Chapter: Hull Or High Water

S I L E N C I O

I decided that spectral Cathey would just be her Memoji-type entity from the phone screen in the previous chapter. This is what the Metaverse will be like, see you there, what a delight.

Still ill. I think it helped with the following sequence. I was a sick man, in a sick land. Same old quicksand taking me under!

I was still ill when I drew this. And when I turned my Cintiq on that morning, well, it didn’t turn on, for after being on hand for about 900 pages. It had died, a loyal soldier. I had to dig out a small and ancient back-up to make this page and despite the headwinds, as is so often the case, I raised my game and brought you the GRABBO machine. No charge, friends. No charge.

A Scoville brand smart watch! Very niche. Some of you may be aware of Paul Scoville, the CTO of Fishman Industries. Those that aren’t, well, you’re not really missing out.

NO YOU ARE MISSING OUT I LIED

I was still ill when i drew this, but fortunately I’d worked it all out when I was writing it. All I had to do was spend the morning at a buffet. So many new friends to meet there.

Ferry fans will perhaps detect that in my cinematic universe, the nationalised Sealink run the ferries just like old times in Britane. No P&O for this “time” “”line”” ho ho. P&NO!!

We’ve now entered a sequence of pages I “drew ill”. This was the worst day. I held it together through the shivering and rivers of snot and quality didn’t suffer too badly. I wore my bathrobe over my clothes and tucked a hot water bottle down the front. You might ask, John, why did you not just go and watch an old film on the sofa? I found myself asking the same thing quite quickly. But sometimes it helps to have a distraction.

I’m very sorry to announce that Dean is not going to be on the boat. In the original draft of the script, he was. The poor fellow was ejected overboard on the first morning of writing week. I needed the pages for something else and I’m not sorry. Lottie’s flash-forward shows you the future that almost was.

While you may believe I have a natural feel for ferry terminals, actually I had to watch a lot of videos about arrival at Hull docks to capture this authentic patina. Where do the cars queue up? What happens when they do? How do they drive onto the boat? What time to do the ferries run? Can you observe this behaviour from a multi-storey car park? Some people just make this stuff up you know. Fearing the fine tooth comb of my most engaged readers, I dare not.