Stuff that didn't make it into Juliet Prime: Part I

Welcome, unsuspecting peasant, to...the Hall of Discarded Ideas! [cue evil laughter] Ah ha ha ha ha ha! 

Back in 2021, when I started working on plot ideas and concepts for my graphic novel Juliet Prime, I didn't have a clear idea of the events that were meant to happen in it. So I decided to make a list of every type of scene I wanted to see in a comic, and put it in. Most of the things on that list ended up in the finished book, but quite a lot didn't.

In the next few posts I will detail those rejected ideas here. Mostly because this is a web log — a time- and date-stamped record of my artistic doings. I also find that it helps to never fully discard your comic ideas. Just because these things didn't fit into my story doesn't mean they won't fit anywhere else. Hold on to them! They are probably more interesting than the slop being served up by 'Hollywood' these days, anyway.

Here's the first dropped idea that I wanted to make mention of.

 

Early on, I developed the conceit that the main characters Juliet and Seymour were time-travellers. I thought it would be interesting if, in this story set in the year 2112, that the protagonists were from another era. I thought this might go some way to explaining why their appearance isn't so 'futuristic'. Juliet is dressed like she's from the 1800s and Seymour has a striped rugby jersey redolent of a British public school boy. You could safely predict that no one will be dressing like this in the 22nd century and you'd be right.

A year after I first created these characters, there was a Blackadder special called Back & Forth. The Blackadder series was notable for showing iterations of the same characters in different eras, but in this one they actually travel through time, resulting in scenes like Blackadder going back to the reign of Elizabeth I and punching Shakespeare in the face. I could do that with my characters, couldn't I? Juliet goes back in time to meet the Roman emperor Diocletian and...? Some stuff happens?  

In the end though, I couldn't think of a way to make this idea fit in, and I didn't really want to write a time-travel story. Juliet and Seymour are not time-travellers, nor are they under the delusion that they are. They are just two kids in the future who dress like they're from the past.

~to be continued~ 

Erica

 
Erica is a character in my graphic novel series, Airbury Academy (2007-2018). She first appeared in 2001 as an extremely minor background character, with only one line of dialogue, in a sci-fi/comedy comic called Metalheads that I drew when I was a uni student. There were eight issues made between 1998 and 2003. The bulk of the Airbury characters all first appeared in Metalheads, as did the character Miss Fox from Juliet Prime.

When Erica next appeared, in the original (online) version of Airbury Academy Volume I in 2007, she had been promoted to main character Psyche's best friend. This was a decision taken by my friend Sue (RIP), who had a hand in writing a couple of stories in it. Sue's justification was that her childhood friend was named Erica and she liked my character design. Well, why not?

Erica appeared throughout the entire series. She had a cameo at the end of Limelight in 2021, and is set to appear (along with about 75% of the Airbury characters) in a new murder-mystery graphic novel later this decade. So look out for it! Until then, enjoy some panels...

My Grand Final prediction from 12 years ago

Take a look at this Photoshopped image. I made it way back in September 2009 for a friend's birthday card.

 
As you can see, he was/is a Richmond Tigers supporter. And as you can also see, it has today's date on it. I was predicting 12 years ago that Richmond would win a Grand Final in the year 2021, which was a pretty long shot as far as predictions go, because Richmond weren't all that good in 2009.

But! It wasn't all bad, because I managed to get the date of the match correct. And also because Richmond managed to play in, and win, three Grand Finals before 2021, even if they were nowhere to be seen this year.

Bonus points: Can you spot me in the image?

Japan-niversary

Today makes 10 years since I first went to Japan to work there for a year. Ah yes, on the hot and humid Sunday of August 5, 2001, I arrived in Tokyo, a city I had seen on-screen many times. Having spent many evenings with my uni mates watching anime videos, it was crazy to think I was now in the same country all those bizarre animated adventures had taken place in.

Okay, enough reminiscing – let's dip into the archives and post something with a Japanese flavour to it, shall we? Yes.

This is a 2008 drawing of the Villa Aoyama, the apartment building I lived in. It was a new-ish building with many rice fields and a river behind it, and mountains behind that. I went back there in December 2007 with my teacher friend Kaz.


A Christmas winter market in Osaka. It was German-themed (hence the sign), with a merry-go-round and some classical music playing. Note that there were many more people there than I have shown in this fineliner drawing.


In Tokyo, even the cars have a crazy fashion sense. My friend Yoji and I were in a noodle house when this bad boy pulled up outside the window. I couldn't make sense of the signs plastered all over it, but the figurines mounted on the bonnet were certainly eye-catching.

The Road Message Mystery

Here's a mystery to boggle even the most hardworking minds:

I took these photos on July 22, 2004. Several months before that, someone painted (i.e. with a brush) a bizarre message on the road not far from where I lived, in the Perth suburbs of Manning/Como (I'm giving both suburb names because this road, Ley Street, is the boundary between the two suburbs). It was blacked out, but after several months of traffic the message began to reveal itself again.

As you can see, the writing stretches almost all the way across the road. I can only make out the last part of the message, which says:

"DISREGARD THAT

PAPAL BULL!

I DO!!! ('do' is underlined twice)

(picture of a cross) CHRIS CROSS (VERY!)

JUMP!"

I have no idea what this means. It sounds like a swipe at Catholics and a reference to these teenage rappers' hit song from 1992.

Okay, so these photos were taken six years ago. What does Ley Street, Manning/Como look like now? With Google Street View, we can check it out.

Ley Street isn't much of a busy road. I have to wonder why the writer chose this location for his message; it just has houses on one side and an empty field on the other. You can see that the road now has that stupid 'strip' thing down the middle that serves no purpose at all.

This Google Street View image is taken from the same point of view as my photos from 2004, using telegraph pole as a reference. No sign of the message at all. Just a bus stop that wasn't there before and someone's van. Well, I doubt we'll ever get to the bottom of this mystery but if you've got anything to add, comment below. You might just restore sanity to the residents of Ley Street.

Nonesuch Archives: "Deep Night" (2001)

The above image is from my cancelled 2001 graphic novel project, Deep Night. It was originally intended to be a picture book with no words – no dialogue, no words in the illustrations, no title or author mentioned anywhere on it, nothing. I completed several pages of it and had plenty of grand ideas, such as themed visuals, but I never got round to finishing it and it was eventually discontinued.

Ah well. Maybe someone out there likes seemingly drug-induced drawings featuring heads on springs with arms coming out of them. And weird-looking clowns.