Wayne and Murray on the road

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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perhaps don’t even have a notion that it’s there and is something to consider and reconsider, something that might be outdated, and that they may eventually work at crafting into something more appropriate to the present era of their lives.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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For the most part, each cast member of Zoonbats is a fictional creation who shares at most only a few traits of specific people I’ve known (including myself, naturally). Murray Sepulveda is an exception, though, because he’s primarily based on a real person I knew quite a while back. Occasionally, for various personal projects, I interview some of the people I know, and this particular tale that Murray is sharing is in fact based on a presumably true tale that was told to me by the person who inspired him. The dialog is all just transcribed… with the exception of “FNAR!”, which I simply inferred.

The bandit on the receiving end of this zap also happens to look like a good friend of mine, but as I peruse these pages to compose these textual accompaniments, I can’t really remember if that was intentional. I can say that I wouldn’t mind having that jacket he’s wearing.

The practice of inserting narrative panels with a little circular portrait of the person speaking is something that I’ve heard other comics artists of the present day speaking poorly of, but I enjoy them. It’s not a particularly sophisticated narrative technique, but it gets the job done. A lot of people would say I shouldn’t write a story that’s ninety-percent composed of flashbacks either, but, well, here we are.

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Judging by the architecture, Katu once knew much better days. But now there’s just a bunch of beautiful old empty buildings for lease, gradually deteriorating. How many beautiful cities are like that in the United States? The underdog cities, perpetually plunged into the losing end of the economics of scarcity.

Maybe in a healthier, better-managed economy, different areas could take turns at being winners and losers, establishing some sort of healthy circulation if we’re to believe that money is really “energy” – but there are places like this that have had the invisible boot heel of Adam Smith on their necks for generations. New Orleans. Memphis. Tacoma. Oakland. Detroit. Such is the case in Katu specifically, and currently on the moon of Shinma in general. Of course, I’ll have to cook up some different sort of name for the alien version of Adam Smith, if it ever comes up in conversation among the cast.

Meanwhile, the nascent draftsman in me must endure gazing in retrospect upon the ever-changing size and shape of the roof of Murray’s cab-over rig, which on this page expands to the proportions of a generous sleeper cab. Pay no attention to that sort of thing, please – focus instead on the well-rendered motion blur on the FZZZHNN! sound effect.

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Boozy like to cut things! Well, it is an ideal situation if you can find enjoyment in your chosen line of work. Upon reflection, I feel that this is an interesting page in that the proportion of words in English to onomatopoeia seems to be getting close to leveling out.

There’s also a rare proliferation of expository thought balloons from Murray – I’ll have to ask him to dial that sort of thing back in future pages. But which of us could do better in such a situation, with the maniacal laughter, the SXAXK and XORNX of it all swirling around?

The final panel looks as though I’ve completed the time traveling effort back to the days of late 1960s-early 1970s underground comics, with the heavily hatched profile of Murray emitting a thought-bubble escape plan. Something about that excessive amount of hatching seems to put me in touch with the mounting paranoia of that era, even though it was a handful of years before I came into my current form. Unfortunately, I’ve mostly read only excerpts of the comics of those days – very rarely have I been able to read complete ones.

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As Murray bemoans the challenging condition of his manual window roller – a feeling I reckon at least one generation of human Americans has never known – my thoughts turn to his apparel. This will be discussed within the story in later pages, but I wonder if Zoonbats ever catches on, would merchandise like Murray’s tank top CATFISH shirt possibly find a receptive market? I’m almost certain his BEER trucker hat would, if it hasn’t already – it’s just that its market in all likelihood wouldn’t even need members of the Zoonbats readership in its ranks to sell steadily. These are the sorts of thoughts going through my mind as I sit here, sipping a beer and typing these dubiously enlightening artist’s statements. Let’s see if I can work my way back around to something relevant to the artistic process.

The word “UGGA!” originates from the printed lyrics in Ice-T’s album, “O.G. Original Gangster.” The actual exclamation in the song is something that I would normally spell “Uh,” or “Ugh,” maybe “Ungh”… but whoever was tasked with typesetting this hip-hop double album’s worth of lyrics chose the spelling UGGA, and this was a source of tremendous amusement for me at the time. (And, come to think of it, continues to be.) The song, incidentally, is “Mind Over Matter” and could be Ice-T’s finest ever.

Presently, I feel sentimental for the days when I could pass hours by listening to music while reading a lyrics sheet. They were these pieces of paper that were included in a vinyl record or compact disc or cassette, and you could look at them and they’d have pictures and liner notes… well, I guess there is “album art” embedded in MP3s now, and you can just look up some hack’s attempt at interpreting the lyrics on the myriad of sketchy lyrics sites on the web.

I guess I didn’t really succeed at getting back to the artistic process on this page, after all. It’s more like I’m about to warn someone to stay off my lawn here.

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