I am finishing up my comic-book adaptation of The Masque of the Red Death. So, I'm starting to get a concept idea for the next one, The Fall of the House of Usher.
This one is gonna be a total tribute to the late Edward Gorey. I looooovvvvveeeee his work so much. The names he comes up with! Figbash! Who but Edward Gorey could come up with a name like Figbash!
And his wonderful stories. Nonsense verse, most of them are, but they're still great. My father and I had a speculative conversation about The Epiplectic Bicycle. Were they already dead? Or were they traveling through the land of the dead? Or did they die? Or were they insane? Or did they die when they saw the creep obelis - you know what, forget that.
His art is pen and ink crosshatching. His work is beautiful, strange, and maddening. They all have a similar pseudo-Victorian/Gothic theme. And that is what I'm aiming for in The Fall of the House of Usher.
Usher is a difficult piece. It's all about creating tension, which is difficult to do in a comic. First off, I'm making all of it black-and-white...up until the end. The pictures are going to be a little more detailed, and the mansion is going to be in a very Gothic-style architecture. I did not make it very Gothic in Red Death, except for the final Black Room. WHy? Because the emotions of the characters should be expressed in the architecture. Poe makes it very clear that this is no fancy-schmancy masquerade. These psychos abandon themselves to revelry.
I also wondered if the rooms should have an unearthly geometry, like in Lovecraft's The Dreams in the Witch House. Maybe I could get away with that in Usher, but not in Red Death. I might've done it but its too late to go back and redo the comic.
P.S. Update on 11/29/13: There is a great blog on Edward Gorey. It is called "Goreyana." Visit it...it's the blog for all things Gorey.
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