A new chapter begins!
The bridge seen here is based to a large degree on the beautiful Monroe Street Bridge in Spokane, Washington. I spent a day in Spokane years ago while on tour with my band and was impressed with the swift Spokane River and the beauty of the city.
The Suiter Ave. bridge as shown here has popped up from time to time in stories of these characters even prior to Zoonbats. Occasionally I’ve encountered bridges that have fallen into disuse, or been repurposed as pedestrian-only bridges, when other, bigger bridges are built to replace them. If the older bridge isn’t demolished to make way for the newer one, sometimes it takes on new life, even as it gradually deteriorates due to lack of maintenance. It’s not hard to understand why artistic people would be drawn to such places.
It’s nice to catch some other glimpses of things that have been implied but not directly seen before. Ansimh riding high in the nighttime sky over the South Haquel River. I reckon it casts a lot of light when it’s seen at night, creating some dramatic all-night twilight times. I’d like to have drawn it in more detail though. Will do next time! It’s also fun to see Wayne playing drums. More on his training as a drummer will be revealed in the next couple dozen pages.
There are a lot of different types of abstracted backgrounds sprinkled throughout these pages. I think of it as a rhythmic element in some regards. Kind of a breath in the midst of the ongoing narrative, which for long stretches of time is just a series of similar frames displaying a single setting… in this case, currently, the cab of Murray’s truck. So the abstract background in a basic sense breaks up a potential visual monotony, like a drum fill or a quick cut to an altogether different break in an old school hip-hop song.
Myra’s background in the first panel is a bit of a different case, though. In that instance I’m basically trying to draw the music she’s playing. Although personally I have some idea about the sound and style of her song, I think it’s something that should just be suggested to the readers in a way that allows them to draw their own conclusions. Although in a lot of ways I’m not opposed, and at times even enjoy, employing some visual cliches, I couldn’t just draw little floating quarter notes or something of that nature. I mean, that’s basically just a written language… it would be like depicting the conversations of people as random floating letters, devoid of cohesion or context.
Among the Silnai, there’s a strong oral tradition. I mean, sure, Wayne and Murray are on a road trip, and naturally among friendly folk in such a setting, the conversation is bound to flow smoothly. The open road imbues us with a certain kind of patience that perhaps we lack in most other day-to-day situations amidst the grind. Well, not really so much for the Silnai. It’s a culture where people take the time to listen to each other as a general rule, not just as an exception to the rule. But one of the consequences of this is that hemmin’ and hawin’, as Wayne becomes mired in within the middle panels, is somewhat frowned upon. You’ve got the stage, you’ve got a rapt audience… so spin your yarn, man!
Further down the page, we catch another glimpse of ol’ Toast Duerr, prior to the forcible implanting of the potted daisy that now adorns his dome. Wayne and Toast are employed at neighboring workplaces – Toast, as previously seen, at Plisken’s Restaurant. And here we can see the service entrance to Wayne’s place of employ, Liquor 24.
As far as Wayne “buggin from th’ syff” is concerned… ’nuff said about that. But it sure was fun drawing all them Sierpinski triangles in the background. Or maybe it’s some kind of Sierpinski curve. Or something. I’m no mathematician. What kind of background would you draw for someone buggin from th’ syff?
“It was the night of the tricrescent las’ year…” Well, as you might imagine, being on a moon in a planetary system with three other moons and, naturally, a planet in the sky, there are probably a lot of interesting ways these heavenly bodies can arrange themselves in relation to each other. Why is this particular formation – three bowl-shaped crescents arranged in a V shape – known simply as the tricrescent? We can naturally assume that there are times when they form a straight line, when the crescents are pointed in various different directions. Well, our assumptions are correct. This is colloquially known as the tricrescent, but there is a much longer and more specific name for this kind of arrangement of crescents. And there are quite a few years that pass between the times when this particular kind of formation appears. In several more pages, we’ll see the previous time that this tricrescent formation occurred. That’s right, everyone… we’re headed for a flashback within a flashback! Normally, that’s beyond the means of a mere mortal comic artist, but fortunately Myra Fine is about to expedite the process with some musical… shall we say… guidance.
What can I say? In this day and age of mass media saturation and overstimulation, it can be pretty hard to get people to listen to that new song you’ve been working on!
The thing is, though, it’s a really old song that Myra Fine is playing. She and Wayne will talk more about the nature of this song a couple dozen or so pages from now, but you can get a fair idea of what kind of jam it is just by looking at it. I mean, she’s playing it – but it also looks like it’s coming through her from somewhere else. Well, that’s an experience we can all relate to in one way or another, right? If you get really good at what you do, doesn’t it seem like you’re just honing your skills to bring something through that comes from some other source? Of course, it comes through with your own style. Like your identity is a lens, and you’re just shining that light right on through. But a lot of times, people just turn and walk away, and don’t wanna make any time to really listen, or look, or feel it. But you’ve gotta keep shining that light. You’ve just gotta! We all really need you to shine that light!
Have you ever listened to a song and felt that it was lifting you up? Like, literally lifting you off the ground, into the air next to the local Papa Gen-Mod convenience market, and sending you tumbling through a transdimensional passageway to a time and a place long since past? Well, if you have, this page must look pretty familiar to you. Because I NAILED it, son! That’s exactly what that shit looks like when it happens! Drawing pictures of music ain’t so easy. But if you really think about it, isn’t everything music?
