For most Secret Knots comics, I make a post with sources, references and bits of world building. This is the dossier for the comic Cryptid.
For most Secret Knots comics, I make a post with sources, references and bits of world building. This is the dossier for the comic Cryptid.
Inspiration
A few years ago, I was asked by an editor if I had material for a graphic novel. At the time I only had proposals for an anthology of my comics, so I started to develop a concept for a book about a town made famous by sightings of a cryptid, and the stories that unfold during a festival celebrating the day of the apparition. Since I wanted it to be a music festival, the cryptid ended up being the “Cicada Man”, and the celebration, an impromptu concert of amateur singers and bands. I didn’t feel ready at the time to move forward with this prompt, so it kept archived on some notebook, but I thought about it from time to time. Recently I wondered if I could take only the bits about the cryptid itself for a short story, and trimmed stuff until it fit the length of a script for a Secret Knots comic.
In the original idea, the cryptid section of the story was told in alien-like, stream of consciousness monologue. For this short comic version it took the form of dramatic, weird fiction prose, because it felt funnier that way, and also it helped me to present the theme of dissonance between how Cicada perceives humanity, and the way they celebrate him, probably for being a source of local pride. The monologue became a cosmic horror tirade, probably due to my own influences and how comfortable I feel with pulpy prose, but also because it made the contrast more dramatic; it’s kind of a low-key joke, I think.
I’d say the main exercise for this comic consisted in composing text that doesn’t match literally the pictures. I’ve been reading some American superhero comics lately, and some contemporary writers make efficient use of that; it works as a good “compression” technique for working with stories in a limited amount of panels, such as mine. It makes me think that my comics currently live in an odd space between mainstream comics and webtoons in terms of pacing; not entirely one or the other. I guess it’s because I chose to deliver a full story every time, which implies thinking about efficiency and different little tricks for exposition, so I keep an eye in how that aspect gets solved in every comic I read. At the same time, I like the reading flow of webtoons, so I’ve been picking some traits of webtoon style comics. Results from this experiment vary, but I want to think that in this case they worked in favor of the story.
Concepts
The Cicada Man is vaguely inspired by the Mothman. The truth is I don’t know a lot about this cryptid, I have vague memories of the movie about it and little else. For the story to work, the cryptid had to be overall human-like, and I wanted it to have long fingers and a big head. These are the first sketches I did from Wikipedia photo references for the cicadas. It was a little more insectoid originally.
The characters in the first sighting are goths from 00s era.
A panel that changed from the progress version to the final. I tried something with the singer’s pose, but I didn’t like it.
A comparison with the Mothman statue in West Virginia. Also, a view of the Mothman’s prominent butt, for science.
Head Canon
Things that were considered, could be happening, or are definitely happening, in the background of the story.
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What’s the cosmic horror Cicada Man needs to warn us about? This is left purposely vague, but I’d guess it has something to do with universal vibration, and a shift on it, which Cicada Man species are among the first to perceive. Their prophets call this future event The Big Cosmic Stridulation.
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Cicada Man festival, which was born as an open mic music celebration, has become a source of interesting new bands in the indie circuit. As such, organizers face the menace of gentrification, and becoming the “cryptid Coachella”. The limited touristic capacity of the town serves as a natural filter in that sense. Also, the cryptid aficionados, usually kind and reserved people, try their best to stealthily gatekeep the event with made-up secret hand shakes and initiation trials involving Cicada beatbox competitions.
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One day, Cicada Man will effectively communicate with humans. Once the nuances of the language are left behind, a clarification will be made: gendered language has never been a characteristic of their species. Cicada Man, will, accordingly, be known from that moment on as Cicada Friend.
*****
I hope you liked this post. Many thanks for your support and feedback during the partial installments. Welcome new patrons!
A drawing reward is coming next. I’ll see you soon with more stories and art.
