Stickleback: England's Glory Part 12 References

Page 4: The Empress

The Empress of the White Lotus is a female analogue of Sax Rohmer's Eastern über-villain Doctor Fu Manchu - a character of singular purpose and unlimited cruelty, she's the only person we've so far encountered that Stickleback actually fears.

The "White Lotus" refers to the Hong Kong martial arts film Clan of the White Lotus (aka Fists of the White Lotus/Hong Wending san po bai lian jiao/Hung Man-ding saam por bak lin gaau). The film features the "white eyebrow priest" Pai Mei who was used by Quentin Tarantino in the film Kill Bill 2.
The lady bodyguard marching before the throne of the Empress is based on actress Reiko Ike.



Pages 6 & 7: Dragon

In Western folklore, dragons are straighforwardly monsters, usually voracious and destructive, though recent fiction (notably Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels) sometimes puts them in a more positive light. In Chinese and Japanese mythology, they are often portents of great power or good fortune.

Physically, our dragon is halfway between the Western model of a kind of bat-winged dinosaur, and the graceful Eastern long-bodied variety. The second pair of wings that hold up the tail are a nod to the exotic multi-winged giant insects of the Rotwood in Hiyao Miyazaki's seminal manga and anime Nausicaä Of The Valley Of Wind (Kaze no tani no Naushika, manga: 1982-1994, anime: 1984)




Page 10 Panel 2 Erratum:

The blank sheet of paper on the sewing table in front of Rose and Bob should have been the same copy of Titbits as seen in panel one (with the headline about the Wild West Show burning down .)
I'll see if I can get that page fixed for the collection (due August 2008, apparently).







Page 10: Windows

In the final page of this story, Ian wanted Stickleback to be seen staring out of an exotically-designed circular window reminiscent of the one found in the attic of the Greenwich Village home of Steve Ditko and Stan Lee's sorcerer supreme, Doctor Strange (Marvel Comics, 1963-present). Rather naughtily, I added a square and an arched window, in tribute to the classic BBC TV pre-school children's programme Play School (1964-88). Although studio-bound, each episode of Play School featured a short segment filmed out in the real world; these were viewed through either the Round, Square or Arched window, the audience being invited to guess which window would be used before the segment ran. This format has been borrowed by other television programmes since, most notably Teletubbies (1997-2001).

Stickleback: England's Glory Part 11 References

Page 2: Buffalo Bill Transformed

Physical transformation as the result of contact with extradimensional entites is a trope of the "Cthulu Mythos" strories of H.P. Lovecraft. Bill here is not based on a particular instance from Lovecraft's stories, though the general tendency for Lovecraft's extradimensional thingies to manifest themselves in our dimension via tentacles, suckers, claws and slime has been followed.





Page 4: Cannibalism in the Old West

Possibly the most famous tale of cannibalism among the American pioneers is story of the Donner Party. In the winter of 1846-7, a party of American settlers consisting mostly of the families of George and Jacob Donner became snowbound near Alder Creek in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The episode became famous because it is thought that some members of the party resorted to eating the dead in order to survive. There is now a memorial at the site of the disaster at Alder Creek, and the surrounding area has been designated the Donner Memorial State Park.
A further source of inspiration was Antonia Bird's 1999 feature film Ravenous.




Page 5: Lovecraftian "Elder Gods"

In H.P. Lovecraft's stories, the Elder Gods (sometimes referred to as Old Ones, though his terminology does not appear to be consistent; in some tales this refers to a very specific alien race from out dimension) are extradimensional entities of unimaginable age and unguessable power.

When designing the creature, Ian asked me to base the body shape on the work of modernist sculptor Henry Moore (hence the convoluted organic form with a hole in the middle), and to make it transparent and "full of stars and galaxies" - a phrase that reminded me of the classic line uttered by astronaut Dave Bowman in Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2001 (and the 1984 film sequel 2010, though not the 1969 Stanley Kubrick film). On discovering that the second giant monolith TMA-2 is in fact a hyperspace conduit, Bowman manages to utter the words "Oh my God, it's full of stars!" before being swept off into the unknown.

Stickleback: England's Glory Part 10 References

Page 2: Gordon of Khartoum and "Dicky" Sharpe

Major General Charles George Gordon (1833-1885) was a real British army officer, famed for his military campaigns in China and Africa. He was killed by the army of the Mahdi Mohammed Ahmed when they broke the ten-month siege of Khartoum; British forces arrived to support him only two days after his death.
"Dicky" Sharpe is intended to be a descendant of Bernard Cornwell's fictional napoleonic-era British army rifle officer Richard Sharpe (1777-?), who appears in a series of 24 military historical novels published between 1981 and 2006. In the UK, Central Independent Television network has produced 15 television series based on the books, Starring actor Sean Bean as Sharpe. A 16th series is due to be broadcast in the autumn of 2008.


Page 2: Cyclops

This guardian monster was inspired in part by the Cyclops monster created by animator Ray Harryhausen for his classic 1958 fantasy film The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Equally, certain of his attributes (including the shaggy legs, random suckers sprouting from skin and the upright vulvoform eye) belong to the final mutated form of character Wilbur Whateley from H.P. Lovecraft's story The Dunwich Horror.

Stickleback: England's Glory Part 8 & 9 References

Part 8

Page 5: The Other Dimension

It was our old friend H.P. Lovecraft who first came up with the notion of combining the ideas of alternate dimensions (from quantum physics) and underworlds/domains of evil (from folklore & mythology).

The appearance of our underworld owes a lot to the paradigms established by Swiss artist Hans Rudi (H.R.) Giger, whose "biomechanical" airbrush paintings led him to becoming a leading concept artist for Hollywood films, most notably with his seminal design for the creature in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979).



Part 9

There are no new references in part 9.

Back To Life

Cover for 2000AD Prog 1575; thanks to design droids PYE-01 and/or R1F4 for all the careful cutting-out of tentacles to overlap the banner on the finished product.
Stickleback © 2008 Rebellion AS/2000AD.
Stickleback created by Ian Edginton & Me.

Recent sad events have rather got in the way of both blogging and working the past couple of weeks; however, it's time to start moving forward. At the moment I'm running a few days late on my new post-Stickleback project (of which more anon). This will hold up the bloggery-pokery a little, but I'm still going to post the relatively small number of references for the remaining episodes of Stickleback: England's Glory.

Meanwhile, I'd like to celebrate, belatedly, my fourth cover for 2000AD (above). This will be available for sale as an artwork print at Bristol.

Left: Sketchbook rough for the cover
Right: Rough pencils for the same.

Stickleback © 2008 Rebellion AS/2000AD.
Stickleback created by Ian Edginton & Me.

Stickleback England's Glory Part 7 References

Page 03 Wooden Indian
Wooden Indians have been a common sight cigar stores in the United States since the nineteenth century. In recent years they've become less popular due to increased sensitivity to racial issues.
When Ian came up with the idea of Buffalo Bill's circus crew being held under an enchantment (when the magic lifts, most of the performers and roustabouts are revealed to be zombies) he came up with the nifty idea of turning the Red Indian troupe - who in real life were employed re-enacting their defeat at the hands of the white man - into the white man's image of themselves.





Page 04 Annie's Skins
There is some debate about whether Europeans brought the practice of scalping to North America, or whether it was established already. It is accepted that white frontiersmen practiced scalping in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Annie's caravan, with its human pelt on the wall and racks of firearms, is a reminder that the settling of North America was not simply the claiming of an empty land by pioneers; it was the displacing of one population by another, and that was a bloody and unpleasant business.

Stickleback: England's Glory Part 6 References

Tomato & Hobbit quiche, anyone? Buffalo Bill's supper from Stickleback: England's Glory part 6.
Stickleback © 2008 Rebellion Developments/2000AD
Stickleback created by Ian Edginton & Me.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West
William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody (1846-1917) was a frontiersman, soldier and entrepreneur who moved into show business, initially recreating his own adventures in Wild West shows. Over twenty years Buffalo Bill's Wild West (and Congress of Rough Riders of the World) grew to include 1200 performers and toured the USA, Britain and Europe.
The show did indeed feature genuine American Indians and sharpshootress Annie Oakley.









Bullseye The Human Target
The rotund but muscular performer who can stop a cannonball with his stomach is in part inspired by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's mutant menace The Blob (Frederick J. Dukes), who first appeared in Marvel Comics' X-Men #3 (January 1964).











Wee Davey Moyes
If you were a regular at any of the GlasCAC, UKCAC or Bristol comic conventions of the 90's, you may well remember budding comics writer and imaginative powerhouse Dave Moyes of Fife.
Ian and I enjoy taking the Mick out of our Scottish friends (our persecution of Aberdonian comics-shop owner Mike McLean is now in its 8th year), though we've only had one previous go at Dave; in the 2005 Leviathan Christmas special, he's the young engineer's apprentice who releases the demon Hastur and is turned into the very first Stoker.

Stickleback: England's Glory In 2000AD

Jiang Shi or Chinese Hopping Vampires from the first episode of Stickleback: England's Glory
Stickleback © 2007 Rebellion/2000AD
Stickleback created by Ian Edginton & Me.

2000AD Prog 2008 arrived through the letterbox this morning, bringing with it part one of the new series of Stickleback. England's Glory will be a bit more of an adventure romp than the first series, Mother London; this time we follow events from the gang's point of view, and get to see a little more of what they can do.
I'll be posting references for part one soon: meantime, here are some concept and character sketches:

Jiang Shi or Chinese Hopping Vampires, following the pattern set by the classic Hong-Kong martial arts horror film Mister Vampire
Stickleback © 2007 Rebellion/2000AD

Stickleback created by Ian Edginton & Me.

Victorian England's answer to Mecha: the Traction Men
Stickleback © 2007 Rebellion/2000AD

Stickleback created by Ian Edginton & Me.

A new character joins the gang; Gay John, master swordsman and confirmed batchelor
Stickleback © 2007 Rebellion/2000AD

Stickleback created by Ian Edginton & Me.

Bits & Bobs

A rough panel from Stickleback: England's Glory
Stickleback © 2007 Rebellion/2000AD
Created by Ian Edginton & Me

From my recent blog entries you'd get the impression that my life consists of Having Toys and Swanning Around, so I thought I'd post a panel from Stickleback: England's Glory to show that I have actually been working.
When you're using a fairly expressionist painted style, there's a tendency to avoid putting in much in the way of backgrounds or contextual stuff - it's far easier to do pretty, swooshy stuff with paint - but so far I think I've been able to strike a balance between the look of the thing and the demands of the story.

You'll be able to judge for yourselves soon - my current understanding is that Stickleback: England's Glory will start running in 2000AD Prog 2008 (for the uninitiated, that's this year's big Christmas edition). There's also been some talk of a collection combining the first two series of Stickleback in one volume, to be published sometime in 2008...