Narrative and Character Development > behind the Temptation of Howard Bolam pt. 2

The Temptation of Howard Bolam was an interesting moment in the story to intentionally set our two protagonists against each other for a moment to explore how far they've developed since the beginning of their tale

Compare the rough pages with the finished pages at this link.

Casey is willing to stand up for his beliefs.

Of course we can remember Casey Miller being the timid, self-conscious scientist who was too conservative to let his imagination provide inspiration or motivation. Yet, when faced with higher stakes, for love, career and even for his life, he's had opportunities to confront his inhibitions and tackle obstacles head-on.

In the second half of this scene, he swallows his fear and jumps at the chance to not only stand up to Howard but also to the hulking Turk (who apparently has been hired as a security escort for the Sadducees).

And at the same time, Howard Bolam doesn't appear to have learned anything, he remains willing to sacrifice what he knows to be "the Christian thing to do," for personal gain and advantage. We know that this brings him shame and discomfort, but he's never felt that shame so much that he's ever resolved to discontinue taking advantages when they present themselves. 

There's an inner fury Casey releases, which continues to overcome unsuspecting antagonists.

I felt an extended action sequence to be overscored by the narrative exposition might be a balanced and enjoyable way to tell this part of the story. I probably should have used this method earlier and much more often! A lesson learned.

One of the initial mysteries I set up at the beginning of the story was, "Who was in the tomb beneath the church at Gobekli Tepe," if you can recall (here's some help, if you can't). While I was editing/rewriting the third act before publishing the pages, I realized I hadn't really answered that question, though I had fully intended to.

In any case, this answer was shoehorned back into the story, and probably isn't as rewarding a payoff as I had hoped. BUT it does satisfy some of the mythology I constructed in Lazarus's life story - - that one of his sisters, either Martha or Mary, had continued to spread the word of Christ and opened "ministries" outside of the Roman Empire to build the church.

And as the archaeological intepretation allows, great monuments and churches were built on top of the tombs of some of the most reverant leaders of the first church (like Lazarus's tomb beneath the chuch in Lanarka).

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Behind The Temptation of Howard Bolam pt. 1

The Temptation
The Temptation of Howard Bolam is a scene that I'd been waiting a long time to publish. It was something I'd planned the "Set up" for years ago, back in the first act I Tend to Agree With Your Partner.

I wanted character to motivate changes in the story just as much as the adventure - - I feel like this was something that was bound to payoff down the line - - that Bolam would be tempted to throw Casey under the bus again to save himself.

(If you clicked on that link - - think about how far the story has come since back then when they were still working at the museum. It's pretty cool. PLUS, that was freaking December 2010 when that was published. This story has been going on for a while now!)

Pacing
Ultimately, for the sake of pacing, I felt that 6 pages was too long for a scene to be. I felt that people would be impatient if it were too long, so I split it in two. This is the first time I've done this, and... well, perhaps you would have been fine with it if it were six pages long?

Let me know, I guess. In any case, I wanted the scene to be "finished" so I could say it was finished, because I feel people might wait for a few pages (or a scene) to accumulate before they check in on the site.

That was the impetus regarding publishing this in two parts, anyhow.


Check out the finished pages at The Temptation of Howard Bolam, pt. 1

The stick of straw in "The Turk's" mouth was just for fun in the rough draft, he felt like a grouchy rancher thwarting tresspassers when I drew him.

I raced through these pages while I was at my cottage back in the summer - - when I drafted out the rest of the story. You can see I was really racing through it, I didn't leave any details on the background at all.

Trivia
I'm not sure if these are facts, but I suppose it's interesting "trivia" if you ever wanted to know. I liked the name because it reminded me of both The Passion of the Christ, and The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham (from Lost).

In my original draft, the final few pages were adapted into a series of scenes to accomodate pacing and narrative flow. This prevented it from being just a bunch of dialogue - - and I think the next scene illustrates a balance between action and diction.

Beyond "The Turk," I don't have a name for the big guy that's holding the gun, and I don't think I actually refer to him as "The Turk" in the story. So, his name is an unspoken secret between you and I. How do you like that!?

Drawing a guy holding a rifle is hard.


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Outfitted - - Behind the Scenes of Tomb of the Undead

Here's just a quick post from one of the more recent scenes at Tomb of the Undead: Outfitted. Before running into the Third Act for the script, I took a few days read and edit and tidy it up. After doing the artwork for the story up to this point, and getting a bit more familiar withe pacing of how the graphic novel works (for me, at least) I knew that some of the scenes would be WAY too long, so it had to be reworked.

That being said, I simplified some concepts down and reduced some dialogue and worked on the beat structure to get it into more manageable segments.

An example is this scene, in particular. Quick and easy, one page, tells a little story/character development, but doesn't drag ass. NOW, on the other hand, I totally dragged my ass while drawing and publishing it, but that's my problem, not the readers'. So I hope you felt it was quick and to the point and offers some cohesion and transition, which you don't ever want to be caught without.

Another discovery/admission I have is this: when I'm entering into a new setting that I haven't really figured out yet, I take FOREVER to get it designed in the rough stages and really struggle in finishing the page. Now, after I've established a setting, I can run the characters around in it without too much difficulty, but initializing the material is a different task altogether.

In any case, I hope you liked it!

Behind-the-scenes background stuff for two recent scenes

I'm not sure if people are "into" this sort of thing, but here are some "behind-the-scenes" stuff that might be interesting to check out from the latest scene. Basically it's just the rough drafts of the pages that helped me organize the pacing and spacing.

I hope you might find it interesting:

Yup -- it's all done on 8.5 x 11" sheets of paper.

You can compare them to the finished pages here: Silence of the Lambs

I named it "Silence of the Lambs" as an homage to the book series - - the idea of winding up in a slaughterhouse was pretty bad-ass and villainous to me, so I hoped to include that as a great point of confrontation for my characters.

In "Hannibal" Mason Verger was hellbent on hiring some Italians to capture Hannibal and feed him feet-first to a hybrid of man-eating hogs while he was still alive in revenge.

I really liked the idea and optioned to let it influence what happens in here - there was also a great scene in "The Hills Have Eyes" (the 21st century remake) that didn't occur in a slaughterhouse, but was influential in writing this scene, too. 

The emergence from the freezer is intended to act as a traumatizing rebirth for Dr. Miller to shape his story arc moving forward -- to give him some "guts" as Dr. Bolam would implore of him.  I hope it turned out well.

From my choice of medium, I'm a little restricted in two ways - - first, a comic would usually been drawn on a larger sheet of paper, then shrunk down to fit a print piece. This offers a lot more room and detail in a panel, much more room than an standard-leaf sheet of paper.

Second, because I'm using simple graphite pencils, it's awfully difficult to use black and darkness to its fullest effect. I would have loved to made this MUCH darker, but the sharpness of an image goes WAY down when you're using a soft graphite pencil, the details are lost in the blur. Even the maggots in the meat had to be re-inked after I'd finished shading to stand out.

Also, it's a wicked mess when you've poured all that darkness onto a page - - if you think your hands get dirty reading the newspaper, working with soft graphite is like reading a couple papers in a row and losing track of your soap.

Anyhow, I hope you found this informative - - and you liked the scene!