer. Amber and Aspic are Sherman and Grace's daughters, though tbh I'm not sure if we'll ever see them as adults. Piotr is the Polish narrator who describes all episodes of The Rest of Quiglet to Polish television viewers, who Elyse interviews for her PhD. I hope you got all that, but if you didn't, it's written down here so you can refer to it whenever.