TANGLEFOOT
I'm also using this project as a means of finally coming to grips with digital art, so technical advice is always appreciated. Cheers!
Quick doodle because this blog needed more Hypatia.
Can you even tell what’s going on in this picture? I need to stop drawing everything so gosh darn small.
Some procrastination doodles. Needed a break from drawing that little chump with the nickel snoot. Here’s an aging burlesque star tentatively named Ruby; Loligo, a mudlark with a rather wonky metal detector; and Elver, racketeer and eel-about-town.
So I set out to finally determine the height difference between Hypatia and Izzy, but I would appear to have drawn this, which is no help whatsoever.
You’re always welcome to remove my inane ramblings if you fancy reblogging this stuff, incidentally.
It should be evident by now that I don’t actually have the faintest idea how anatomy works.
Answer:
Oh dear, I’ve been trying to avoid this, but I guess it’s only fair to give you guys some insight into what this whole big mess of pickled pigs’ lips is actually about. So here goes nothing. Please don’t read any of this. Thank you.
‘Tanglefoot’ takes place in a city called Hesperillo, which does have an actual geographic location of sorts, but I’ll keep that under my hat for now. Hesperillo has some superficial resemblance to 30s/40s Manhattan, but with plenty of surreal, phantasmagorical touches. The main character, the sullen gentleman with the silver nose, is one Isidore ‘Izzy’ Perizene. He’s a former carnival barker, former dime-a-dance man, former wrestling promoter, former nightclub owner, and currently trying to turn a buck as a small-time talent manager. He is a chronically luckless little nebbish. Early on in the story, he lands a mysterious new client. Events unfold from there, and get progressively weirder and sillier.
I regret to say that there will be no zombies. There will, however, be several of the following things;
- Burlesque dancers
- A mysterious spate of self-decapitations
- Giant land mollusks
- Giant sea mollusks
- A protection racket run by a bunch of minor deities
- Paternoster elevators
- Pneumatic tubes
- A band of train robbers who menace the Hesperillo subway system
- Arcane cults
- In vitro meat
- Sinister sirens
- Eels in suits
- An in-depth exploration of how to conduct business when one is forced by straitened circumstances to relocate one’s office to a service elevator
- Dancin’
- Terrible, terrible music hall ditties
- Appallingly silly dialogue
- Bunk
- Hooey
- Nonsense
I guess what I’m aiming for is, I dunno, Kafka as written by a two-bit 1940s radio playwright in the grip of the DTs. Or maybe ‘Invisible Cities’ as written by Raymond Chandler if Raymond Chandler was a trained chimpanzee. Or Ray Bradbury’s short fiction run through a mangle and then acted out by a bunch of Al Hirschfeld characters with a penchant for slapstick humor. Something along those lines. Only worse. Much, much worse. Infinitely worse. Keep in mind that I haven’t written anything since I was seventeen, and that everything I know about dialogue I learned from listening to ‘The Adventures of Sam Spade.’ I also know nothing about pacing, zip about lettering, nada about panelling, and drawing backgrounds makes me weep softly into my ink.
Those caveats aside, I am SO determined to make this ridiculous comic. I don’t care if it turns into a big, ink-spattered trainwreck (it will). I am utterly paralyzed by self-doubt 80% of the time, but during the 20% that remains I intend to write and draw the hell out of this thing.
In the meantime, I’m going to try to compile all the dime-a-dance drawings into a little photocopied chapbook and see if I can’t flog a few off.
There. I sincerely hope nobody read any of that. Now please excuse me while I go and hide.
Oh, hello there, The Internet. So nice of you to stop by. Let me fix you a cup of tea.
And thanks so much for all the lovely notes — I am gradually working my way through them. I am a little shy and tend to respond privately, but I do reply eventually!
Evenin’ all. So I’m thinking of cobbling together a little booklet featuring all the dime-a-dance drawings, plus maybe a couple of short comics on the same theme. It will most likely be lovingly xeroxed onto Fedex’s finest, and then hand-fastened with artisanal staples. I’m thinking something in the vicinity of $5 + postage. Hell, maybe I’ll just give ‘em away. I think the teenage zine-maker in me just wants to photocopy shit.
And hello, new followers! I guess this is as good a time as any to mention that you’re more than welcome to drop me a line and say hi. I tend not to respond publicly on account of I am painfully shy and not so good at talking to The Internet at large, but I’ll do my best to reply!
I’m sure you’re all heartily sick of these by now. TOO BAD.
I DID NOT DRAW THIS, I ONLY PROVIDED COLOUR
Original lines are by Adoradora and can be found here and here.I asked Adoradora if I pretty please could experiment on her lines, merely for my own benefit, mind. I also told her I wouldn’t post it online, but was happy enough with the result and would thus like to take this moment to introduce you guys to this amazing artist I recently discovered. This is everything I aspire to become artwise and I am trying very hard not to dissolve into embarrassing amounts of gushing right now, you have no idea.
So the absurdly talented Tardigrad offered to perform their patented brand of colouring wizardry on my drab old line art, and here is the eyeball-meltingly wonderful result.
In addition to really knowing their way around a colour wheel, Tardigrad is a dab hand at creating weird and wonderful beasties such these amazing critters: http://tardigrad.tumblr.com/tagged/kung-fu-galliforms
Also, this is the first time I’ve ever tried to reblog a thing and I will probably make a complete balls-up of it.
[Edit: I did make a complete balls-up of it.]
I was writing a scene today and had occasion to ponder the precise mechanics involved in whipping someone with a python.
