Double Take: Behind the Scenes

Hello my lovely tier 3+ patrons! It's time for another edition of Behind the Scenes! This time we're covering Double Take! I'll take you through my creative process, show you the origin of this stuntman concept, and even reveal a little about the future of this series. Lights, Camera, Action!

Before I begin it should be stated: I don't know shit about the movie business. I've only absorbed what I could from popular movies and TV on the subject and I did not research basically anything. I just wanted to tell a fun story about a stuntman, so the world is sort of shaped in such a way to facilitate that.

Double Take started life as a prospective webcomic idea based on some sketches I posted to twitter back in 2022. It was going to be a weekly ongoing webcomic that would tell the story of this stuntman/body double scenario over the course of a year or two. I was committing to a LOT of pages. After making two pages I realized that wasn't going to happen with my current workload. I was still working on The Guide to Forgotten Monsters, after all. So I pivoted into a single issue that I could expand up on in future stories, just like one of my regular series.

I decided to go with a more cartoony style than I normally do, mainly to convey the comedic scenes better. I wanted the ability to have some sultry moments and silly moments with the same characters. Then when things are left off in that emotionally ambiguous place on the last page, the juxtaposition of the moment feels all the more impactful. There are also three action beats in the comic which I was quite happy about.

The Stuntman Saga was a series of illustrations I put on twitter back when it was still called that in 2022. At that point, they were my most popular posts. I was just doing them to get this silly idea out of my head. The original concept came from two sources, really two planted seeds: the movies I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988) and Hercules (1958). In the screwball comedy I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, a fight scene breaks out involving a character's mother, a black woman. Their choice of stunt performer, a clearly white man with a moustache wearing her clothes, is a great joke. In Hercules, which I saw on the classic MST3K, an action scene involving a woman on a runaway chariot features a broad-shouldered, flat-chested stunt performer in her costume controlling the horses.

These scenes gave me an idea: What if a stuntman only worked with female actresses? Soon that became a twinning concept that then turned into those original illustrations. I explored the concept as far as it would go, to the point of Stuntman Alex becoming a life stand-in for the actress he was doubling on screen, even so far as delivering lines, kissing a leading man, and moving into her house to live with her and her husband.

I knew that if I was going to tell this story correctly, I needed to break it all down to its raw elements and build it back up with a stronger narrative. The original version of Violet Vanderkamp was an actress who wanted to keep her star bright while she started a family and generally moved on from the movies. I realized that put her at the end of her story, so instead I split her into a mother-daughter duo with bigger ambitions and bigger problems. Alex was about the same in both versions, though I wrote him as new on the scene and less seasoned. Again, more places to go in the narrative. Everything else just flowed from there. Alex wants money and steady work, Violet wants someone to stand in for her at a gala she can't attend for a vague yet important reason, and her mother wants to support her daughter in any way she can.

I didn't do much visual preparation for Double Take, but I did have to rewrite the script several times. Even the last page had several rewrites before I was satisfied. The original version of the final page ended on a much happier note, but I realized it drained all the tension from the scene so I cut it.

June was a great addition to the cast, I think. She's Alex's best friend and roommate. She's a spunky little lesbian stuntwoman who is part of at least three different local sports leagues (kickball, softball, and a third one which I haven't picked yet). I have big plans for her in future comics. No spoilers, but I will say I love a friends-to-lovers dynamic. Of course Alex is a man and June is not attracted to men, so obviously there's no way to get around that (especially in a TGTF comic!)

My future plans for Alex, June, and the Vanderkamps are in flux right now. I have some story ideas which I'd like to flesh out, but I don't know whether they'll be 20-page comics, an anthology of short comics, or just a bunch of little scenes I'll draw over time. Eventually we'll find out why Violet needed Alex to stand in for her, but that will come with time. For now I'm having fun playing in this space. There's lots of possibilities for Alex. Are implants and lip filler in his future? Does he ever start liking the skirts and attention? Look forward to Alex going further down the path of femininity in future comics!

I think that about does it. Double Take was a lot of fun to produce and I'm glad it has had a good reaction among you, my lovely patrons. Thank you so much for reading. As they say in the biz, or so I've heard, that's a wrap!