Oli at dusk (myself at my desk a week before the book release)
Added 2024-02-29 15:07:53 +0000 UTCI have been hesitant to speak about The Gulf too directly. At this point, my considerations and intentions would only colour someones reading. That palette could easily be garish.
In writing the story, I have done my best to create a map that, though interpretable, communicates the path I walked through it. I want to trust readers to read my scrawl. I recognise that it's a common experience to find your own enjoyable path through a work of art and discover that the creators intentions were far from your own reading. A comic is a forest that, through our own nuance of attention, we find a path through. This anxious creator wants to walk with you but hopefully I’ve done a decent enough job that you won’t need any extra tools.
It’s all too familiar to me; I cannot see the forest for the trees. If I talk about it I won’t stop. What this story is, who these characters are, and what it says is ultimately up to you and your desire to interpret and judge my map.
But I selfishly want to talk about it!
At the very least, the book is almost out and I feel compelled to at least introduce Oli.
Once I started inking the book, and maybe due to the coincidence of the red and black striped hoodie she wears throughout most of the story, I realized that Oli is how I imagine a grown up Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes would be. It wasn't intentional but it's there and it feels apt. She's thoughtful, empathetic, wreckless, and engages deeply with whatever she gives her attention to. She's a hothead. She's not always who she wants to be. She’s unsatisfied down to her atoms. A year off from finishing this book, I find myself thinking of her often.
Thanks for your attention,
Adam
