Oh god guys, prepare for an onslaught of exposition and the introduction of new characters.
However, speaking of new characters, I really am enjoying drawing Dylan. Or rather, his coyote projection. It’s just fun, and I find myself saving it for last as I work. Randomly, when I first came up with Dylan, I figured he’d dye his hair brown, to be more coyote-like. But when I started doing actual concept art of him, I found the brown hair blended in with his dark skintone and made him look very bland. So, now he only has streaks dyed into his bangs. It’s amazing what will work for me in text, but visually, does not work at all.
Now… the subject of text brings me to a little stroke of luck I had this week. While browsing the local used bookstore (I can rarely afford new books, but used ones have more character anyway) I came across a book I hadn’t seen since I was young: A Lycanthropy Reader: Werewolves in Western Culture.
When I was a little girl, I used to love to visit the library. Even in the colleges I attended, while some of my classmates lamented time spent in the school’s expansive library, there were few places I preferred more. I spent plenty of time browsing, and had access to books I didn’t have in my collection. One of my favorites was Adam Douglas’ The Beast Within, another was David White’s Myths of the Dog-Man… Neither of which I have yet managed to locate for my own collection. But will, some day.
However, when I was a little girl, (back when we used a card catalogue to find books instead of computers ;D) there were only two werewolf books (that weren’t horror novels) I could find. One was Meet the Werewolf, which was geared toward children… and the other was A Lycanthropy Reader. It was in this book that I first came across an interesting tale called “The Other Side” in which a boy crossed a forbidden brook and picked bright blue flowers. Shortly thereafter, he became a werewolf.
Now, my folks own a few acres of land. And separating the front and back yards from the fields, is a drainage area. Not a brook, but close enough to a child. However, for many years, I was not allowed to cross the drainage channel, the ‘brook’ on my own. Though, some time later (how long I don’t truly remember, as time passes differently when we are young), Dad didn’t mow the field, and I noticed blue flowers growing in it. I was so sure that they must be werewolf flowers that I was heartbroken when he mowed it all down.
Yet again, some time later, I at some point crossed the ‘brook’ to play. To be perfectly honest, I don’t recall if I asked permission and it was granted, or if I’d snuck across on my own. But after searching around, I found more of the blue ‘werewolf’ flowers. I picked as many as I could carry, and brought them home.
I dare say, I was dreadfully disappointed when I did not later change into a werewolf.
However, for years, while I did not know what the flowers were called, I happily thought of them as werewolf flowers, and they flourished in some of the lesser used parts of my parent’s property. I noticed them elsewhere too, especially along roadsides… and yet, it was only after I’d reached adulthood that I learned that my magical werewolf flowers were only common Chicory.
And yet, to me... they will always be werewolf flowers.
No comments:
Post a Comment