I made a one page comic based off the beginning section of “The Return of the Thin White Duke” by Neil Gaiman. From the short story I imagined a older dapper duke character that existed in a fanciful world. I based his face off of the Late Duke of Wellington and after many tests, I found the hair I liked from pictures of Peter Capaldi.
He was the monarch of all he surveyed, even when he stood out on the palace balcony at night listening to reports and he glanced up into the sky at the bitter twinkling clusters and whorls of stars. He ruled the worlds. He had tried for so long to rule wisely, and well, and to be a good monarch, but it is hard to rule, and wisdom can be painful. And it is impossible, he had found, if you rule, to do only good, for you cannot build anything without tearing something down, and even he could not care about every life, every dream, every population of every world.
Bit by bit, moment by moment, death by little death, he ceased to care.
He would not die, for only inferior people died, and he was the inferior of no one.
Time passed. One day, in the deep dungeons, a man with blood on his face looked at the Duke and told him he had become a monster. The next moment, the man was no more; a footnote in a history book.
The Duke gave this conversation much thought over the next several days, and eventually he nodded his head. "The traitor was right," he said. "I have become a monster. Ah well. I wonder if any of us set out to be monsters?"
Once, long ago, there had been lovers, but that had been in the dawn days of the Dukedom. Now, in the dusk of the world, with all pleasures available freely (but what we attain with no effort we cannot value), and with no need to deal with any issues of succession (for even the notion that another would one day succeed the Duke bordered upon blasphemy) there were no more lovers, just as there were no challenges. He felt as if he were asleep while his eyes were open and his lips spoke, but there was nothing to wake him.
The day after it had occurred to the Duke that he was now a monster was the Day of Strange Blossoms, celebrated by the wearing of flowers brought to the Ducal Palace from every world and every plane. It was a day that all in the Ducal Palace, which covered a continent, were traditionally merry, and in which they cast off their cares and darknesses, but the Duke was not happy.
"How can you be made happy?" asked the information beetle on his shoulder, there to relay his master's whims and desires to a hundred hundred worlds. "Give the word, your Grace, and empires will rise and fall to make you smile. Stars will flame nova for your entertainment."
"Perhaps I need a heart," said the Duke.
"I shall have a hundred hundred hearts immediately plucked, ripped, torn, incised, sliced and otherwise removed from the chests of ten thousand perfect specimens of humanity," said the information beetle. "How do you wish them prepared? Shall I alert the chefs or the taxidermists, the surgeons or the sculptors?"
"I need to care about something," said the Duke. "I need to value life. I need to wake."
Character and Page Sketches
From the short story I imagined a older dapper duke character that existed in a fanciful world. I begun with a quick doodle in the bottom left corner. I based his face off of the Late Duke of Wellington and after many tests, I found the hair I liked from pictures of Peter Capaldi.
The first page layout was too crowded with nine panels. But by moving the festival dancing to the background behind the panels fixed that problem and made for an interesting layout.
Transferring Page Layout
First Sketch
Speech Bubbles and Font Test
When I tested my handwriting typeface, I didn't like how it didn't fit the mood.
Inked
I used an ink brush for the line art and a micron pen for the smaller details like facial features and hands. I used ink wash for the values and texures.
Digital Enhance
I started with a low saturation pink monotone color that would enhance the Duke's paleness but also bring in a flowery festival color and other worldly atmosphere.
Speech Bubbles and Font
I brought the image into illustrator for the speech bubbles and used different fonts for the characters. The dying man should feel raspy so I used the chiller font. The duke should have a fancy royal thin font and the beetle I gave a digital informative font that hinted to him being robotic.
Fix-ups
I made the background behind the white text darker, the dancing figures less gray, and moved around the speech bubbles.