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I consider these loose pencils, even though they look fairly tight–I’ll go over it to be more precise about proportions, details, and to add backgrounds. The dialogue, also, will probably change before the final comic.
It took hours to get it scanned 😛 But, good news: a wonderful wonderful friend is lending me her old laptop, and that should be a major step up from my old workhorse.
[click to see at normal comic size]
Today is the birthday (dies natalis Antinoi) of Antinous, deified lover of the Emperor Hadrian, who will be coming along in a generation or so (we’ve already met Hadrian’s foster father, Trajan). Antinous was born in Bithynia, a place which you’ll find reference to in the print version of SPQR Blues (which MUST get sent out before this year is done). Antinous died young and under mysterious circumstances–whether accident, suicide, sacrifice, or murder is unresolved. The emperor made him a god. For almost two thousand years he’s been a symbol of male beauty and enduring love.
I was reminded of the birthday by the very interesting twitter account and website Following Hadrian–well worth following–where there are nice pics of some excellent examples of the many, many statues dedicated to the young man, including one that still has traces of red paint on the hair. (Remind you of anyone?)
(Image: Following Hadrian, @carolemadge)
I picked up this pencil from CW Pencil Enterprise. They’re local but have an online shop. They seem like friendly folks.
Today’s sketch is just this one panel from a page in a work in progress, also posted several years ago. For some hard-to-define reason, it’s one of my favourite panels. Maybe because it felt like it captured that moment in the story perfectly. It’s not even for SPQR Blues…it was for a project I didn’t have the chops to finish (which was since done by a creative team that does have the chops). I was reminded of it today when I was interviewed about, among other things, the ill-fated project.
I keep meaning to repurpose this panel. I may have already. My memory is floppy.
I am unapologetically anti-Trump, anti-bigotry, anti-sexism, and anti-foul behaviour and foul attitudes from both elected officials and citizenry, and do not have respect for the choice of supporting this person’s points of view. If this stance concerns you, enough to keep you away from reading the comic: I’m not going to be indulging in much discussion of this on this site beyond this post, and would prefer that people not do so in the comments, either. (Policy subject to change at a future date.) I would, though, be open to discussion of ancient Rome and its survival, around the time of this story, of an assortment of vile rulers and frankly crazy-pants behaviour.
Domitian was always going to be portrayed as…Domitian. If you see any parallels, just know that his character–delusional, narcissistic, selfish, massively insecure, and destructive–and his story arcs within Felix’s own story were already planned out.
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