Street Saint is glad he brought his shield as Fury takes on la Calaca!
The Blind Eye Chapter One - Screen 26
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Screen 26: On a Leash!
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Screen 25: SAVED!
Street Saint to the rescue and into the line of fire!
The Blind Eye Chapter One - Screen 25
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The Process: Windows on the Soul
Okay, I know the burning question (at least one of them…) for those you that have been reading The Blind Eye: What’s the deal with eyes? Hindsight eats’em. The Blind Eye dusts’em. Guttersnipe shoots’em. And Amanda draws the hell out of’em! Eyes ARE at the heart of our story; it’s true. To avoid giving away major story elements that I want you to experience organically as our gruesome little tale unfolds, I have to be pretty limited in what I discuss about the role of eyes. However, let me get into the subject to the extent that eyes have impacted the plot thus far.
Hindsight Loves Eyes!
Rest assured that Hindsight does not simply take and consume the eyes of his victims as random organs, nor were eyes chosen as the target of so many by your humble writer just to make you cringe. For the vast majority of us, eyesight is how we primarily experience our world. I venture to guess that, put to a forced choice, almost every one of us would forfeit EACH of our other senses if allowed to just keep our vision. Now that’s value.
Headliner Loses an Eye!
Vision gives us our most poignant memories – good, bad and in-between. It’s these lingering internal images that begin on our retinas and then travel with us throughout the rest of our lives. The blurry lights and reflected surfaces of Christmas morning. That perfect girl on the lunch wave that no doubt looked a lot prettier than she acted. Your blood-streaked Mom trapped beneath a heaving, steaming wreck of a truck. The once-cherished, now-resented beauty of an ex-wife on a teenage wedding day. These emotion-stained photonic data-turned-dendritic structures set the foundation for so much of what we do – or can’t do – and who we are. Most we cherish. Many we just want to erase a la Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (if you don’t know this movie, SEE IT NOW).
The Blind Eye's Blinding Dust!
It’s the simple importance of the eye in our lives that led me to make the little sensor receptor such a critical device in The Blind Eye. When Hindsight sucks down Garbage Man Johnson’s eyeball like a pickled egg in some dirt road dive, know that it’s more than aqueous humor with a floating lens that he’s ingesting. When Guttersnipe pops a cap into a socket that had a juicy little orb in it a second ago, she was initially aiming to destroy more than just the tissue. And when The Blind Eye casts his blinding dust into the lids of a target, he has a rationale beyond combat advantage (although that’s not a bad reason, either…). Eyes have surplus value. They represent something more. As for Amanda’s motivation for drawing all of the ocular carnage I’ve laid out for her…well…that’s just exposure therapy. My psychology degrees at work…
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Screen 24: Fighting Fury!
The introduction of Street Saint and Flaxen Fury continues in the most action-packed way!
The Blind Eye Chapter One - Screen 24
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Screen 23: Here They Come!
The parade of pivotal characters continues! Saint & Fury in all-out action!
The Blind Eye Chapter One - Screen 23
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The Process: Breathing Life
The characters featured in The Blind Eye were developed based on generic archetypes that coalesced within the structure of the original story idea. Clearly, I needed something more specific, more…integrated… than “noble-but-disillusioned-former-partner-of-The-Blind-Eye-who-now-partners-with-The-Blind-Eye’s-ex.” Because The Blind Eye is a story about masked vigilantes, a certain iconography must be respected. Thus, I had to come up with a costume, a codename and abilities that qualified “disillusioned-former-partner” as a legitimate hero.
Street Saint - Early Headshots
Where to start? Well, I consider the basics for what I need this character to do on a practical level, since I know his role in the overall story. The masks in The Blind Eye are decidedly street level, so no super powers for “disillusioned.” And I figure he copes with his disillusionment by taking it out on the bad guys and with weapons…violently. Now, here’s where that noble part comes into play. Let’s see: weapons + noble = knight. Sword! Lots of those hanging around a flood-devastated urban wasteland, eh? Err…no. I need a congruent analogue. Baseball bat! Oh yeah, and I can solidify the urban knight aesthetic with a shield. Analogue, please? RIOT shield! Lovin’ it.
Street Saint - Working Concept
Okay, so “disillusioned” has his baseball bat and riot shield, and I’m very happy with those accoutrements. They just have to mesh with whatever costume theme I conjure up. Another bastardized idea from the round table? Nah. Let’s go with Knights Templar! Our guy is disillusioned, remember? He’s looking to regain faith in something, and faith, by definition, constitutes belief in some other power. “Disillusioned” wants to become “enlightened.” He’s on a mission from God, the Christian one given Port Typhon’s location deep within the American Bible Belt. How to represent that symbolically on the costume? Priest collar. Massive gold cross to make Mr. T jealous. Rosary beads around the bat handle. Throw in a touch of street style with a black skull cap and wicked shades and just a dash of medieval knight with a tabard, and “disillusioned” stands before me with all but a name.
That one is tougher to explain. It just came to me, and quickly. Street Saint. It covers both sides of his iconography. It’s alliterative. It just works. You’ll meet Street Saint and his partner for the first time in Screen 23. They’re major players in the story of The Blind Eye, and I think they’ll grow on you quickly, just as they have on Amanda and I.
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Screen 22: New Blood
You’ve already met a few of the power factions in Undertown – Great White, The Garbage Men, Guttersnipe, The Blind Eye and Newsmaker. Now, say, ‘Buenos dios’ to La Trinidad, a truly loathesome sect that…awwww…you’ll see… Keep reading!
The Blind Eye Chapter One - Screen 22
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The Process: Clown Town
- Our 1st Rough Cover for Clown Town
Amanda, Caesar and I are hard at work on Clown Town pages, since the 12-page story is GUARANTEED to see print, having reached Round 2! Right now, it’s the 4-page sequence required for Round 3 that we’re focused on. Hey, prepare for the best case, right? We’re working the votes, exhausting all avenues to make this happen! Unfortunately, there’s not much we can reveal about these (we think) gorgeous pages on which we’re slaving away, so I’m gonna share with you our process for putting together the rough covers that we submitted for Round 1, including the updated version we posted on our Round 1 thread!
After the story concept for Clown Town began congealing in my brain (oh, picture that…), Amanda and I began tossing around ideas for the cover, since it was ALL we needed for Round 1 besides the pitch. We learned about Small Press Idol 2010 somewhat near the opening submission date, so time was a bit of an issue. I was still working out the abilities and gimmicks of each of the clowns to appear in the story, but I already knew there would be one on telescoping stilts. Thus, Stilts was born, and his seminal image was seen from a perspective near the ground peering up at him towering above and clutching a struggling, inverted victim by the leg. In my original vision, Stilts tipped his own hat in a congenial taunt to the reader that was dismissive of his captive’s panic as the latter was apparently being lowered onto the spiked apex of a mini-umbrella wielded by a much smaller clown below.
- Our 2nd Rough Cover for Clown Town
Over a cool weekend not far from the Gulf of Mexico, we toyed with a few thumbnail sketches but could never get the angles and positioning quite to our satisfaction. So, we did the natural thing: we went for a few rounds of pool at the local bowling alley – our version of “roughing it” – it was like visiting a trailer park without all the danger of a meth lab explosion! After a rousing bout of ::koff::domination::koff:: by yours truly, the fog seemed to lift, and we soon found our way to a corner of the busiest Starbucks in southern Alabama. The image that we submitted as the rough cover was conceived during that hot chocolate and humongoid cinnamon roll indulgence. Oddly, Amanda draws nearly everything of any sort on her Cintiq, but this piece came together so well, and after so many efforts, on paper that I think we were happy just to rely on the scanner. Amanda digitally inked portions of that rough sketch, and we went with it when we submitted for Round 1.
Unfortunately, what we interpreted as “rough” for the cover submission was clearly TOO rough based on the feedback received during Round 1. Fortunately, the SPI Judges saw Amanda’s talent clearly even through the unfinished piece they had to go by (and despite my unwieldy pitch) and dished out unanimous Yes votes to move us on to Round 2! RELIEF! A chance to improve upon an already-evaluated work is truly rare, but we got just that with the opportunity to re-work the rough cover (and the pitch, but that’s another blog…).
Kevin - Modeled Pose for Clown Town Rough Cover
So, the first decision was to preserve what worked and to ditch what didn’t. What didn’t was the small clown and his umbrella. I wanted Stilts’ victim to be in some imminent danger other than just dangling by his leg from the grip of a tall clown (WHACKY!). However, removing the sharp umbrella consequently removed that element of danger. Amanda swiftly – and a little disturbingly – conjured up the notion of having the hat present the needed danger by showing it eager to consume the victim as Stilts waved it before him. A carnivorous hat! Why didn’t I think of that? (pssst…it’s because I’m not off my friggin’ rocker like Amanda…) Thus, the focus of the image tightened to the leering, gesturing clown and his tongue-wagging chapeau contrasted with the flailing, fearful victim who ended up remaining fairly generic because, at the time, the actual character he represents was not fully designed
In the process, the angle at which Stilts and victim were viewed changed, and Amanda asked me to model the pose we’d discussed for Stilts in order to solidify it. An empty wrapping paper tube become the victim’s leg, and my old Colts hat (BOOOOO, Saints!) became the flesh-hungry top hat (if only it were munching on Drew Brees…grrrr….). Amanda spent her fair share of hours locking down the second rough cover with the new parameters, and it is a thing of horrific beauty, at least to us evil clown lovers. Wait’ll you see it with Stitches updated to fully reflect his final design as seen in this thread and the actual victim drawn in, all in full, glorious color beneath our logo! All you have to do is vote us into Round 4! Let’s make it happen!
To vote, visit: http://www.smallpressidol.com/forum/topicview/misc/825.htm
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Screen 21: Newsmaker!
Ah, a screen just filled with meaty back-story goodness…
The Blind Eye Chapter One - Screen 21
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Small Press Idol 2010!
Amanda, Caesar Garcia and I are taking part in Small Press Idol 2010 with our comic, Clown Town! We already cleared Round 1 of the competition with our rough cover sketch and story pitch:“The circus has come to Dusty Gulch, Kentucky, and now children are vanishing. A body count of parents and caretakers skyrockets in the wake of these disappearances, as does the roll of dead victimizers of children – those known to abuse and neglect. Panic soon grips the remaining townspeople, and reports of clowns at the abduction sites lead a few desperate citizens to the circus for answers. Led by El Goro, a retired rodeo clown with more than a few tricks up his sleeve, these unlikely defenders include a down-and-out single mom and her daughter, a reformed alcoholic who lost custody of his own children, and a moonlighting birthday party buffoon whose customer base is quickly dwindling. They must conquer that primal fear of clowns that all humans seem to share in order to live long enough to learn a way to stop them. All the while, the question remains – are the imbalanced clowns avenging spirits for innocent children…or simply face-painted monsters wantonly murdering for their own amusement?”
So, NOW we’re starting Round 2, which involves character bios and designs (6 designs for each character featured)! The difference between Rounds 1 and 2 is that our fate is partially up to VOTES from fans – the other 50% comes from the 3-judge panel at Small Press Idol. We need YOU to sign up for a free (and SPAM-free) account at the Small Press Idol website and vote for us once per day – EVERY DAY – from now until April 30!
Also become a fan of our Clown Town facebook fan page and follow our progress and get daily reminders to vote!
To see the full array of Clown Town imagesand actually learn something about the characters, check out all the character bios and designs at our Small Press Idol thread!
And, don’t worry, The Blind Eye will continue twice weekly publication! Clown Town is an extra project – not a replacement!
- Clown Town – Rough Cover
