Monday, October 6, 2014

Entry 249: Amnia Cycle pages 72 & 73

Chapter 3
Chapter 4

Zoohurst!

For a long time this scene looked different in my mind. It looked and felt like things I've seen before in other comics. It looked and felt like a kind of Moebius version of a person travailing across an alien world to an alien city. The images start creating themselves in my mind so easily. It would have been so easy to do it that way. But the idea of it made me bored. This couldn't be boring. 

One day my daughter was making a giraffe out of blocks. I asked her what she was building. She told me it was a building. I said, "It looks like a giraffe." And she told me "No. It's a building." And I realized, holy shit, she's right! What am I? An idiot. It's a building! It was an amazing building. A pretty lame giraffe, but an amazing building. Thus, Zoohurst was born.

Another thing I wanted to capture here was not the feeling of an alien world, but instead a familiar world. To me, it's super exciting to arrive in a city. When you are driving on the highway and the traffic starts getting thick. You know that you are getting close to a center of activity. Then you go around a bend in the road or you come over a hill and suddenly you see the buildings off in the distance. I get excited every time… I wanted that. 

I hope you are ready to explore Zoohurst with me!

Blogged and blogged

4 comments:

  1. So awesome! Your daughter is a genius!! :D Great idea to include it in your comic!

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    1. I've become a big believer that having a kid is a really positive thing for a creative person. It's like having access to a whole different thought process, one that isn't weighed down with bullshit. I've gotten a lot of inspiration from my kid.
      And thank you for the comment

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  2. Wow, this was unexpected. You took the visual pun form the earlier installment to the next level!

    I couldn't agree more with what you have to say about preconceived scenes- SO many artists fall into the trap of drawing and writing things a certain way because "that's how it's done." Even (or especially) "cool" scenes carry on these preconceptions and it's boring, boring boring. This isn't boring. Actually, something about it is even a little horrifying. You've got familiar imagery in a very unfamiliar context- which makes it even more alien to me. This kind of imagery carries a lot of symbolic power- I hope you get to explore some of that in your story.

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    1. Yes. The strangeness of seeing the familiar in an unfamiliar context is exactly what I'm going for.
      I'm glad you like it.
      I was actually afraid that the dog building, along with the sign that said "Zoohurst 80 kms", would give away what I was planning with this city.
      We will be getting to spend a good amount of time with this city. Obviously, I'm not sure how much, but right now it's looking like Zoohurst will be the location hub for a lot of the story going forward. I'm looking forward to exploring it in any ways I can.

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