This started out as a goof-off in Paint Tool SAI, which I’ve never used before. (I really like it now, though.) I’ve been thinking about Ordinary ever since my last Ustream, where I mentioned it for the first time in years.
The basic premise is sort of an anti-Templar; a lot of unconnected vignettes, featuring very few characters, primarily the two in the fake logo thing above.
The human (no prizes for guessing who I stole his looks from) is named Milton. He’s in his mid-twenties, lives with his little brother and stepmother, and is the all-purpose guy at a second-run/artsy movie house. He’d be an obnoxious film school asshole if he could afford it, but he can’t, so he’s just an overbearing film buff, the kind who snorts and rolls his eyes if you dare to enjoy movies he doesn’t approve of. His affect is slightly manic and sullen; he feels left behind by his marrying, child-bearing, good-job-having former friends, professionally frustrated, and generally dissatisfied.
The demon-like creature… His name changes every time I remember this idea, but for now, he’s Fitch… is Milton’s present object of attention. Fitch’s origin is intentionally murky, although comments suggest he, and a lot of things like him, are recent arrivals to the physical world. He has a social worker named Sandy, doesn’t sleep, doesn’t age, is filled with cold black smoke instead of meat, is functionally immortal (but could be “killed” with a paper cut), and has the mind (but not the intellect) of a child; what does the work of a brain in Fitch’s body is stuck in the permanent knowledge sponge mode that humans experience for most of their early childhood.
Milton’s curiosity about Fitch is pretty rude and demanding, but Fitch either doesn’t know enough to recognize him as inappropriate, or doesn’t care enough to do anything about it. Their like-a-friendship-I-guess begins primarily because Milton is horrified by Sandy’s reading list for Fitch (which includes Bridge to Terabithia, The Star-Bellied Sneeches, and Peter Rabbit) and appoints himself Fitch’s instructor in the human condition, primarily by way of Fellini, D. W. Griffith, Herzog, Lynch and Welles movies.
There was more to it than that, naturally. But I’m probably never gonna get around to it anyway.
I know, no prizes, but is Milton based off of (the actor who plays) Jeffery Sinclair in Babylon 5? Because that’s what I’m getting.
Bullshit – now that it’s out in the open, this story is gonna nag you incessently. :-)
Hm. Neat concept! However, I truly don’t believe that any alien we ever encounter will have that mostly-human-but-with-pointy-ears look. The fact that he’s filled with black smoke instead of meat, however, is very cool. Maybe the black smoke is the actual sentient being, and his exterior shell is something he built himself – his childish impression of what a human looks like. This makes him a. more believably alien and, b. easier to draw than black smoke.
I thought “alien” when I first saw him too, but notice that Spike describes him as a “demon-like creature” and says that his kind are new to the *physical world*, not Earth. Depending on the origins of such a creature, there’s no reason he shouldn’t be humanoid that I can think of.
Oh, yeah – that’s a good point. I just remember that for awhile on her Twitter she was talking about designing a believable alien, so I thought – that must be it!
You must have the most delicious brain.
Do a search for “Herzog” reading various children’s books like Curious George.
You *MUST* write this comic, the world needs it.
hth
hand
NNNG. I would read that. Consider just writing it? Maybe get someone else to draw if you don’t have the time / energy. Collaborations are fun.