I'll Show You (DD4, Chapter Two, pages 61-68*)

This week: I sing, you sing, we all sing for Wanted Things.

This whole passage may be sung to the tune of… uh… to the tune of… oh, I don't know. Someone call Alan Menken!

I'm so excited to finally share this section. This, as much as anything in this book so far, is a product of the policy of "let's keep it weird and have fun." I've mentioned this previously, but I grew up with a dad who would unironically blast Disney soundtracks on his big stereo, and those animated movies clearly made a dent in me. So I like this opportunity to make a nod straight in their direction.

But it's not just an homage or a clever format change for cleverness's sake. As you may or may not have read elsewhere, Alexandra grows into a woman who guards her feelings closely. She is not an open book. So I thought, how much fun would it be to have her spill her heart in the most earnest of ways? There is nothing guarded here, there is no fuzzy language to disguise intentions or clever quips or ironic detachment. It's all cutting straight to the core. Plus, it means that all her earlier talk about adventure and bravery really, truly does come from a spirit that runs bone-deep.

Or at least that's how I hope it all reads. :)

* If you're wondering about a gap between last week and this week, note there are no pages 59 or 60.

(As always, browse completed pages using the "DD4" tag!)

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Hey a few weeks ago I was running my mouth about feelings of accomplishment. Well, this week I was putting together the HTML for the Delilah Dirk website and I saw—for the first time, really—what the pages look like as two-page spreads, the way I had always intended them to be seen.

Reader, let me tell you: I felt such a rush of good feeling, such a moment of pride that I am almost embarrassed to admit it.

That's what the comic is supposed to look like. That's how it's supposed to be seen. Now it feels like this is A Comic Book.

I guess I thought that I'd feel "done" once I'd simply coloured every page. Nope. As it turns out, this is where it starts to feel "done."

Those public pages will start rolling out near the end of October and will run until March of next year (!!!). Twenty weeks' worth of installments.

Meanwhile, my arts-grant applications are mostly complete and I'm about half way through reformatting the pages for Vertical Scroll. Next week, in addition to sharing another new sequence from Chapter Two, I get to show you guys the pile of post-its that will soon become Chapter Three!

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I hope everyone's enjoying the change of seasons. Our Katsura trees are dropping their leaves, which means the air smells like burnt sugar / cotton candy, and it is among my favourite things that the great green world offers to us. What makes it even better is that it's difficult to discover where the smell comes from. It's not like the scent of a rose, where you can jam your nose into the flower and get a big ol whiff. The smell of a Katsura tree in autumn is like catching a friend in the corner of your vision, turning to see them, and discovering it was only a trick of light. If you're open to it, you can catch the smell, but it's difficult to find if you're searching for it.

🍂
TC