Trucking Hell

One of the advantages of setting The Absence in the 1940s is that the vehicles are pretty blocky in shape, and thus easy to draw in perspective. This is especially handy when there's a whole queue of 'em... This was another of those pictures which I approached with a 'gulp - this ain't gonna go well' attitude but which actually worked out ok in the end. Gonna need to fiddle with the load on the back of the truck though. Looks a touch unbalanced.



Oh, and I need to fix Marwood's left eye which is wandering across his face.

And I'm going to add some clouds, cos there's a storm approaching.

And I might add a bit more grass.

Other than that: finished.

Research

Trying to write a 1940s-based comic can be a pain in the arse. Although I'm not slavishly researching the time period I'm doing what I can to at least avoid any basic errors. Currently I'm trying to find out what a medium-scale building project might've looked like (What type of cranes would've been used? What type of perimeter fencing? What type of building materials? What type of trucks? Did the builders wear helmets...?). You'd have thought that, post-blitz, there'd have been a plethora of images online of London being rebuilt. But no. Maybe I need to try (gulp) a library. I think I still have a membership card somewhere...

Occasionally with this research lark you get lucky. Issue #2 briefly has the eight-year old Thomas playing with toy soldiers. Obviously, when I was a kid the things were made of plastic, but in the 1940s...? Well I found this lovely pic:

And here's the pencils for 2.8.1 (issue.page.panel)