Dead Hugo with his taped on wig falling off is quite a visceral image in my catalogue though obviously it is not grisly in the sense that, say, the film “Re-Animator” is grisly. But tonally this is a bit of an outlier. It’s incredibly cartoony but I don’t really like violence – ever more so as I get older – which sometimes blunts the things that might make my comics punchier. That aside I still think this page is very funny and I love Lottie’s opprobrium. Her belief in her authority was my attempt to recreate the black and white way many young people see the world. Very clear rights and wrongs.
BANANAGRAMS! My friend, the cartoonist Lizz Lunney introduced me to the game around this time and I still enjoy it, though I lack playing partners now. The clackiness of the tiles is deeply satisfying. And I know all sorts of words, EGG, CHIPS, TOOT, WAFFLE, PIG, COW, and many more. I’m a devil of a player.
As I said yesterday, this is Shelley at her sloppiest and Lottie has to become the parent, a bellwether for her too! I wish I’d explored these two as a duo in this era a bit more. Their relationship is central to both characters in my head, but we hardly ever see it.
“Pss wss wss” is of course the way a three year old imitates whispering. And the way I still do. Shelley doesn’t do a very good job of looking after Lottie at this party, does she? I thought of this scene as a bellwether for her. Her slightly dotty behaviour is reined in afterwards.
I love the first panel, with the line of action right through the five figures. But I like the whole page a lot. The body language is really clear, I can read the stakes of these interactions for everyone. I can still do this, but now I’m juggling a lot more compositional things and the really primal stuff that I used to be right on top of can get a bit lost.
I love the simple compositions in this comic. I just slapped everything on the page that needed to be there, and it works fine. When I went through this story doing the tiny fixes, I wished I could still draw like this, unencumbered by the need for everything to be “correct”, as if I’m competing with the star names of art. I couldn’t draw a page like this now. Somewhere along the way, the rules in my head changed, and arguably not for the better.
The Quantocks! I think this comic might be the last time I typed that word. None of this is very familiar to me. I’ve never been to the Quantock Hills. Maybe now’s the time. Who’s stopping me? I’m sure when I wrote this story that I had a good idea of exactly where the retreat was, and how the various authors got there. I will have got a map out, a paper road map, and traced my finger along it. Today alas, my modus opeandi in 2011 is utterly opaque.
Black Metal Simon was a powerful (if seldom seen) figure, who did have a slight return (or in real terms, an introduction) in Shelley’s first Giant Days appearance.
Shelley’s Maserati Granturismo (is this right?) was suggested by a reader when I asked what kind of fancy roller skate she should drive. But that was 15 years ago! A 2010 Granturismo will now set you back about £20000, meaning that with careful long-term budgeting or irresponsible acquisition of credit, we can all buy one (I am sure the insurance and servicing are very cheap). See you at the car house!*
* Is this what where you buy cars is called?
Shelley’s agent Barry was named after a friend’s agent, who would also hold retreats for his authors. The similarity ends there. I’ve never been allowed to retreat anywhere. This whole story is based entirely on my wild imaginings.
