The Blind Eye

There’s a lot to read between the lines as we start our next segment with a letter from an as yet anonymous writer…PAY ATTENTION and get ready for big things.

The Blind Eye Chapter One - Screen 17

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Let’s discuss the setting of The Blind Eye.  Amanda and I are both lifelong Alabamians of the Gulf Coast variety, so we’ve been through more than our share of hurricanes…but nothing like Katrina.  Sure, we’d been through the uprooted trees and missing shingles and even weeks without electricity.  None of that compares to what happened just west of us on August 29, 2005.  New Orleans is a 2-hour drive from our homes near Mobile, so it’s a frequent weekend getaway, as is Mississippi’s Casino Coast.  To see those familiar areas and their associated landmarks devastated and transformed the way they were by that storm, well, it was unforgettable…life-altering in fact.

Canal Street in New Orleans Post-Katrina

I weathered Katrina alone in my then home west of Mobile and was never in real danger, thankfully.  However, the sheer fury of the winds was such that I watched the siding and roofing stripped from my house and those of my neighbors.  For those who’ve never been through an actual hurricane, the damnable thing of it is that it lasts for hours and hours as it crawls slowly over land, meaning the winds and rain just keep belting out the damage without relenting.  And when it gets dark and the storm is still blasting away, one’s imagination takes over in terms of the impending danger.  Most of my nightmares today are still set in that house on that night in that hellish storm.  And I didn’t have any storm surge or flooding of any sort to deal with.

As I began to formulate the foundation of the story for The Blind Eye, the autobiographical (yes, it’s true…) nature of the characters’ motivations just naturally led me to see them in an environment devastated by a hurricane – the setting of my own nightmares.  Port Typhon is the New Orleans of the weeks just after Katrina, except no pumps or levees were EVER repaired, and the government just ultimately wrote off the entire place.  Once I’d committed to this type of environment for the characters, the obvious story elements that the city itself would offer became apparent.  It shaped the character designs, especially those of Great White and the Garbage Men that he hunts, and it dictated the abilities they would need to survive in a submerged city….

The Undertown District of Port Typhon in The Blind Eye

It then occurred to me that the submerged portion of the city, when repopulated, would invite wholly different subsets of denizens than those who fled.  The death-soaked waters in the streets would effectively become moats hiding monsters and protecting tyrants in their damaged skyscraper castles.  All sorts of criminal ilk would be drawn to such a place – foreign drug cartels, terrorists domestic and international, etc.  And those few citizens blindly loyal to their homes, they would stay and adapt, but they would need protection from the evil interlopers, protection that would only come from a few bold enough to take on the powers-that-would-be.  And that’s where the masked crimefighters of The Blind Eye come in – you’ll meet them all in the coming weeks, so I won’t spoil anything more here.

I hope that Port Typhon and, in particular, Undertown become characters with nearly the feeling of the human players themselves.  The submerged and devastated city is an essential part of the cast which simultaneously both expands and limits the choices of its inhabitants because of its distinctiveness.  Our heroes and villains can leap from higher windows, can disappear beneath the fluid streets, must contend with gators during a routine patrol.  It’s a setting rife with opportunities for danger and heroics and storytelling.  Rack up the frequent flyer miles as you visit.

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The Blind Eye Chapter One - Screen 16

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The Blind Eye Chapter One - Screen 15

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When I made the decision to set The Blind Eye in a flooded urban environment, I knew I wanted an aquatic character to feature in the story – an underwater protagonist to patrol the dark depths of Port Typhon.  As I developed the backstory for this character, his persona, both in and out of costume, took on attributes of philanthropy and ambitious optimism.  Without giving away story elements that I want you to experience within the context and flow of the comic itself, suffice it to say that the driving motivation for this character became hope – for himself, his allies and loved ones, and for his city.  It was a short reach from there to produce the name Great White.  Great. White. Hope.  Get it?

Good.

So, Great White was born.  We had a name.  We had a personality and a set of motivations.  Hell, by that time, I’d even established his relationships with the other characters (stay tuned for those revelations…).  In terms of actual time, we’re talking about May and June of 2009 here.  What we didn’t yet have was a look.  I knew I wanted him to be sleek, streamlined and aquadynamic.  I just fabricated that word…go with it.  The process of actually creating that look was not as simple as just telling Amanda what I wanted and having it appear on the page, however.  We’d created together long enough by that point that most images could go from my brain to her pencil with some measure of liquidity.  Great White, though…he was a special case.

A brainstorming session to throw down concepts for him produced a…ahem….variety of different looks.  Basically, we were going for a sleek, almost ninja-style bodysuit adapted for underwater movement, all beneath a shark-themed helmet.  There were – obvious – difficulties securing the right shape of the mask/helmet and dealing with the mouth.  Even I sketched a potential shape for the mask in an effort to spit out the elusive picture of the character that was doing backstrokes in my brain.  It looked like a dolphin in one of those Hitchcock silhouettes!  Believe it or not, though, that was one of two things that got us moving in the right direction.

The other factor was the epiphany I had for positioning the teeth.  I can’t tell you what gave me the idea, other than that I did not want Great White to have a mouth on the helmet – I decided he should have a solid facemask, again somewhat ninja-like, but we did want to include the teeth in the design.  So, I proposed arranging the upper teeth beneath the chin of the mask and placing the lower mandible and its larger teeth on his chest plate.  Amanda completely got what I was talking about, and the resulting effect created a menacing look that included the illusion of a mouth in motion with variable positioning and movement of the character’s head in relation to his torso.  Beautiful.  Wicked.  Spot-on.  We’re happy with each of our designs, but none has gotten more widespread praise than Great White.  Scan through the gallery below – it’s basically a timeline of concepts and finished art for Great White, and the images and associated captions tell the tale, and let us know what you think!

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The Blind Eye Chapter One - Screen 14

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Effective immediately with Screen 13, all updates of The Blind Eye will be posted in smaller format to the Blog, making them also available via our RSS Feed!  Just subscribe, and have the updates delivered directly to YOU!

Also, we modified how the screens are loaded in the Viewer, so in the smaller, browse-able size, the text is in better resolution so that it can be more easily read.  Of course, just go wide-screen and zoom to see the screens in their full-size glory – we just wanted maximum legibility in both formats!

Our mission is to conveniently provide you with a beautiful piece of art with optimally legible lettering!  These few simple changes will go a long way toward achieving and maintaining those goals!  Let us know how we’re doing and any specific suggestions you have for making The Blind Eye even better!

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Screen 13 is posted!  What happened to Mr. Johnson after being caught between the monster and the shark?  Go read it to find out!  We’re on the road home today, so it’s back to the routine!  We’re already looking forward to HeroesCon in June!  ALSO:  Note that, beginning today, each screen update for The Blind Eye will be included in smaller, but easily legible, form in the accompanying Blog post, so each update will now appear in the RSS feed!  Please let us know other suggestions for improving our service to you!

The Blind Eye Chapter One - Screen 13

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Well, MegaCon Sunday has come and gone - and let’s just say it was a frantic weekend well worth the time, travel and work!  We made a lot of new friends and learned a lot of lessons about promoting The Blind Eye for future conventions.  Amanda spent much of the convention working on commissions, and we have pictures of all of them in the MegaCon Blog entries.  Some clearer scans of a few will also be available on her DeviantArt page, so check’em out there!  Today, I took in a Sunday conversation panel with DC Comics Co-Publisher Dan DiDio!  Dan is such an engaging and funny guy – it’s really admirable the way he interacts with the fans in these panels to gauge how they feel about various aspects of the DCU and provides thoughtful, honest feedback, always with an eye to the fan perspective.  I always read transcripts of these panels  on a few comics news sites, so it was a lot of fun actually being there for one!

Looking back on MegaCon 2010, a few things really stand out:  1. Funniest moment:  we offered a promotional card for our Clown Town horror comic for Small Press Idol 2010 to a fan walking by, and he immediately threw it back to the table, exclaiming, “Clowns freak me out!”  2. We needed merch to sell – Con-goers want stuff to take home – SO:  look for an exclusive Great White print and some other swag at HeroesCon in June!  3. Comic fans, regardless of genre, are some of the most thoughtful, kind people you’ll ever meet – EVERYONE was so nice and fun to get to know!  4.  The most common complaint about web comics:  absence of updates.  Fear not!  We have three months of fully completed material in the can, so we WILL be on schedule!  5. Fans LOVE Amanda’s spontaneous sketches and commissioned pieces – she was drawing frantically – and beautifully – almost to the very moment the Con closed!

We’ll continue to expound on our truly terrific MegaCon experience over the next few days and weeks, but be sure to check out our pictures for Day 3 below!  There were a few gems we missed when without the camera for a few moments – my favorite of which was a conga line of Tetris pieces bounding through the aisles, only to be accosted by one clever fan who yelled, “Damn you, L-shaped Tetris piece!  Damn you to Hell!”  Simply.  Classic.  Enjoy the pics and let us know what you think!

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