I went out for dinner with my friend Marcus the other night. This is something we do a few times a year, though after I am living in France it may happen less frequently. Presumably if we do manage to continue to do so in the future the meals will be better.
Naturally I took pictures of Marcus so that I can make various cartoons and portraits of him (more on that in another post). Curiously Marcus had a request. He wanted me to make a version of cartoon me in The Scholomance.
Somehow I did not manage to get why he wanted a cartoon of me in The Scholomance. He wasn't keeping that a secret or anything. I think I just somehow neglected to ask. My mind had immediately gone spinning off into the curious project.
For those of you who have missed it, The Scholomance is a fantasy trilogy by Naomi Novik. It's the best one since Lord of the Rings, as far as I'm concerned at least. The books mainly take place in a kind of grim, magic High School without teachers. This is a horrible, monster infested place made of grimy metal and set hanging into a void of nothingness. It is terribly dangerous, deadly even, but safer than the outside world which is fantastically deadly for adolescent magical youth. The school is a bleak, dangerous, desperate place that nevertheless is a little world that gives these kids a chance to make it to adulthood.
This rough description is not the main thing for me to tell you just why this trilogy is such a masterpiece. Surely I have done that already in clerkmanifesto a couple times in the past. This sketch is merely to give you the setting of the following pictures into which I have cast myself.
Ideally you would read The Scholomance Trilogy first, then check out my pictures. But you can probably also take them as they are if you want.
As to Marcus's request, assuming he's out there?
Here you are.
No comments:
Post a Comment
If you were wondering, yes, you should comment. Not only does it remind me that I must write in intelligible English because someone is actually reading what I write, but it is also a pleasure for me since I am interested in anything you have to say.
I respond to pretty much every comment. It's like a free personalized blog post!
One last detail: If you are commenting on a post more than two weeks old I have to go in and approve it. It's sort of a spam protection device. Also, rarely, a comment will go to spam on its own. Give either of those a day or two and your comment will show up on the blog.