OK, so page 68… I know it has been a while. I started to work on this page at some time during late October, but never got around to finishing it until now. I even fantasized about finishing it for Halloween, but no dice.
As Sam takes us deeper into his world, we continue the deconstruction of the dreadful vampire’s image. I wanted to achieve a number of things on this page. The first one was to have our antagonist interact with the world around him to keep us informed of his psyche. On the art front I wanted to create a transition with the lighting that I haven’t tried before: To mix two different light concepts into one scene. I really like this green hue. Granted I had used green the first time we go to Acantha’s loft. She’s a witch, we are in her home, green doesn’t seem too farfetched. This time around I was looking for that wonderfully sickening neon light green, which casts this hopeless, ill feeling; “Joe vs. the Volcano” anyone? I also wanted to compose the panels with Sam being off center. This is a concept I liked about the movie “Subway,” where director Luc Besson framed his characters off center. I wanted to use this technique in this page to help accentuate Sam’s insignificance. The little scene with the girls looking at our vampire--and he in turn looking back at them smiling and thinking they are checking him out, only to discover they just thought he was some funny looking guy--came from a real life anecdote from a guy I used to know a long time ago. By his late teens he started to think of himself as a self-styled “ladies man” – one look at him and you would understand how far off the mark this poor guy was; a similar event occurred to him while waiting for a subway. I guess the story was filed away somewhere in my brain.
On an interesting note, during Halloween week I spent a lot of time watching all sorts of paranormal shows and horror flicks in lieu of the festivities. One particular show caught my attention. The show was called “Celebrity Ghost Stories.” Gina Gershon’s was creepy, Sammy Hagar’s was shocking, but the one that really caught my attention was ex-Go-Go’s singer Belinda Carlisle. In short, she describes a classic psychic vampire attack that occurred to her while staying at a seedy motel. There it was, in all its cheesy CGI glory: A dark human-like shadow feeding off her. I feel the need to point out that the choice of making Reverie’s vampire red was purely aesthetic. It’s symbolic more than factual… or as factual any of these things can be.
Lots to talk about since I’ve been quiet all this time. The holidays are coming and traveling looms in the horizon. That means more hibernation for Metasearch, but as things are calming down in the work front, I will try to produce as many pages as I can before the mid-December hiatus. For those of you who honor me with your patience for new pages, thank you so much from the very core of my heart. You haven’t forgotten my three little psychics, and I have certainly not forgotten you. I’ll see you in the page.
Oddman Out
