Forty-six
THE GIANT DAYS SELF-PUBLISHED ARCHIVE IS BACK UP!
FROM GIANT DAYS #2
One of the most controversial, and defining, scenes of Giant Days #2 was when Esther cheats on Eustace, or “The Boy”. At least, I think it was controversial. There were no comments under the comic in those days so I had, most days, no idea what anybody thought. Innocent times! Confusing times.
The second self-published Giant Days comic, which was drawn two and a half years after the first, refines the idea of the series a little. A break from the Scary Go Round “lore” seemed important at the time, which meant The Boy had to go. Esther was always a little mercurial, and there are noises in the final Scary Go Round comics where it’s clear that she isn’t going to hold on to things too tight. So it was just about in-character, but I thought of it as a watershed for her too, a low point personally that she would work hard not to repeat. Steve Shields is horrible, too, she’s pulling an emergency brake here.
It’s crazy to think that the Giant Days idea was basically dead when I dug out a couple of pages of a second issue I’d started in 2010, and made this second one. I’d sent the first issue to Oni Press (who had agreed to publish Bad Machinery) as a proof of concept, and received no response at all. But as I have learned throughout my career, comics publishers ghosting you is just their way of keeping your mental health in tippity-top shape. After I sold a shedload of Giant Days #1 at conventions, I decided that maybe I should have a little faith in my instincts. BELIEVE!
I’ve never been bothered by protagonists doing bad things in the way that most people are, I don’t think.
Unless it’s something that the author thinks is an acceptable thing to do that I don’t, like… dangling a criminal off the roof of a building just to extract information from him! That is basically torture, and should be beyond the pale for a costume crimefighter.
Is it okay if the author has the costumed crimefighter dangle the author off the building?
Too meta! TOO META!!
One of the things I’ve always appreciated about your work John is your willingness to have have you characters behave in a believable manner. Couples staying together when they go to Uni and breaking up in the first semester is an all too real scenario, much more likely than them staying together. It made Esther seem even more real.
Esther really disappointed me here. Not so much because she cheated on The Boy, as because she cheated on him with that trucker-hat-wearing douchecanoe. Seriously, Esther, standards.
Listen, whomst amongst us had standards at 18? Especially sexual/romantic standards? This was the most real Esther had ever been.
Agreed. Many folks’ standards at that age can lean solely toward surface attractiveness. And Steve is a good-looking trucker-hat-wearing douchecanoe.
A lot of times, things like this will come across as pure author fiat, not a logical course of actions that the characters would take. But in this case… it did feel like something Esther would do in that moment. Maybe not under other circumstances, but in this instance, it felt plausible, at least. Not an easy thing to pull off, but I think you did it.
(Of course, it also (eventually) led to The Boy/Eustace/Jacxon ending up with Erin, which… I’ll admit I like better than him and Esther. Nothing against Esther, and their getting together also felt like a natural progression of events at the time, but I like him and Erin more is all.)
(So, yeah, Esther and The Boy getting together felt as natural as them breaking up, where a lot of writers would fumble one or the other, if not both. But then, you seem to have a way of making the characters feel like actual people, even when they’re dealing with goblins and demon bears and time travelers.)
This made me sad, but it is VERY first term at university. Those A level/degree bridging relationships are cursed.
Deary me, Slag Pit – sounds like a classy joint.