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A Third Space
Hello. In this edition of the newsletter, we take a look at a new finished comic and a rock band poster. I hope you are all doing great!
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Comic: finished
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Here’s the website link for this comic:
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I worked on this one for several weeks under the title “meta-memorial” but decided to change it to ‘Glitches’ at the last minute. I don’t regret the name change: all the making of this comic felt particularly glitchy to me. There’s a full Patreon post with notes about this story, but I’d like to share at least this bit from it, about some things that were in my mind when I was working on this story:
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“In the final version, I tried to use the two layers of action to portray a generational gap: In one of those layers, the adults are chatting, explaining the memorials, while in the other, shown by the pictures, the young characters are interacting inside it. I wanted to show the criticism to the artificial space as an adult thing. One of the reasons I say this comic was difficult for me, is the fact that I feel part of the contradiction that’s behind the interaction with the “mother”, in the story. Recently, I read an article that recognized the need for a “third space” for a whole generation as an unsolved issue, a generational debt. The only places, outside of home and school, where kids and young people could expect to feel safe, play, grow, perhaps heal, are mediatized and over-exploited online distractions. At the same time, we, as adults, are still letting our presence and time bleed to similar digital spaces. The criticism of artificiality becomes redundant, at some point. The main issue when have to face is, I believe, not the physical reality of third spaces, but the measure of actual independence and real growth that can be experimented in there, specially when they are built under the rule of marketing, copyright, and attention economy.”
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I think these issues are presented as concerns in the comic, rather than as opinions. It was not my intention to make a straight Black Mirroresque satire to digital alienation. The presence of the digital in the comic pulls in different directions, and there’s no clear answer. I like that it ultimately ends up with a hopeful tone, but the way out is unclear, and seems to lie in a white, undefined space that opens up from the collapse of the memorial. Maybe “something new”, as the digital ghost of Fran says.
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Rock poster
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One of my friends has a rock band called Subsuelo. It’s heavy, powerful stuff, in the gamut of Black Metal probably, with some melodic, turn-of-the century rock moments. I’ve been making drawings for then since the beginning, and a little world of characters and situations has been arising from their ideas and lyrics. This time I wanted to draw a small chapel covered by twisted branches, from a photo reference that I liked. Everyone knows that lots of tortuous branches is good for Metal, right?
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Do you see the skull image? I think it may be somewhat hidden, in a quick glance.
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Here are some previous sketches:
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I ended up using the same small hooded figure from the first sketches, because I liked how simple it is, like a character made from just a few pixels in some old video game.
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What Else is There
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In the Secret Knots discord, this link prompted immediate connections to Alan Moore’s League of Gentlemen, in the form of a comment by user Games.Scholar, which I drew here:
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That’s all for now! I hope you have a great rest of the week, and thanks a lot for reading. Feel free to send comments to the reply address of this newsletter, or join the Discord server for further conversation.
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I’ll see you soon with new stories and art.
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