Murray Sepulveda

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Notes: For reference, the population of the Haquel metropolitan area is about 9 million, whereas less than 2,000 residents enjoy (or endure, in the case of Irv and Lena) the slow life in Miya Bay. Although Haquel isn’t particularly notorious for its violent crime rate, Wayne both enjoys it as an element of impressive mystique for these two small town teens, and is alarmed by the thought of actual involvement.

What Wayne is involved in is music, particularly residing near the Timekeepers’ District in South Haquel, which is one of the historically famous districts for music. And indeed, his apprenticeship at the henchberry orchard had as much to do with his training as a drummer as it did with learning to cultivate this controversial crop – but there will be much more about all that later on.

In the meantime, he’s watching a big rig roll into the station – which, for me, provided a good opportunity to buy a toy truck for reference.

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Notes: It looks as though Wayne and this trucker already know each other from Haquel – what a coincidence that they should meet up here, thousands of miles away on the northeast coast of Ruma. In any case, it’s looking like a fortuitous meeting, as they both happen to be headed in the same direction – south to Eunil.

Frozen beef is the cargo on this rig – plus a brief mention of something “diff’rent” (hat tip to Arnold, Willis and Mr. Drummond for inspiring the bold use of an apostrophe). As will soon become apparent, Murray Sepulveda has a taste for luxury. And as should be immediately apparent, he has a preference for bold wardrobe choices. How many artists get to draw chaps repeatedly? That right there puts me in very exclusive company, I guess – not that anyone has reached out to me to bond over it or anything.

One thing’s for sure – the toy truck I got for reference was lacking in detail in the dashboard department – but I reckon that’s something I can iterate on in later pages.

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Notes: Time to fuel up, time for some exposition. Here we have some early mention of the Fromage Festival (misspelled, I’m afraid… left here as is for the time being). Its cultural cachet should not be underestimated, but we’ll have to wait a while longer before that’s really hammered home in a lavish multi-page explosion of cheese and revelry that I may or may not ever be crazy enough to write and draw. It is worth noting that in reality, the Fromage Festival is an homage to George Herriman’s Krazy Kat, one episode of which featured a raging event of just that moniker that is one of the funniest and most mysterious drawings to me from that entire, brilliant comic.

We’ve also got our first in-narrative explanation of why Toast is sporting a potted daisy on top of his head. As time has gone on I’ve felt a bit of creator’s guilt about saddling the man with that particular piece of haberdashery, but there’s some later-to-be-revealed logic to it – at least, Zoonbats-style logic, which is guaranteed to make sense only within the confines of these pages. The incident in question – or at least the final moments leading up to it – with the howler monkeys who lived upstairs from Toast, is briefly pictured many pages hence.

Speaking of Toast, we learn he’s been washing dishes at a restaurant named Plisken’s. Well, as you might have guessed, that’s a nod to Snake Plisken, but it’s also a similar-sounding name to a particular chain of 24-hour restaurants that I, too, was in the employ of, as a dishwasher and later a line cook.

Murray’s vest is emblazoned with the logo of the Hot Road shipping company, his current outfit, pardon the pun.

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Pulling out of the Crescent Food & Fuel in Miya Bay as the sun sets and the next leg of the journey begins. What a great feeling, knowing that things are only just beginning as the daytime ends. And exceptionally good fortune for Wayne Molly, now riding shotgun with his old acquaintance from thousands of miles away back home in Haquel.

For fans of hatching, here you go – any guesses as to how many hatchmarks have filled this page? This technique has its ups and downs. At its best, it can subtle illustrate contours and perspective. Its imperfections can be somewhat pleasing, if they’re not too far out of the established pattern. It certainly conveys a rhythm and energy that isn’t present within solid tones.

Downsides are as you might expect – it does get fatiguing. During the drawing of the first 100 pages of Zoonbats, the most I ever drew in a single day was two pages. And that had to be followed by a day of rest, so I didn’t really get ahead of my usual pace overall, which is about 10 hours for one page.

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Murray provides the lowdown on the technical specifications of his big rig. Occasionally I’ll find myself in situations like these, bearing witness to people basically delivering a monologue with a few prompts here and there. At times it’s interesting, but sometimes it eventually seems to deposit a glaze onto my brain, which many of the monologuists don’t seem to notice whatsoever. But in Silnai society, listening is a conscious practice, so Wayne is doing his best to follow the thread of the cascade of technical information issuing forth from beneath Murray’s mustache.

It’s usually in road trip situations, particularly riding the bus, that I find these kinds of conversational opportunities. For a variety of reasons, the random conversations on airplanes, if they happen at all, are almost never as interesting. The road has its own magic, which I reckon all of these characters can appreciate.

Gradually, as I’ve listened to people, I surmise that they have some kind of “thing.” Their “thing” might be that they always hearken back to analogies from childhood, or their “thing” might be that they hone in on numerical aspects of life. I guess a more eloquent way to express this “thing” is as a “lens” or a “frame” – it’s a telling aspect of how they view the world and how they define their experiences. In some ways it might define the range of possibilities available. It’s partially formed by circumstance and partially maintained by habit. Many people haven’t consciously examined it at all, perhaps don’t even have a notion that it’s there and is something to consider and reconsider, something that might be outdated, and that they may eventually work at crafting into something more appropriate to the present era of their lives.

In Murray’s case, it’s a glimpse at his own motivations. He likes the best, fanciest and most technically advanced things. And clearly he’s doing pretty well for himself as a trucker.

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Naturally, the deluxe sleeper cab is the only way to roll for Murray. And he’s got a lot of gear in there that isn’t available through any legitimate Silnai retail channels. You guessed it – more illicit wares originating from Minsha. It’s an impressive space to bed down in, to be sure. The teddy bear, though, is simply an homage to my brother’s childhood bear.

We’re also introduced to Murray’s love of the “cuppa” – java, that is. The sweet brown nectar of that naughty bean. I, myself, might own up to a fondness for that brew from time to time. At times I might have even caught myself looking forward to the next day primarily so I could have some more coffee. We all need motivation now and then.

But perhaps Murray’s taken it to what the experts would call “a whole ‘nother level,” having a full espresso bar for a usually solo operation. That’ll keep you awake for a while. The bed clearly has not been slept in any time recently.

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Wayne has previously only known Murray as his friend Bloom’s manager at the Belladonna Theatre in Haquel. And, young as he is, Wayne hasn’t considered all the many twists and turns that the road of life has taken Murray through. Turns out, before he was ever in the cinema game, Murray was behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler, and now he’s back in his true element.

Naturally, with a lot of time on the road, he’s had his moments of lyrical ponderations. But songwriting isn’t his main aim. He aims primarily to keep aiming – further and further along the road, shunning the human need for rejuvenation through the fusion of man, machine and dark roast.

Wayne, being a musician accustomed to letting the tides of somnolence take their own course in his day-to-day (or night-to-night) life, has to wonder just how long ago Murray partook of “a few hours here and there” of repose. But, what the hell… he’s in the gooseleather passenger seat now, and, having bought the ticket, is taking the ride.

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So, the inner workings of the dispatcher’s office are laid bare for us to see. And we see that the true fuel that these mighty machines run on is not petroleum, but prescription Merkur Espresso Hyperconcentrate Gel. And although that dispatcher ain’t no doctor, nor pharmacist, he’s got the hook-up for his lads and lasses, the knights of the highway, to make sure everything is delivered on time.

Although only seen here by the exterior of their baggies, Espresso Hyperconcentrate Gel looks a bit different than the roasted beans it’s presumably originally derived from. It’s a thick, smooth paste with a metallic silver color.

Obviously, it gets the job done… but not without a few drawbacks, one of which is the sort of extreme mood swing we witness here in the space it takes to advance our eyes from one panel to the next. Fortunately, it’s got what it takes in its chemical composition to swing the tide back the other way again quite quickly.

From an artistic perspective, does the mood swing really need a label to call it out? Well, probably not. But I like the entire palette available in the visual form, ranging from the subtle to the anti-subtle. Personally my greatest enjoyment in drawing this page is the panel of joyful exultation as Murray pounds the ceiling of his own cab with lust for coffee.

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Rolling on through the early evening, southbound on coastal Highway 11 in Ruma with Minsha and Imsahn shining just above the horizon, we learn that Murray’s departure from the silver screen trade was rather urgent. But as the conversation turns toward the topic of the supernatural, we begin to hear about some of the matter-of-fact attitudes the Silnai people hold towards the supernatural.

For many, like Murray, the presence of spirits of various types is a simple fact of life. Although encounters with them might not occur often, they do so in such decisively convincing events that their existence is unquestionable. Although Murray doesn’t go into any details, he’s clearly experienced their presence in the theater that he used to manage.

Bloom, on the other hand, continues to work there and doesn’t believe in any such thing as ghosts or spirits. Perhaps this comes from a different cultural framework, considering her Minshan upbringing.

Does it all come down to the Minshan preoccupation with technology, gadgetry and consumerism – crowding out the space in life for the magical and inexplicable? Have the people of Shinma filled that same space with superstition and mysticism? In all likelihood, these types of differences aren’t quite so cut and dried. In any event, a ghost story of sorts is about to be told.

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Weaving his way into the industrial and port district of Katu down in southern Sil, Murray is about to have an encounter with a gang of big rig hijackers known as the Katu Zoy Raiders. “That’s where the cattle prod comes in,” notes Murray in retrospect. And should every story have a point in which the cattle prod comes in? Well, thankfully not. But, it’s too late for this one. Here indeed is where it comes in.

The Schnockerbox craze is based on a similar consumer craze that I recall from my formative years, that being the fights that erupted in the aisles of toy stores between parents desperate to purchase the highly-coveted Cabbage Patch Kids circa 1983.

Fortunately, they weren’t something I really wanted as a child, but I remember seeing shaky cam video on national news broadcasts about the incidents. The nature of the Schnockerbox is intentionally nebulous here – it’s just something inherently worthless that people inexplicably have to have. What it actually is is of little importance, as what it really is remains the same – only its form and its brand changes over the successive shopping seasons.

Although Murray notes that Wayne might be too young to remember, the craze – having taken place in the early ’20s, was at most 11 years prior to the present day in 3331. More likely, Wayne wouldn’t remember or have been concerned having grown up without enough money for his grandmother, who primarily raised him, to afford one for him.

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