10 Fun Patchwork Facts

Y’all remember when I made these lists for S&S waaaaay back in the day? Well since I’ve been away visiting fam last week (and drove two 16 hour road trips to Colorado lol kill me), let’s have a PW behind-the-scenes special!

1. BOOK INSPIRATION

Cirque du Freak/Saga of Darren Shan has always been my favorite book series. Other people might’ve grown up with Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, etc, I had the lil vampire circus boy. It was what started my fascination with circuses and I would bet even subconsciously inspired the “what if the freaks were real” idea for PW

Other fav books that have a bit of an influence are Pilo Family Circus (by Will Elliott), the Lockdown series (Alexander Gordon Smith) and Tomorrow Belongs to Me (Mark Roberts), all I highly recommend!

2. THEME MUSIC

Y’all know I love to recommend kooky and spooky circus tunes but weirdly what I was listening to the most when script writing was the indie folk band Elephant Revival (not circus related at all lol). The song ‘Ring Around The Moon’ shaped Noah and a very big scene way later in the comic that I’m sure I’ll talk about when we eventually get there and you’ve all long forgotten this lol

3. MOVIE ROOTS

I often relate this comic to that good ol’ innocent and lighthearted little family film: The Human Centipede. I’ve practically stole its tagline when describing PW to people: ‘100% Medically Inaccurate’. It’s like a ridiculous premise that takes itself seriously but also doesn’t. Just picture the Ringleaders as versions of Dr. Heiter if Heiter liked theatrics and mustaches more than mouth-butt stuff. (Also tagging in a movie of the same vein: Tusk, it’s also a lot of fun! Double feature movie night idea!!)

4. GENRE?

PW’s actually toned down a lot since conception in terms of blood/gore so I’m hesitating to even call it horror anymore (BL thriller with body horror elements maybe?). Not because I’m chickening out on the graphic shit, it do get bloody at times, I just ended up wanting to write about the characters/situations more than a wacky Texas Chainsaw Circus I guess lol

TL;DR we’re talking Saw 1 vs all the Saw sequels in terms of intensity difference

5. DEMONS

So Red’s original circus story, let’s talk about it! A looong time ago, like pre-S&S, I had an idea for a YA circus series (not even BL!) only in this one instead of wackadoo surgeon ringleaders we had the kidnapped people slowly and painfully turn into demons based on what type of cursed item they bought at a secret gift shop (ie. If you chose a lighter you’d turn into a firebreather). VERY Cabin in the Woods and I’m happy I didn’t stick with it, I think I’m too much a ground-that-shit-in-reality kind of creator to correctly handle magical artifacts and demonology lore 😅

6. JAY DEATH

Super early draft of the comic (that followed from the “YA demon series” idea) had Crick’s coworker friend Jay originally follow Crick backstage and get killed by Cricket on accident. Basically Jay would’ve been experimented on first (to be a firebreather), tried to get help from C who didn’t recognize him and C would kill him in self-defense thinking he was some kind of monster/threat. Kind of a fun twisty twist… but also gave Crick way too much grief/guilt to deal with on top of all his other problems so no coworker murder subplot lol Story ain’t about Jay it’s about 2 gay boys! Go die somewhere else Jay GAWD

7. HOTEL QUICKIE

Another early script change was the boys having a full one night stand in the hotel when they first met, but I eventually decided to start them off slower, they were in the moment but not THAT in the moment yaknowwhatimsayin. So the result was not as unaffecting as a kiss but not as slutty as a buttfucking (oh if my creative writing teachers could see me now)

8. STRUCTURE

PW is written in 3 acts (istg guys I’m counting down until we get to the second and third, they’re why I wanted to make the comic). It’s hard to tell based on script alone how long each act will be but I know Act 1 ends right after the big rehearsal night and the last act will probably be smallest? But who knows.

I’ve unofficially officially titled the three acts “Welcome to the Circus”, “The Escape Plan” and “Survival”

9. COLOR SCHEME

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before but all the cool tones I wanted to go with for PW are from a few things:

1. Cirque du Soleil: Alegria’s green/blue/purple tattered baroque style costumes. Like the Pablo clowns were a big inspiration for Crick’s green patterned performance outfit

2. I wanted it to be opposite a lot of S&S’s reds/oranges/browns

3. Bonus: some of my fav horror movies use cool tones to convey grime/dread (Saw, The Collector, Se7en) and while they didn’t start as inspiration I do go to them now for lighting and color ideas lol

10. SEXUALITIES

This story doesn’t focus on labels at all and this definitely won’t affect any crackships I may want to draw but for shits and giggles here we go!

Cricket: bicurious turned newly bisexual

Noah: gay/Cricketsexual

Jules: bisexual but it’s weird

Jasper: I dunno, asexual? he’s just a dick that doesn’t use his dick