Retrospective - Delilah Dirk and the King’s Shilling (Part 1)

Some time during the summer of 2013 — before The Turkish Lieutenant came out — Calista, my editor at First Second, asked for a pitch for a second Delilah Dirk book. This caught me off guard. Not because I didn't think there should be a near-infinite number of Delilah Dirk books, only that I thought this sort of request would be made after the first book sold a near-infinite number of copies.

So I put together a pitch, all the time quietly ruminating on the idea that if First Second did, in fact, pick up this book, it meant that making Delilah Dirk would become… my… day job. It would be my first actual graphic novel from start to finish — The Turkish Lieutenant was built from previously standalone pieces, as mentioned earlier. I would be “living the dream,” as all my animation friends would tell me when I eventually went back to work in a studio.

For the last several years, when I thought of DD2 I always characterized it in my mind as… not a mis-step, not a movement in the wrong direction, but just not what I thought DD would be when I started Treasure of Constantinople in 2006. At the risk of getting ahead of myself, when I later began work on DD3 (The Pillars of Hercules), I thought it was a “course correction.” It delivered the tomb-raiding, globe-trotting adventure I believed I had neglected in DD2. It’s what I always thought a DD story would be, so how did I end up writing a book about revenge and the Napoleonic Wars?

Is it possible for an author to mischaracterize their own work? It might be, especially if that author is me. The mind works in gooey, hazy ways, especially if that mind is mine.

I began DD “wanting to fill the Indiana Jones-shaped hole in my heart,” as I tell people at conventions, and there’s not much Indiana Jones in DD2. But there is a lot of Sharpe and Horatio Hornblower — more than I remember there being. In that way, it might be truer to its influences than I give it credit for. I inhaled those Napoleonic Wars books. They’re part of the reason DD lives in the early 19th century. Did I let DD tell me which book needed to happen next? In the retrospective for DD1, I talked a little about letting the characters and the story take the reins; maybe DD2 is the result. Could that be possible?

I’m going to take a new look at DD2. I haven’t read it in a long, long time, so I have relatively fresh eyes. Let’s see what comes back to me, and what appears anew.

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Before I continue, some context:

These retrospectives are written from the perspective of someone looking into their own work (that’s me), for readers that have read that same work (that’s you). I assume some of you are also interested in the crafts of writing or illustration.

I wrote and illustrated this book more than ten years ago. I have grown and changed, as we all have. I want to be objective about the work, but that is impossible. I try to strike a balance between being critical and noticing when I’ve done something I’m proud of. If you find that balance not to your liking, I can only apologize.

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I’ll also acknowledge that I’m skipping over three projects:

• 2012’s Delilah Dirk and the Seeds of Good Fortune 
• 2013’s Delilah Dirk and the Easy Mark 
• 2013’s Delilah Dirk and the Tides of Fire

They all have their own little points of interest (especially Tides of Fire and how it relates to Practical Defence Against Piracy) but I’ve already started making notes about DD2 and only just remembered that those three projects came before it. This is a noteworthy comment on the integrity of my memory that we all might keep in mind moving forward.

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DELILAH DIRK AND THE KING’S SHILLING

Part One: PORTUGAL

I always think of this book as “Delilah Dirk and the Blades of England,” because that is what it was originally called. I don't remember whose idea it was to change the title. "King's Shilling" is more appropriate to the story, but I still think "Blades of England" sounds better.

I’m proud of the cover because it’s the first proper chance I had to bring this style of Drew Struzan-like montage to Delilah Dirk. You’ll know Struzan - he’s responsible for all your favourite mainstream movie posters of the eighties (and beyond).

I don't remember what exactly the inscription says on the coin behind DD's head, but I did absolutely consult with latin experts to figure out how to replace the reference to God with a reference to "The Swan," in case you were wondering how far back I was substituting the dominant religion of Western Europe with an imaginary bird-based belief system.

One aspect which will annoy me forever, though, is that the foil on the title is not the same as the foil on DD1’s cover, and I had no way of noticing this until the final printed book arrived, when it was too late to do anything about it. The designer on this book was John Green — now the author of the INVESTI-GATORS series. I remember working with John on the interiors, but not on the cover. Colleen (who had been the designer for DD1) had left First Second by that time. So it was someone else who chose the wrong foil.

Above: the cover design thumbnails I sent to First Second.

Just as in the first book, I’m glad First Second was willing to put the title at the bottom. I’ve always thought it looked better that way; better than any comps I put together with the title at the top.

In an effort to create at least a subconscious sense of continuity through the series, I put a strong diagonal element behind the title, always at the same angle. DD1 has the aqueduct. DD2 has the ground plane. DD3 has the combination of oar and wake. APPLE has the cascade of apples. PRACTICAL DEFENCE has the waves, even though I think the angle is off and the title’s at the top of the page instead of the bottom.

As a professional, should I have given the publisher so many colour options (above)? Probably not. But I did. I’m indecisive. Looking at them now, I like the strong blue-on-red options.

I also like the copy on this flap. “Punishing espionage, committing espionage, explosives,” hah. Like the first book, I did not write this. It was probably Calista.

Opening with a full-bleed splash page (above)! At some point I told myself, “every book will begin this way,” with an image that is attractive, gives us a strong sense of place, and features our character moving away from us, into the setting. My thinking was that this will help to draw the reader into the image and the story. I now think my thinking was well thought-out. It works.

I wish the wagon wheel was circular, though. Note to self: buy some circle templates.

I wish I had laid out this sequence better (above). I just want to see what’s happening more clearly. As-is, with the gag being “Selim is out of his element, he sets a fire that’s too big,” it’s about 70-75% of the way there. For the opening of a book, it should be 100%.

That said, to its credit, if you’d just picked this up after finishing DD1, I think it would feel like a natural transition. Even though this story soon gets more intense than DD1 was, it doesn’t feel like you’re dropped into a different tone with different characters.

This spread (above) feels too clever for its own good. You’re supposed to interpret the strip of panels in the middle as running simultaneously with the father-son business, the panels for which read as usual, top-left to bottom-left, top-right to bottom-right. Encountering it for the first time in a long time, I was confused as to which panel came second: the bottom-left panels? Or the top-right? When you know what is the intended effect — either by being the book’s author or by figuring out the spread as a whole — you might say, “oh yeah, I see what you did there,” but I think it would be better if it read more straightforwardly. As a practical solution, I just wouldn’t let a panel span the middle of the two pages.

I don’t see a lot of written entertainment playing with misheard words, so I take this “fifteen/fifty” business (above) as a fun little point of pride. Also, it’s humanizing. Also also, it gets repeated later in another father-son context.

This “guns are the resort of desperate men” line is cute, as he will later shoot DD with a gun. Knowing that, I’m tempted to think, “well that’s clever foreshadowing,” and give myself a pat on the back, but then I remember that this is table stakes for decent writing. When you do it yourself, it feels like an accomplishment. In the real world, it’s just expected. Like, we take it for granted that a juggler does not drop the pins. Similarly, we expect that writers make meaning with efficiency.

Anyway, I love big blustery men who are full of their own shit.

Proud of this panel (above); the writing, the posing, the way she's obscured. DD has adopted a little of Selim’s wordiness, too, perhaps.

I also like this reveal of DD.

I'm less fond of all the wordy Selim chatter on the facing page. I know, being wordy is supposed to be his whole deal, but — again, coming to this with fresh eyes — I don't find it as much fun to read as it is to write.

Very pleased with this gag, above-left, with the arrow that’s too small for the bow. And yes, that “arrow to the knee” (above-right) is a Skyrim reference. I dumped a lot of time into Skyrim.

And here (above), a nod to a Portuguese specialty: azulejos! Beautiful blue-and-white tile decorations on the wall.

I wish we could see it was Leandro who was saying “graaahh!” (above). I'll bet I thought that was too on-the-nose at the time. Shame. This middle panel is so pretty, but the sequence could read so much better. *sigh.*

With these two panels, I like the way it could be read like he pulls her up and she arcs straight into the back of the wagon. Up! And in.

I remember it taking a looooong time to get the colours right on that “establishing shot,” top-left (above). I just couldn’t get it to feel right. Sometimes when a panel is challenging, I’ve resorted to using unusual techniques, or I fiddle with it too much, leaving it looking “over-painted” or fussy. Looking at it now, I don't see that effort, which is a relief.

It’s weird — I almost completely forgot that I included an entire Portuguese family with all their own drama. Fortunately, they're incorporated reasonably well; they help underscore the themes. Here, for example, DD uses their situation to talk about herself and her own relationship with her mother. She tells us exactly what she assumes her mother must think of her. Reading this again, I wondered: why didn’t I make these grandparents the woman’s grandparents — why are they her in-laws? — but I assume it’s exactly so the grandparents could speak so authoritatively about Leandro.

We also get to see DD’s Sack of Grievances (above-right)! It’s never stated explicitly, but this is where she keeps the souvenirs from every time someone has wounded her. Later she'll put Merrick's shilling into that satchel, and I always liked that the shilling was a symbolic wounding, compared to all the bullets and arrowheads.

Hmm. Considering how full that satchel is, I should probably have been drawing more scars on DD.

When DD quotes “Hodgman” (above), it is supposed to sound like she is quoting a time-tested wise man. The quote is, in fact, from the podcast Judge John Hodgman. I do not know which episode. I emailed John Hodgman to ask if I could use it, though, saying I would “attribute the quote to, for example, ‘the great Hodgman.’”

He replied, “…you're welcome to it. Just say "John Hodgman" though. No flattery necessary.”

So I did. He’s simply, “Hodgman.”

On the facing page (above-right), I remember being very pleased to have found the reference photo that turned me on to the idea of these patterned hanging shades. It’s possible they’re anachronistic, but they offered a nice change in lighting and texture, so I couldn’t pass them up.

The big panel here (above) is another one where I struggled with the colour. Unfortunately, I think this time it shows.

Throughout these pages, I had not planned the lighting or light-dark values of my scenes and panels ahead of time, so when it came time to colour, I had a lot of trouble, figuring out how to make them look believable but also have the silhouettes read clearly. I’m surprised the good panels turned out so well. This is why, with DD4, I started making “value thumbnails,” to avoid this kind of trouble.

This panel (above) references Delilah Dirk and the Tides of Fire, which will be the subject of its own post. If the pirate looks familiar, well, there's a reason for that.

This whole carefree sequence at the river is a real treat for me (above). IIRC, it was one of the first ideas I had for this book, that she would pretend to get dragged away by the current, then yank Selim into the water. It’s playful, it’s sweet. However, I do not remember why Selim says, “I don’t think I’ve ever known you to swim,” and he thinks she hates swimming. What does this signify? I also wish the colours in this sequence were better. Less muddy (so to speak). The water rendering is okay, I'm happy with that, but I wish the rest had a better feel to it.

I don’t think I ever learned how to draw Merrick very consistently (above), but I like how much of a thick-necked creep he looks like in this drawing. And despite my newfound distaste for Selim’s over-wordy narration, I think his line here (“Sir assumes a quality of relationship which I believe is not in evidence,”) is well-placed and funny, especially with Merrick’s subsequent observation, “ostentatiously.”

An homage to my favourite scene from BONE (above). I met Jeff Smith at SDCC one year. I told him how much I had enjoyed BONE and — IIRC — mimed this scene to him. He seemed non-plussed.

This (above) echoes the scene where DD pulls Selim into the water. I honestly do not remember if I did that intentionally or not. Reading it now, it looks intentional. I suspect it might not be. I looked up the script to see if it was in there. Everything after the BONE homage is basically, “they fight,” meaning this would have emerged during the thumbnail stage.

We meet Merrick’s dad (above)! I do not remember writing this character at all. I like how Merrick calls him “Father” while he, in turn, calls his son “Major.” That’s efficient storytelling. So efficient, I suspect I might have stolen it, perhaps from HORNBLOWER, perhaps from SHARPE, or maybe it’s just an old trope. The influence of Bernard Cornwell’s SHARPE books peaks here, I think, both in the details of military organization and the general long-suffering weariness from army officers.

There's a funny story behind the Colonel's "Delia Dirk" mistake. After DD1 came out, I recorded a podcast interview wherein the host kept referring to the book by that name, instead of "Delilah." I didn’t correct him at the time because I didn’t want to squash the tone of the interview (and I like him), but I did follow up later to point out the error, hoping he might add a preamble acknowledging the mistake. I never checked to see if he did.

It’s a common mistake. People are always calling her “Delia” Dirk. I don’t know why. I think the logo typography is pretty clear. Maybe “Delilah” is too uncommon a name.

As a cruel twist, to my great sadness, and only just now on this reading I discovered that I bungled my own joke at the top of page 61 (above). The Colonel says, “I have heard rumours of Delila— sorry, Delilah Dirk.” That “Delila—“ should be a “Delia.” Not “Delilah,” not “Delila,” but “Delia.” Now, this is an easy mistake to make. In the past few sentences, every time I have tried to write “Delia” — including this one, just now — I have written “Delilah,” thanks to muscle memory.

But here's the kicker: the book was professionally copy-edited. If you’ve never experienced the copy-editing process, you will not fully understand the detail with which every single word and letter of your manuscript is scrutinized. Every page, there are a dozen notes asking, “did you mean to use this word? This other word might be better.” The intensity of a professional copy-editor’s gaze is so ruthlessly exposing that I am bewildered that this “Delila” made it through. But maybe that’s a testament to the ease with which the two names are confused.

Merrick makes DD accept The King’s Shilling (above). In retrospect, maybe — just maybe — assuming this is a book targeted at middle-grade readers with only a passing familiarity with 19th-century military history — I should have explained the significance of The King’s Shilling. On the other hand, it’s kind of there on the page, so maybe it’s okay. Either way, I wish I had made a bigger deal of it, considering the symbolism and the fact it’s the book’s title.

Okay, I’m pretty certain that this (above) is a Bernard Cornwell homage. I think one of the villains — Obadiah Hakeswill — repeatedly refers to his inferiors as “filth.” I like it.

Here (above), DD puts Merrick’s coin into her Sack of Grievance. I wish I’d made a bigger deal of it here, too, or at least made it easier to read.

This book, like all my others, is set primarily using Blambot’s Mighty Zeo font. Here, in these italics (above), you can see how wonky the kerning is. Look at the “nti” in “Clementine - the N and the T are smushed together, but the T and I have a gap between them. And there’s a huge gap between the D and A in “Mandarin.” Not sure why this kerning wasn’t fixed. I should have caught this when I was looking at proofs.

On the other hand, I’m really pleased with how all the ships look in this sequence. Nice and solid.

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And the next thing you know, our heroes are in England. That will be the next post, and there will be a third post for the ball and all the fighting that happens in its wake.

Having just re-read the first third of the book (and only that), my feelings are mixed. Visually, I wish the colours were less murky and I wish my character drawings were more consistently on-model. I also wish I’d been able to make a more clear-eyed revision of the text. I say, “been able to,” because I’m sure I did the very best I could at the time. I find it very hard to apply a discriminating editorial eye to my text without the benefit of a great big gap in time. Now, I see lines which could read more easily and exchanges which could be more clear about the point they’re trying to make. I like naturalistic dialogue, but I have sacrificed some clarity in its favour. 

But! I was surprised to rediscover some smart details (like the previously-mentioned way that DD describes her own situation to grandma, and things like the fifteen/fifty confusion between father and son). I found the action fun to read. The settings drew me in more than I expected — sometimes I see artwork from this out of context and am disappointed by it; in context, I liked it much more. And I’m proud of myself for rescuing panels like the one below. None of that lighting was planned-for, I would have struggled to balance it all while I was making it up during the colouring stage. I look at it now and think, “dang. Nice.”

Story-wise, I wish I felt more of an emotional pull, but that’s my only major criticism. The tone can be a bit dark, but it reads lighter than I remember it. I like the way the story moves; it’s got a good rhythm. It was easy to keep turning pages (though I do wish some of the longer text blocks would get out of my way). And I care about DD getting the justice she needs, and about Selim maintaining their friendship. That’s pretty good.

Can this young author make good on the questions and conflicts he’s set up? WE SHALL SEE!

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Next week, if there’s time, I’ll continue digging into DD2. If not, well, maybe I'll share some Chapter Four colour key business. I’m happy to say that those are done, meaning I can move forward confidently with flatting. This is going to be an agonizing few weeks for me. I just want to get the finished colour pages to you! I JUST WANT THEM TO BE COLOURED! And yet, so many pencil miles (or: tablet miles) to walk.

Until next week,

I remain,

(above)

TC