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"The Weekend was written
a long time ago when I was feeling sorry for myself. Typical teenage angst. Lionel, in the story, had it a lot worse off than I did in real life. It was fun torturing him!" - Thom Shepherd (5-22-02) |
| "Thom's original comic strip was black and white. This is The Weekend's color debut. I struggled artistically to keep the fancy shading to a minimum to maintain the simple clarity of Thom's original artwork. I think, in this case, the story moves along faster and with greater impact if the visuals are free of extemporaneous detail. But with the computer's massive potential at my reserve, it's sometimes difficult to restrain it's power. I did alter a few facial expressions and added some furniture and other small elements in a couple panels (mostly for continuity purposes) *sorry Thom* but the strip remains largely unaltered, only colored. But the addition of color does greatly affect the overall experience of The Weekend. Especially in the area of creating mood. I used a mostly 1970's color palette with lots of greens, oranges and browns. Then I shifted the whole color spectrum toward a deep red hue to give things a slightly strange and unusual mood. Grays suddenly became burgundy. This method forces color choices that I might not have normally selected. It's not that I wanted the viewer to think that the story took place in the early 1970's but at least most elements seen (the car, the colors of clothes and furniture) where purchased in the 1970's and still in use. And since Lionel's father mentions having the car for twenty 20 years and the fact that The Weekend was written in 1988, these choices seem to fit the story. In regards to the pacing of the story. Notice how Thom punctuated the end of each page with a negative incident reinforcing Lionel's sorry lot in life. These cause the viewer to want to turn the page to see the aftermath. These 'bummers' grow progressively worse until the final panel where the viewer sees that Lionel is seconds away from facing his final fear and dealing with the ultimate 'bummer'. The ultimate week END and the end to all future weeks. This horrific aftermath is better left unimagined than illustrated. In fact some would say it's more powerful that way. It's just good story-telling whether Thom was aware of it at the time or not." - Darren Wheeling (5-22-02) |
| Note: In November of 1986, Thom Shepherd and Darren Wheeling formed Starving Artist Productions and over the following two years created ten animated short films and three live-action works. They also collaborated on various comic book projects. Thom has since married, moved to Nashville Tennessee and become a professional singer/songwriter (He wrote the hit song "Riding with Private Malone"). Darren, on the other hand, still sits in his basement drawing silly pictures, but at least his drooling problem is almost gone. |
