Eldritch: Layline 023

     It’s almost Halloweeeeeeen!  I’m so excited; it’s my very “favoritest” holiday ever guys! I have so much planned… I recorded myself telling a dorky campfire story for my youtube account (so I could post it on my little jorunaly thing); I have a little project I’ve been working on that I will post on Halloween; I can’t wait to bake treats for the party I’m going to… and I can’t wait to get into costume!  

…

     Erm… well, after that excited outburst, I suppose I ought to talk about the actual comic, shouldn’t I?

     This page, in the original script, was a bit different.  Faith was still reading a book about werewolves while listening to the news… but she was just reading parts of the book aloud.  Not exactly riveting, but, I figure reading up on the subject is a natural way to approach lycanthropy.  But then again, I practically lived in the library, so what do I know?

      However, a little over a year ago, something happened: I found an odd lump on my cat’s neck.  As it turns out, it was cancer. 

      I had plans on adding my cat Midnight (Middy for short) in the fourth chapter of this story, but upon finding out she was ill, decided to work her in as soon as I could.  However, I was in the middle of <I>Changes</I> at the time, and everyplace I tried to add her in, it felt extremely forced.  It wasn’t until I came to this little spot of down-time in the script that I found a place where it felt reasonable to slip her in early.  And, at the end of it all, after reworking the script to add my cat in a little sooner than expected, I feel it actually flows better in the long run.  It required a bit of work though.  Word to the wise:  Reworking scripts is hard.

     Anyway, my family pulled together, and we’ve been treating her.  After kitty chemo, and surgery… the vet says Middy just might be cured by the end of the year.  I know, it probably seems silly to treat a cat… but, well, sometimes you just gotta try.  Regardless, that news is the best Halloween Treat I’ve ever received.

     I know my Halloween is going to be great, and I hope you guys have a Howling good time too!

Eldritch: Layline 022

     I think almost every artist at one point has been told what ‘real’ artists do… Thankfully, most of rebel and do whatever the hell we please anyway.  Anywho, this page got me to thinking about my old painting classmates.  Most of us had online galleries of one kind or another, but none of us watched one another, because our interests are so divergent.  I wonder how they’re doing now.  I suppose someday I’ll bump into some of them again and find out.

     However, about this page… there’s not a whole lot of mythology in this one for me to ramble about.  So, I’ll ramble about something else: Music

     I have a lot of what I consider to be werewolf music.  I tend to buy single songs from Amazon, just because they’re werewolfy. Anyway, someone recently popped a note my direction, asking what music I listen to when I work on Eldritch.  The truth is, I usually listen to NatGeo.  However, there are two songs that get me going when I have trouble getting inspired for this comic.

     The first of which is Type O Negative’s Wolf Moon. This is tied with a few others (which I will list in a later posting) as my favorite werewolf song. I know, I know what some of the lyrics are about, and I don’t really care.  To be perfectly honest, half of the lyrics I couldn’t make out until after I looked them up anyway.  So, I have a lot of “Misheard lyrics” that I hear instead of the canon ones anyway. But lyrics like: “Hey wolf moon, Come cast your spell on me” really catch my attention, since, there really is a wolf moon (the January moon) and one of the ways to become a werewolf in old times was to sleep under a full moon, sometimes in a particular season, or on a particular Friday.  But mythology aside… The tone color of the music… oh stars, I love it.  The smooth, almost chanting quality of the voices juxtaposed against the raw electric guitar makes for a nice auditory duality I feel mimics the nature of a werewolf… and a little after five minutes into the song, there’s this point where it really takes off and I just adore it.

     However, when working on the comic, there’s another song that I not only consider to be a werewolf song, but I also regard as Faith’s theme at this point in the story:  Changes, by 3 Doors down.  I know it doesn’t say anything about wolves or lycanthropy, but to me, this is SO a werewolf song.  “I try to hold this Under control --They can't help me 'Cause no one knows”  Is just such a werewolfy lyric to me, especially when juxtaposed with the rest of the lyrics. It’s very vague, but the song basically describes someone who’s going through a lot of changes, who’s scared about what’s happening, something that can’t be controlled, something that they can’t tell others about, and it is tearing them apart.  Sounds like lycanthropy to me!

    Anyway, that’s all for this week, I’ll see you all in seven days!

E;dritch: Layline 021

I’m sorry this page looks so rushed, folks.  But, that’s how things go when you have to do art second to things like a ‘real’ job.  Maybe someday I’ll be able to make art my ‘real’ job.  Regardless, I’ll try to do better next week, folks.

So, randomly, whenever I’m on the main floor of the Layline, I try to include at least one unusual mythical creature or cryptid.  Since it seems not too many folks take note of the Gulon or Sirrush and such I’ve included, I’ll point out the main one here: The Sand Squink (Last panel).  This is an American creature, known for its electrical capabilities.  Here’s the full image of that creature:  Sand Squink.  To read more on the Sand Squink, please see Fearsome Critters by Henry Tryon or The Field Guide to North American Monsters by Haden Blackman.  You may also notice a dinosaur in there (You can first glimpse it earlier in the comic).  I hope you don’t find this unusual… there are a slew of supposed dinosaur cryptids, ranging from the Australian Burrunjor to Africa’s Mokele Mbembe.

Eldritch: Layline 020

Hey guys, I’m back from visiting family, and have a new update with me! I had a great time (Got to do lots of fun things… even got to see some Karasu-tengu art/mask/statue stuff!), and now that it’s October, I’m so excited for Halloween. After all, what better time is there for werewolves and other monsters? It’s time for me to start practicing making hands for my zombie brownie-cake, and make werewolf cupcakes, and pumpkin bread and… oooh, so excited!

So, man guys, page 20 already. There’s only a couple months more of this chapter to go... How’d that happen?

Also, yes, dorky as it may be, I planned out the core characters based upon what role they’d fill in Faith’s life. I actually at one point early on had several more characters that would all be in the same scenes, as a big group, but that convoluted things when I got to the script stage. One character I cut out almost entirely, and others I toned down, to use as more fleshed out, but still background characters.

And, er… yes. Todd Looooooooves “Hand’s-on.” *Coughs*

Eldritch: Layline 019

     So, hey guys, it’s almost fall!  In fact, the autumnal equinox is tomorrow! And you know what?  Tomorrow is also the night of the full moon!  Maybe I’m just a geek, but I find a full moon on the equinox to be really cool.  I may even get to go hiking with a friend or two to celebrate!

     I’m so excited.  Autumn means I get to carve pumpkins and put bats in the windows!

      And as for the comic page… yeah.  I really am that mean to Faith… especially since we’re less than ten pages to the end of this chapter.

      Also, important stuff! A head’s-up guys… I’m going to be out of town, visiting my sister next week.  That means no update, sadly.  But! I’ll back with another page in two weeks.

Eldritch: Layline 018



      Woo werewolf info!  (To the thirty-or-so people who have already read this, sorry to make you read it again.)  *Laughs* You guys can tell what I spent my days in Bio class doing, right?  That’s correct, I had one notebook for what I thought would be on the test, and another for my werewolf research.  One of my profesors thought I was making notes for someone else once… that amused me.  Anyway, well, I don’t know who was the first person to make the logical jump from ‘curse’ to infection, but man, I do love the idea of lycanthropy being spread by a virus.  Naturally, a retrovirus is the obvious way to go, but I wanted something a little more complex, so I added in the bacteriophage appearance (don’t they look cool?) and behavior.  It made things make sense for my particular species of werewolf, the Grahll, information of which will be put into the comic here and there.  However, thankfully, Faith has put a stop to this deluge of information.

      I hope the lower panel looks like it’s a page taken from an old book.  Seamus has a lot of  oooold journals that he writes in.

Eldritch: Layline 017

     Whoo, busy week. Work’s been killing me lately. I litterally JUST finished... here's to hoping I didn't mess anything up. XD

     So, anywho, about this page… Hooray Todd! Some people might remember him from Hot Shot Todd: [link] which was an early test run to see how people would react to the world of Eldritch and some of the characters (Back when this was going to be strips instead of pages!) There’s a part of me that really feels I lose something between the novel-format seen in that test run, and the actual script for the comic. I try my best to make for a balance between text and picture, depending on the situation, but, well, what can ya do? Anywho, Todd’s been changed around somewhat… but is still the same old Todd at the end of it all.
      Now… as for what Todd IS… just to clarify, he really means it when he says he’s a fairytale critter. Todd is, essentially, a Big Bad Wolf. In fact, it is Todd’s involvement in the plot that drove the decision to have Faith’s wardrobe always incorporate red in it (as opposed to just the first scene where she’s attacked), and why in this book, she’s wearing a little red (Riding) hoodie. (My friends in real life sometimes see me in a red hoodie, with wolf tribals on it XD) See, if you haven’t guessed, Little red Riding Hood is my favorite Fairytale. In fact, a favorite older piece of mine is Lil’ Red: [link] Which served as a precursor to Faith’s character.
      Anyway, I have always been fascinated with the older, darker versions of the Riding Hood tale. For some reason, some of the folks I know seem to think that the story is German, and the ‘original’ version of the story was from the Grimm Brother’s Fairytales, but I’m talking about stories older than that, the ones that haunted the French countryside’s sewing circles, and was a much more adult tale. In fact, if I understand correctly, the earliest published version of the tale was recorded by Charles Perrault. In earlier stories, the Big Bad Wolf was referred to as a “Bzou,” which was a French term that meant werewolf. However, the French also have the more well-known Loup-Garou. What can I say, the French are freaking awesome when it comes to werewolf lore. Anyway though, for Eldritch, rather than make the Bzou another form of werewolf, strictly speaking… I’ve made the Bzou something similar, yet not to be confused with, the Loup-garou. What these similarities and differences are, I feel are predictable, but I will reveal them in time.
      Anyway, for further reading on Little Red Riding Hood You may want to pick up a copy of Catherine Orenstein’s Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked.