GARY DOES DENMARK(Jack of FABLES#21)

So Shelly and Angela were awesome enough to let me ink myself on this issue.
This helped keep me busy and vouchering while the script for the next "live" issue of Jack (#22) was being polished.
FYI, my faithful desktop computer has been having ethernet port issues, i.e.-the port is fried, so that's why my blogging has been scarce. I'll begin to make up for that here.
Anyway, my scans for this issue are all over the place, across several compooters and in email that I really, really don't feel like rifling through. So forgive the spotty, incomplete recounting of this issue.
So let's start with the spotty, incomplete recounting of this issue!


The Pathetic Fallacy at the footlights...
despite the purpose of the Golden Boughs camp, I imagine that a night like this could be lovely enough. There was a good deal of research done to nail the period dress. Though the color didn't ring true to the style of the period, the era pegged 1590-1600.


Here's the first pass at the break for the big spread on pages 2-3. Note that the actual page was changed in the end. Shelly and I fired shots across one another's bows over this page; which is healthy. In the end I serve the Culture of Fables, and therefore the Editorial Culture. Plus she had a good point.


Gary as Star and Author of the work got to make a dashing Hamlet, sorta.Glad I didn't go through with the hat!


Mister D got to wear his usual get-up, with original hat, for the first time. The hat was always a bit too much for the pages of the regular comic.
And the revisions begin!!!



Getting to ink this myself, I was excited to have some meaty night-scenes with lots of lighting from below on Paul Bunyan. Ink yourself saves on the amount of penciling across the page me thinks.
Here's the revision for Page 11. Pages 10-11 follow. Sorray...
Told ya.



MONSTER!







Following are some work-up sketches for the issue. Some days or weeks before I had the full script. Note how miscast Alice is as Ophelia; she's in the gowns of a lady of the court. God I'm stupid sometimes. It was pointed out to me by an actress who does a good deal of Shakespeare, that Ophelia is a "lovechild"...Tha's right, a disgusting, fragile hippie of the day. Wicked John, needed no alterations.





Zach Baldus did a terrific job as fill-in cover artist. He needed to know about the detail of Gary's princely necklace. This meant I had to come up with a better idea than the scrapings that were available on the pages. I drew this just for him. Let me share the mo'.


So there it is. Gary Does Denmark. Matt Sturges is brilliant for even attempting such a feat as reworking the Bard, let alone setting it at the GB with so many characters. WTG, Matador!
I'm currently pencilling and inking another fill-in slated for 2009. It will be terrific, trust me!
Hail, Fabledom!