At Night All Mice Are Gray (page 4)

Fitz on Sept. 1, 2007

Some of you mentioned you can't wait to see the girl. Well, she can't wait, either ;) Pretty much ever since I started drawing this comic four months ago, every now and then I'd hear: when will you draaaawww meee? And I'd say: not yeeet :) For quite a while the plan was not to show her in the comic till very far into the story. It's partly due to the style of this comic, where everything is revealed bit by bit. So for a while, she's only been talked about and nowhere to be seen. But it looks like the time is now. You want it. She wants it. So I have to do it :)

I'm both scared and excited about it.

When posting the first episode, I said I can't draw. To be honest, that's still true. It looks like I'm getting a hang of it, but still most of the things I do for this comic are things I'm doing for the first time in my life. Example? I never drew my characters in any sort of complex poses. So what do I do now? I stand in from of the mirror, strike a pose and look at every detail: the angle at which my elbow bends, the wrinkles on the fabric of my sweatshirt… Then I go back to the sheet of paper and draw it the way I remembered it. I go back to the mirror to check, then back to the desk - until I get it right. And sometimes I just have to imagine it, since I can't see myself in a particular pose - like that of Mick lying flat on the desk after tripping. I analyze the way the light spreads through a small gap in door just a bit ajar or how reflections look on smooth plastic. And the way the spider dangles head down from its web. All of this is new and intriguing to me. And so will drawing a portrait of America be. New - and difficult. Challenging, I'd like to think - if only to forget I'm afraid :) Afraid that I won't be able to draw her. Afraid that I won't be able to draw her WELL ENOUGH. Because the thing is, she's TOO CUTE!

My reaction when I first saw her was pretty close to that of Ryan's in the last panel ;)

Speaking of which, it's the first time Mick and Ryan are present in more than just one panel. Most of the time it was either a leg here, a hand there, and an ear from time to time. Oh and the panoramic panels. But the last time they appeared in full was the last page of the first episode. Ever since then I've been… well… practicing drawing them :) It's funny. I came up with the clothes for them just like that. The proportions? Not much of a problem - even though there's no prescription for a well-proportioned humanoid mouse ;) But the faces! Gah, the time I spent designing their faces ;) Not as easy at it may seem. A random blob for a face, with an elypse for a nose and two circles for eyes? NOT! :P Spent HOURS rearranging the latter three all over the face, and correcting the oval of the face over and over. Screech-screech! No, too serious! Rub-rub! Screech-screech! No, too silly! Rub-rub! I did eleven versions of of Ryan's profile for the last panel in this episode before eventually deciding on this one :)

Talk about pedantic, huh?

Speaking of which, there's been a great deal of background research concerning into this episode. First and foremost, to make it look at least a bit like Erica's place, which I'd never seen in full, living across The Pond from her. So prior to starting to work on this episode, I flooded the poor girl with a zillion questions about what's in there and where it stands/lies/hangs. I asked her about favorite books and magazines, glue pads… In the end, only some of it made it onto the pages of the comic. Favorite books, some of the mags, the glue pads, the stripey pillow… The rest was either items from my own place, like the bed or the table lamp - or my artistic vision. What's funny, though, is that I actually googled pics of all the little, even most insignificant things. I spent 6+ hours researching backs of magazines to get it right. No less went into books. I have an extensive collection of pics of arachnea tepidariorum (the spider). And bottles of cheap wine. Yes, that part is real. I asked Erica what her favorite wine is. Cheap wine, she laughed. Poor, innocent girl. Didn't think I'd actually use that ;)