#24 - weasel envy (05-97) 



although i did not know it at the time, #24 was exactly the midpoint of the original run of sparrow's fall. the plan had been, of course, to run it a year and then kill christopher; i think it's safe to say that right now that idea was not very pressing in my mind. #24 also proved the best sparrow's fall drawn up to this time. the backgrounds were almost acceptable, the characters almost consistent, the dialogue not awful. in a few panels i still fiddled with putting text over wash background, notably the third panel on the first page; and overall it is difficult to read at 72 dpi screen resolution . . . but on paper, it isn't bad at all. i was happy with it.

it begins with a reference to the previous comic, then hurtles on into the usual mania after a brief attack on NationsBank, which i recently abandoned becaused it sucked. another catty zing at the friends who never called and who ignored my existence whenever possible, and we launched a discussion on otters in therapy. i generally give isms short shrift, and shorter shrift to support groups, reading groups, and pricipled attacks on western civilization. this was all way, way pre-9-11, of course, so the whacks people took at the Dead White Male were pretty innocent and untainted by association with darker movements. so it seems pretty silly for chirp to discuss his otterist reading group.

in the middle of the second page, the lack of precise borders again betrays me, and even i can guess it, because i have to resort to arrows to indicate panel order. people often complained--and by often i mean a handful of times--that they had trouble deciding in what order to read the panels. i didn't take many lessons from these complaints, except for attempts to make the text deliberately vague in impossible situations so that it could be read in a couple of different ways. pretty wimpy, if you ask me. even now i sometimes have trouble with that.

one of the things i have always taken care with is drawing realistic (as best i could) local backgrounds. the story is unmistakably set in kansas city; often extras in the background are locals, the businesses and buildings are the business and buildings i see every day. the story may be fantasy, but i want the reader to understand that the world is their own, that at the next table, there really might be an otter and a cat talking about empowerment psychotherapy. i honestly love kansas city, and don't wish to live anywhere else. i truly believe that something important is happening here in the independent comics world and in the arts community in general. something big.

or maybe i'm just crazy.

note those pesky floating arrow-cards, and the narration inside and above the ATM screen. bad, bad instrusions! no biscuit!

broadway café no longer serves turkey lavoshes. a pity. they were pretty good.






 

Posted: Tue - April 20, 2004 at 07:03 AM             |

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