“Striking Sparks” — Page Twenty
Fynch was always supposed to be a “scary little ice-cold psycho.” Originally, I had suggested that he should look like Tim Roth. Max did a few early sketches that way, then started messing with a Gabriel Byrne look that I also liked. He ended up combining the two into our own character.
Artist’s Notes: Character design, for me, is a really tough thing. In my mind, the character has to look and fit physically in the roll that the story requires- except at the outset, we didn’t really know what in the heck the characters would end up doing, and in that, it was a bit of a catch-22 situation. Form, for me, follows function, but the function is still being revealed as we go. So I never really “modeled” the characters officially, and everybody’s look is kinda nebulous, even now. They’ll continue to change and evolve as things progress.
Fynch, however, and to the same extent, Roland (RIP), are pretty clear in my head. They are based on Dad. Sorry Dad 🙂 I basically took the image of my father, circa 1982-1989, split into two extremes, and skewed them way evil, and there you have it. Fynch got the Dad’s clever, stop-at-nothing, lawbreaking, evil genius, criminal mastermind, psychotic look; Roland got Dad’s sheer massive brutality and twisted sense of humor… and I threw in his old ponytail too. I figured Dad was playing along subconsciously as he was writing them anyway… how else can you explain the puns?
I also styled Fynch to be a kind of anti-Max, I wanted them to have a similar height, build, ethnicity, even wardrobe. A relatively even matchup, should it come down to it.
Fynch is as real to me as my father or myself. I even saw him once, at our farmers market. I had just finished coloring the final page of Chapter 3 when there he was, clear as day, same wardrobe and haircut and everything, walking towards me… with a smiling little girl on his shoulders. Maybe there’s some good in him after all.
Nah.
-Max
Bobservations
Problems of Disposal
The boys and I have long held the belief that there are three ways to solve any problem: 1) the right way, 2) the wrong way, and 3) the Detonation Films way. You may have noticed some of this philosophy creeping into earlier blog posts, most specifically about dealing with wasps via flamethrower.
So when I completely clogged the sink drain pipe because of my grinding raw artichoke debris down the disposal, I knew it was time for drastic action. I had a sink full of sludge. Soap didn’t loosen it. Hot water didn’t work. And a standard plunger let me down. So the way I look at it, I had three choices.
Option 1: Clear out everything from under the sink, get a large bucket, unplug the disposal, carefully detach the pipe, collect the draining water in the bucket, snake the U-bend, and then put everything back together.
Option 2: Start pouring increasingly dangerous caustic chemicals into the water that would probably do nothing but wreck the disposal mechanism.
So naturally, I went with:
Option 3: Go to the garage and pull out my trusty 120PSI pneumatic effects cannon with the 2.5″ barrel which — as it happens — turned out to fit the disposal perfectly. Charge it up, shove the business end down through the water and into the clogged disposal, and hit the thunder button. As you do.
Sure, soapy slime and artichoke fibers got blasted all over me, all over the ceiling, all over the windows, the cabinets, and the floor. But it cleared that pipe!
Booyah, baby.
That. Was. Awesome!
Oh … and Fynch, to me, is giving off a Zachary Quinto as a Romulan vibe. But that might just be coffee.
Max, you wanted to make Fynch look like an ice-cold psycho – mission accomplished. From the first time he appeared on page, he looked hard, determined, like the kind of person I wouldn’t want to meet even on a sunlit street, much less a dark alley.
Bob, even with the bare feet, that is an impressive picture of you holding the pneumatic cannon. An real man solving the problem the way a real man does. You’re lucky you didn’t blow out the pipeworks along with the clog. And I wouldn’t be surprised if your wife doesn’t let you into the kitchen any more. (Bonus?)
Dammit Bob, that stuff isn’t coming out of the paint any time soon. I hope you know what you’ve done!
I must say, you did a fantastic job with Fynch there. He is creepy as all hell, and then some.
Just a little addendum to my earlier writeup. As the early scripts for 3MM came in, and we decided that Fynch would be our main antagonist, I realized that he demanded a kind of mythos on par with Kaiser Sose, a ‘character’ from The Usual Suspects, a movie Dad and I enjoyed together almost 20 years ago. Hence the Gabriel Byrne sketches (no spoilers there) and, of course, the armored car takedown scene from our chapter 3 🙂
Oh, and my brother has reported to me that Dad Now Does Fifty Pullups. In A Row.
3) Also known as the Fun way, the Mad way, the Awesome way, and the OH DEARIE ME, THAT’S GONNA TAKE A LOT OF SCRUBBING way.
Now I want a pressurised cannon. It’s probably safer than the chemicals for me, sooner of later I’d just try mixing them all together to see what happens. SCIENCE! That’s what happens! Hot, bubbly, corrosive Science!
So… is it a compressed air cannon? you charge it from a compressor and then take it to the action?
Yep! Pneumatic spudgun.
What would it take to have some version of the tools of the trade used to get the effects for the comic, etc. actually used In the comic?