Retrospective - Delilah Dirk and the King's Shilling (Part 3)

It's the final instalment in my look back at 2016's THE KING'S SHILLING, or "DD2!" 

In the first instalment, I said that I have often thought of DD2 as a sort of detour in the direction that I thought Delilah Dirk would take. As I wrap up reading the book for the first time in a long time, let's find out if that feeling remains!

- - - - -

The context notes from the previous instalments hold true here. It feels weird for me to write about my own book like this. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it. :)

- - - - -

I think I might have drawn this splash page (above-left) while tabling at the Vancouver Comics Arts Festival one year, at least partially. I worked on it during the down time. 

Using the reflection in the window to show Selim’s expression is a clever compositional move, though the rendering could be improved. I like the orange glow on the clouds, a detail which says “busy city” even if the reader doesn’t consciously notice it.

The entering-the-ball sequence (above-right) could have been improved, I think. I should have used a second “establishing shot” inside the ball, but I probably thought, “I already have an establishing shot,” as if you only get one per sequence.

The women all wear similar light-coloured gowns, which I suspect was a detail lifted from the Keira Knightly PRIDE & PREJUDICE. Unfortunately, this makes them indistinct from each other, and there are a few character drawings in there where I wonder, “is that supposed to be DD?” This is why, in the ballroom scene in DD4, Alexandra and Katerina are the only ones wearing blue. 

There’s an episode of BLUEY (“Dance Mode”) with dense crowd scenes. Every member of the crowd is coloured a pale purple or gold colour (below), which makes them much less likely to distract from our hero characters. This isn't very realistic, obviously — and in the rest of the show, the cast is much more colourful — but sometimes you just have to emphasize readability.

DD gets overwhelmed and frustrated at the ball, and Selim sticks his nose into the ballroom and finally gets to see this spectacle he’s been secretly wanting to witness (before getting shoved back out, unfortunately). Here’s my first Wish for this instalment: I wish I’d given more weight to both of these ideas. I also should have made more of a meal of Selim being interrupted by the soldier. That should scare him!

The contrarian in me says, no, it’s fine, we don’t need to turn every little beat up to eleven. But those beats were important to our characters, and I like that this sequence is in here to acknowledge and feed their other aspects outside of the hunt for Merrick.

This sequence (above) either needs a clearer buildup or more explicit narration. Selim says, “she’s unarmed,” so a clever reader might assume, “he’s going to get her swords,” but it wouldn’t have hurt if he had said as much.

Nice detail on that strap holding Merrick’s scabbard, though (bottom-right). Where did I find reference for that?

If I’m hard on the last handful of pages, I really like how this section (above) turned out. Merrick’s swish past DD makes me smile, and his oblique dialogue works well.

On pages 184-185 (above), When Merrick goes back and forth, demanding Jeanette to join him and calling out DD for who she is, I like how he lurches, mid-thought, from one woman to the other. It makes him seem suitably unhinged. I would like if it were illustrated more clearly (if the "blocking" were more apparent), him bouncing between one woman on the left and another on the right, but I do like how the characters are drawn in this sequence.

Above, Selim’s line, “what about what I think of you? How does that figure in?” — it ahh, it umm, maybe it gets me a little bit.

Those panels at the bottom of the left-hand page (above) — with DD looking one way, then another — work a lot better in film or TV than they do in a comic. This is neither the first nor last time where I can clearly see myself needing to be reminded, “this is a comic, not a movie.”

Almost all of the time, when I am working on these projects, the scenes play out like a movie in my head. Despite having grown up reading comics, screen-format storytelling somehow became my “native tongue.” If my comics have become more naturally comic-y over the years (which I hope is true), I suspect it’s because I’ve become better at translating movie-language to comics-language.

Sometimes, coming from movie language is a real boon. There are some scenes like that coming up. Other times, like this sequence, I could have done a better job “speaking comic.”

In film storytelling, “show, don’t tell” is received wisdom, and it means: don’t have a character tell us, “I am conflicted!” Show them feeling conflicted. Act it out. It's easy to see the change in subsequent sequential images on a screen, because they reveal themselves in the same space, separated by time, so subtleties of acting are easier to see. The audience will bring their own experience to bear, interpret these changes (the acting) correctly, and be able to empathize.

This is one of film’s strengths. I love seeing good, meaningful, subtle acting on screen. It's one of my favourite things, when someone says a lot with a tiny shift of expression. I will probably always be trying to bring that into comics. 

Unfortunately, in comics, subsequent sequential images don’t read the same as they do on screen. In a comic, they sit next to each other, separated by space. Subtle changes between panels are harder to interpret. It can become a bit like the childhood games of “spot the difference.”

DD's acting is not subtle. She is saying, "I have to choose one direction or another, I don't know which, and this frustrates me." I chose to show that struggle instead of telling the reader about it, which is fine, but I don't think this layout serves the acting well. When an illustrator asks the audience to try to interpret this sort of wordless interior struggle, I think everyone's better off if the panels follow a regular structure with consistent framing that does not distract from the acting. Here, I've got too many different panel shapes in too many places.

Plus, I think it would have been okay to do a little "telling." Comics allow us to pull in the strengths of novels and illustration. Unfortunately, writing words is also very difficult — especially good words — so I can imagine why Me of Ten Years Ago chose to lean on his film-storytelling tendencies.

Am I contradicting myself, saying “I wish there was more writing here” when elsewhere I said, “I wish there was less text in this?” Maybe. I guess that’s where the art is, trying to figure out the balance of all this stuff.

I am grateful for the inclusion (again) of clueless Cecelia (above).

This fight scene (above) feels more brutal now than I remember it being. 

I like that she uses the rolling pin (bringing domesticity to a sword fight), and that it later gets sliced clean in two (showing how sharp the swords are).

Fight scenes are another area where we can do some compare-and-contrast between film and comics. It boils down to: it’s easier to make a fight scene interesting on film. Yeah, I’ll watch thirty minutes straight of Jackie Chan parrying goons with a ladder. In comics, it’s just not as interesting to see people trade blows.

So I try to have something happen on every page that is meaningful to the story. In this kitchen fight, the movements are as follows:

• Surprise! Merrick and his sergeant are in the kitchen.
• DD recovers. We do something fun with the setting (using the rolling pin as a weapon). The kitchen staff reacts in terror.
• DD and the sergeant trade blows, but we add interest: DD’s rolling pin is chopped in half, and she hits him with the remainder (she is resilient). He flings the cast-iron pan (adding novelty from the setting). 
• The sergeant winds DD and we make the reader ask: will she be run through?
• Surprise! Selim shows up and blinds the sergeant. He suffers for his interference.
• But his interference allows DD to overcome the sergeant. End of fight.

And that’s it. Each page gives us something worth our attention, and then it’s done. It’s long enough to have fun with, it accomplishes a story beat (Selim can’t quit DD), and we're out. I think that’s a successful comic-book fight scene.

Because of the way comics work (turn the page, see a spread; turn a page, see a spread), you can break it into a rhythm: we turn the page and are met with a two-page spread. On the top-left, surprise the reader. Then, have fun with the fight. On the bottom-right, ask the reader a question. The reader turns the page and encounters another surprise. Repeat. 

On pages 196-197, it goes like this: Top-left: surprise! The sergeant grabs one of her swords. Have fun: throw the frying pan, and DD gets the sergeant’s big, iconic armoured arm in the gut. Bottom-right: will he stab her with her own sword?

On pages 198-199 (above), it works out like this: Top-left: surprise! Selim intervenes. Have fun: we see the sergeant recover, wound Selim, and DD overcomes the sergeant. Bottom-right: is Selim okay?

Like any rhythmic structure in art, it pays to break it to interrupt any potential monotony.

I like this line, “I try to keep things exciting.” I feel like this is a little victory. When Selim was sincere with his emotions earlier ("what about what I think of you?"), he wears his heart on his sleeve and says what he means. When DD gets sincere with her emotions, she couches it in a joke. We hopefully understand this as part of their relationship, so by the time we get to this scene, I hope it reads more true than if DD had said what she means, too. (She does kind-of say what she means in the top-left panel, but the heart of this scene is all the stuff on the left-hand page, if you ask me.)

I’m glad I summarized the villainous plot here. In another, somehow-worse timeline, I left this all unsaid.

This would have been stronger if she said “pinning up my DRESS,” instead of “train,” because “dress” is the term Cecelia uses earlier, in the ballroom.

This is my favourite panel in the book (above, top-left). Maybe in the whole series.

This whole sequence is also where I think speaking film-language “natively” came in handy. I think this action sequence would work on-screen and I also think it works well on the page. Sorry, I’m just really pleased with it. I like her reply to Merrick, “I’ll cripple you!” That’s a good action-adventure rejoinder.

Ahhh, I should have re-used the radiating red circles, both in the panel where she's hanging on to the carriage with one hand (and her bad arm) and in that bottom-left panel (above) to sell her arm-wound idea.

Like in the first chapter, I wish this sequence was less wordy. Maybe I just don’t want a lot of talking during my fight scenes. And maybe that says good things about the fight scene — maybe it means that it’s carrying a good momentum, and I just don’t want to slow down to parse the extra decorous words in the dialogue.

I wish I remembered how this action sequence came together. Reading it now, it seems like there are a lot of moving pieces that come together in good, meaningful ways, making me think, “that must have been difficult to plan.” But I do not specifically remember it being that way.

In the first part of this DD2 Retrospective, I commented on some panels in Chapter One which were supposed to be read in parallel, and I said I didn’t think it worked. Meanwhile, I think this page (above-right), where we’re again meant to read the left and right columns in parallel, does work. I assume it’s because the parallel columns run all the way from top to bottom of the page, and I think the full bleed (the art extends to the very edge of the page) helps, too.

That combo of panels at the top-left (above) reads so strongly for me. I wish the panel were bigger, the one with the soaked DD, standing strong in the sunlight.

Though this (above-right) is another circumstance where I wish I’d used words to explicitly ask the audience, “will she kill him?” Something small from either Selim or DD to say in no uncertain terms, she WANTS to kill him. This would make it more fun when we turn the page and she gets his shilling from her Sack of Grievances and shoves it into his collar, the way he did to her.

Hey, wait. What exactly are those hills supposed to be, in the distance (above)? There are no hills that rise above the horizon around London not like that.

This, I assume, is a by-product of growing up in Vancouver, where every horizon has a few mountains on it. The landscape always holds you in its embrace. When I go to places where the horizon is flat — where it runs off into the infinite distance — I feel so unsettled and exposed. I probably thought this panel looked strange without some sort of landmass rising up in the distance.

I like how this whole ending sequence goes. But then, I like long endings. I’m one of those people who will defend the drawn-out denouement in LORD OF THE RINGS. It seems like this puts me in the minority, but I don’t care. I like to see themes wrapped-up, and I like spending time with our characters, whether it’s my book or someone else’s. Which is not to suggest this end sequence is totally indulgent — we need to tie up DD’s relationship with her mom, and to reunite DD with Selim and reconfirm their friendship.

The character business as DD’s mom confronts her work well for me. DD’s despair about the lack of justice for Merrick is good. (This is a staple of the SHARPE books, and maybe of HORNBLOWER, too — the villain always gets off lightly for their crimes, usually by being able to exploit The System. Sometimes justice finds them in other ways, though, as it does here for Merrick, in a moment.)

This end sequence also lets me do two important detail things: I get to bring back DD’s boat, redesigned. And she gets a new chestpiece for her costume, one that looks more like an actual, real item of clothing, and that has 100% less cleavage-hole (on page 262). 

Crowd scenes (above). Artists love to complain about drawing them. And fair enough, it’s a lot of work. I complain, too, to myself. But I also try to remember, “this book needs this crowd scene, it is better for it.” That’s the case here. In order for a battlefield to feel like a battlefield, some times you just have to fill it with soldiers. If a scene isn’t improved by drawing the whole crowd, then maybe you didn’t need to draw the whole crowd.

I wish I hadn’t intercut DD’s scene with this Merrick scene (above). I’d like to leave Merrick to his fate, cursing DD, and then come back to DD and her mother, so she can tacitly endorse DD’s activities, and DD and Selim can fly off in peace, with Merrick's continued existence not such a pressing threat. I like that we leave him out there, and hint at his return, but I don't think that message needs to cut into DD and Selim's otherwise pleasant conclusion.

- - - - -

I started off these instalments on DD2 saying, "I don't think this is what I had in mind for Delilah Dirk."

Reading it now, my feeling is: it doesn't matter what I had in mind for Delilah Dirk. This is what Delilah Dirk is, and I like it. No, it's not the tomb-raiding adventure that I figured I'd be pursuing from day one, but it is absolutely a giant hug for the Napoleonic War fiction that drew me to this time period, and the Austen fiction that I ended up enjoying. There are things that I wish I could improve, but the action stuff is an unqualified success, I think. I like the arc between DD and Selim. And the way DD shoves that shilling back down Merrick's collar is a win.

I also had it in my mind that this book deviates from the first by becoming too — I don't know — too focused on the rigours of storytelling. DD1 was fuzzy and weird, DD2 became to straightforward. I feel less of that now. It is more "serious," but I feel like the tone and character of the story is more consistent with the first than I gave it credit for. It doesn't feel like a complete departure, I am relieved to discover.

To the people who commented on the first instalment of this retrospective saying, "DD2 is my favourite," you surprised me. I didn't know anyone felt that way. And now? I gotta say, I can see it. I can definitely see it.

- - - - -

That all leads to the question: well, if DD3 — THE PILLARS OF HERCULES — does make good on the tomb-raiding, globe-trotting, and swashbuckling that I had promised myself when I started work on Delilah Dirk… how does it read now?

Readers, I am very curious to find out, but I hope you will be patient with me. I am feeling like I have not made fast-enough progress on flatting for PDAP, and I want to focus my energies on that over the next little while. I will not be jumping into a retrospective for DD3 next week, but it's coming.

- - - - -

In my never ending quest to simultaneously finish work on PRACTICAL DEFENCE and to make things fun around here, I am considering… livestreaming while I flat and colour!

I know this is something that some people like. Are you one of those people?

I'd like to try some test streams over the next few weeks to see if I am fundamentally able to work and stream at the same time. I'll post an update here with a schedule and link if/when I do.

- - - - -

Until next week,
I remain,
"I wish this sequence was less wordy,"

TC