PAGE 17

Sorry this one is late. Friday usually means new pages of LILY on Zuda, but in this case that is what Monday meant. lol

Here's a page sample. You can view the full page in full screen high resolution at www.zudacomics.com/node/1237 !

This page bridges the events from Lily's semi-formal 3 months ago back with the fateful night of Mrs. Bellows demise! Page 8 left off with Lily inside the house seemingly carrying on a delightful conversation with Mrs. Bellows' head, while swarms of cop cars pulled up on the flamingo covered lawn. If you were wondering how she gets out of this scenerio, or if she does at all, that all starts now.

THE NEWSPAPER ARTICLE

I couldn't resist including somewhere in this comic a newspaper front page that says VALLEY OF DEATH? It is something I imagined from the beginning. Doing an entire panel as a newspaper itself rather than a character holding it, etc, was an idea I got from reading Bayou on Zuda. After I think the first chapter there are several pages which are just news articles about the events taking place and I really enjoyed the perspective it gave on the story so I wanted to do the same. Both headlines on the article have relevance to the story as well.

Designing the newspaper I looked at the newspaper from my hometown, Woodstock, New Brunswick, Canada. The paper is called The Bugle. I actually scanned a copy of this paper and removed the words to get the texture for The Elmwood Conch.

The name of the paper I wanted to include the name of the town, as it's a character itself in the comic I think. The Conch aspect was inspired by William Golding's Lord of the Flies; a story about a group of schoolboys isolated on an island trying to govern themselves. They fail at doing so and mostly all resort to their primitive and animalistic instincts and nature. In this book, a conch is originally used to sound each group meeting with all the boys. The conch comes to represent civility, order, and rationality. It becomes the only reminder of these things as the boys spiral out of control. When the conch is eventually destroyed it represents a total disconnect with order. I wanted this newspaper to subtly draw these similarities to anyone who gets the reference. This paper though displays more of the town's character of panic and delusion so it's not as objective as the conch. It can still be used as a similar storytelling tool however.

The images of the 'ghost of Elmwood', I used pencil sketches to give the paper a different feel, like it's more real.

SHERIFF BELLOWS

So here we're introduced to the Elmwood Sheriff. The newspaper leads into his introduction somewhat as well. By the way, I'm aware Sheriffs do not exist in Canada and Lily of the Valley takes place in Eastern Canada, but I wanted to use it regardless. It adds something more than constable, or whatever the equal term would be here.

Sheriff Bellows has a bit of a smoking addiction. Notice the nicotine patch on his arm. When drawing the Sheriff, I was aiming to go for a Johnny Cash appearance. I think he ended up looking more like my dad though.

That's about all for page 17!