Six Strings (comic story): Difference between revisions

Six Strings (comic story) (view source)

Revision as of 00:32, 25 July 2024

6,429 bytes added , 25 July

no edit summary

Drleevezan

Bureaucrats, emailconfirmed, Administrators

163

edits

@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
 |title='One's A Crowd' on Nelson Evergreen's personal webpage
 |date=14 April 2003
-|accessdate=23 July 2024}}</ref> (5 extant)
+|accessdate=23 July 2024}}</ref><ref name="blackink10"></ref> (5 extant)
 |series=
 |crossovers=
@@ Line 21: / Line 21: @@
 |inks=
 |colours=
-|dates= July, 2002
+|dates= June 1, 2002 <small>(print release)</small><ref name="ukcomics"></ref><br>July 2002 <small>(online release according to One's A Crowd)</small><ref name="onesacrowd"></ref><br>October 2002 <small>(online release according to Black Ink)</small><ref name="blackink10"></ref>
-|original_link= [https://web.archive.org/web/20031013012054/http://www.opi8.com/sequence/list.php?dir=sixstrings]<br>[https://web.archive.org/web/20031203214728/http://www.opi8.com/sequence/display.php?id=6]<br>[https://web.archive.org/web/20050228211837/http://www.opi8.com/sequence/oneshots/6/]
+|original_link= [http://www.opi8.com/sequence/sixstrings/]<br>[http://www.opi8.com/sequence/list.php?dir=sixstrings]<br>[http://www.opi8.com/sequence/display.php?id=6]<br>[http://www.opi8.com/sequence/oneshots/6/]
-}}'''''Six Strings''''' (styled as '''''Six Strings...''''' on the story's first page) is a partially-lost standalone comic story written by [[Alasdair Watson]] and drawn by [[Nelson Evergreen]]. It is thought to have featured a cameo appearance by [[Jenny Everywhere]].
+}}'''''Six Strings''''' (styled as '''''Six Strings...''''' on the story's first page, and referred to at one point during production as '''''Six Strings That Drew Blood''''') is a partially-lost standalone comic story written by [[Alasdair Watson]] and drawn by [[Nelson Evergreen]] for release at the UK Comics Festival in 2002.<ref name="blackink1></ref><ref name="blackink2></ref><ref name="blackink3></ref> It is thought to have featured a cameo appearance by [[Jenny Everywhere]], which would make it a contender for the title of first Jenny story to have been released in a print medium.
 ==Contents==
@@ Line 49: / Line 49: @@
 ==Behind the scenes==
-''Six Strings'' was released on Opi8.com, a collaborative art project/online literary publication which described itself as "a site focusing on the promotion of artists and writers whose work expresses the dark extremes of human nature",<ref name="opi8about">{{cite web
+''Six Strings'' was first released as a print comic which was given out at the UK Comics Festival in Bristol<ref name="blackink1">{{cite web
+|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020328042512/http://www.black-ink.org/writing.php?content=sixstrings.inc
+|title=Six Strings page on Black Ink
+|date=
+|accessdate=24 July 2024
+}}</ref><ref name="blackink2">{{cite web
+|url=https://www.black-ink.org/2002/05/fold-and-staple-fold-and-staple/
+|title='Fold and Staple' on Black Ink
+|date=28 May 2002
+|accessdate=24 July 2024
+}}</ref><ref name="blackink3">{{cite web
+|url=https://www.black-ink.org/2002/06/back-from-bristol/
+|title='Back from Bristol' on Black Ink
+|date=28 May 2002
+|accessdate=24 July 2024
+}}</ref> between June 1 and 2 of 2002<ref name="ukcomics">{{cite web
+|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020402175538/http://www.sitsvac.org/C2001.html
+|title=UK Comics Festival 2002
+|date=
+|accessdate=24 July 2024
+}}</ref><ref name="blackink3></ref>. It was advertised as being bound with a comic called ''Escapement'' by Stuart Nathan and Dan Barker, which was described on ''Six Strings'' author Alasdair Watson's personal website as "a story about what happens when clocks stop." Watson's website indicated that the intention was that the story would be released both in print and, later, online.<ref name="blackink1"></ref> This print release is no longer available for purchase and no copies have been located.
+The story was later released digitally on Opi8.com, a collaborative art project/online literary publication which described itself as "a site focusing on the promotion of artists and writers whose work expresses the dark extremes of human nature",<ref name="opi8about">{{cite web
 |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050307203850/http://opi8.com/about/
 |title=Opi8.com About page
 |date=
 |accessdate=23 July 2024
-}}</ref> in July of 2002.
+}}</ref> in either July<ref name="onesacrowd"></ref> or October<ref name="blackink10"></ref> of 2002.
 Opi8.com went offline in 2015, taking most of its hosted material with it, excepting that which had been saved by the Internet Archive. This archived material included five out of the twelve pages of ''Six Strings'' - pages 1, 3, 6, 7, and 10 - which are all that are currently known to survive of the story.
@@ Line 75: / Line 97: @@
 The full quote would seem to suggest that the man in black who features throughout the story should be understood to be the Devil, or a similar Faustian deal-making entity.
+====Production notes====
+During the process of the story's creation, Watson posted several updates on his personal website, Black Ink. The first mention of the story came in January of 2002, when Watson wrote:<ref name="blackink4">{{cite web
+|url=https://www.black-ink.org/2002/01/strangely-productive/
+|title='Strange productive.' on Black Ink
+|date=30 January 2002
+|accessdate=24 July 2024
+}}</ref>
+{{Quotebox|I did the page breakdowns for SIX STRINGS, got a few pages of script written, and nailed down the storytelling approach I want to use for the project. With any luck, I’ll break the back of it tonight…}}
+In February of 2002, Watson wrote the following, referring to the story by the apparent working title ''The Six Strings That Drew Blood'' for the first and only time:<ref name="blackink5">{{cite web
+|url=https://www.black-ink.org/2002/02/rattling-around-my-head/
+|title='Rattling Around My Head.' on Black Ink
+|date=02 February 2002
+|accessdate=24 July 2024
+}}</ref>
+{{Quotebox|I’ve just finished the script to SIX STRINGS THAT DREW BLOOD. I’m more or less banging this out to give my fingers something to do while I wait for my brain to settle into a new gear, so I can get on and write some thing else.}}
+Also in February, a teaser page was created for the story, which featured the LeDell Johnson quote used in the story as well as the following description:<ref name="blackink1"></ref>
+{{Quotebox|SIX STRINGS. A short story about guitars, teenage heartbreak and desperation. A twelve page, four beat blues comic, with art by Neil Evans.
+Coming to the the UK Comics Festival in Bristol this year, and then to a website near you.}}
+In April of that year, Watson posted that he had "tightened the dialogue on SIX STRINGS".<ref name="blackink6">{{cite web
+|url=https://www.black-ink.org/2002/04/i-wish-i-knew-how-i-worked/
+|title='I Wish I Knew How I Worked.' on Black Ink
+|date=18 April 2002
+|accessdate=24 July 2024
+}}</ref> In May, he posted a to-do list which contained "Write a few hundred words for the inside back cover of SIX STRINGS"<ref name="blackink7">{{cite web
+|url=https://www.black-ink.org/2002/05/my-to-do-list-this-weekend/
+|title='My to-do list this weekend.' on Black Ink
+|date=17 May 2002
+|accessdate=24 July 2024
+}}</ref> (whether this inside back cover material, presumably for the print edition, was ever completed is unknown, as the cover material for the story was not featured on the Opi8.com release from which the surviving pages of the story were retrieved. Later in that month, he wrote that "SIX STRINGS is done, and ready to give out at Bristol", in a post titled "Fold And Staple, Fold And Staple.".<ref name="blackink2"></ref>
+In June of 2002, he posted a post titled "Back from Bristol.", writing:<ref name="blackink3"></ref>
+{{Quotebox|SIX STRINGS seemed to go down well, which was very pleasing.}}
+In October of 2002, Watson posted that the comic had been released on Opi8.com, writing:<ref name="blackink10">{{cite web
+|url=https://www.black-ink.org/2002/10/more-nonsense-in-a-minute-2/
+|title='More nonsense in a minute...' on Black Ink
+|date=19 October 2002
+|accessdate=24 July 2024
+}}</ref>
+{Quotebox|SIX STRINGS, the short comic I wrote earlier in the year is now up at Opi8. ... 12 pages, a nasty little blues story of teenage heartbreak and bloody guitars, written by me, with art by Mr Nelson Evergreen.}}
+In May of 2003, Watson wrote of Six Strings:<ref name="blackink11">{{cite web
+|url=https://www.black-ink.org/2003/05/grey-light-3/
+|title='Grey Light' on Black Ink
+|date=2 May 2003
+|accessdate=24 July 2024
+}}</ref>
+{{Quotebox|This time last year I was sorting out the last bits of SIx Strings, a [comic] about wanting to achieve – about drive and ambition, and the things we throw away for it. I wrote Six Strings with a bellyful of coffee and a headful of booze, and I think it shows. It creaks in places, but there’s a drive in it that I like. Passion.}}
 ====Interpreting the plot====
@@ Line 88: / Line 163: @@
 Evergreen's page featured its own description of the story, which was as follows:<ref name="onesacrowd"></ref>
 {{Quotebox|Things are getting mighty strange down at the crossroads; Rock'n'Roll in the Twilight Zone, courtesy of one of the brains behind the excellent NinthArt.com|Nelson Evergreen}}
+If Jenny does in fact appear in the full version of the story, then this would make it, in its UK Comics Festival release, the earliest known Jenny Everywhere story to have been released in a print medium, taking the title from [[COMIC]]: ''[[No Café This Time (comic story)|No Café This Time]]'', which was released in print in 2003, a year later - although the latter comic remains the earliest known Jenny-''centric'' story to have appeared in print.
 ====Read online====