semeurge: preview
semeurge: project history
[2005] march – may:
the project, then called “regret”, begins. at the time, i had virtually no idea either (a) how long this project would take, or (b) how it would end up. at the outset, regret was an essentially lighthearted jaunt–furthermore, i intended to be no longer than a standard twenty-page marvel-length comic. in its original conception, virtually none of the themes which eventually emerged were present; the nature of characters has been altered or even (in some cases) reversed; and entirely different characteristics were salient for each. frederich, for example was far more quirky an’ fun-lovin’. he was a vegetarian (demon.) in fact, he subsided entirely on cinchona (from which quinine is made) and would do practically anything for a tonic water. he was wrapped in bandages because undoing them would make is body fall into two pieces (cartoonishly, however, he did not bleed.) he was like a (sliced) loaf of bread. lord zero (now the lord of white ash) was the primary villain, rather than being an aid to the protagonist. elizabeth and daniel did not even exist. the transforming butterfly-sword, originally conceived of as a pun on the chinese weapon of the same name was one of the few surviving traits and became integral to the plot of the developed long-form comic.
[2005] june – [2006] november:
at this juncture (my first year of college), regret was put on the shelf. there it kept company with all manner of half-finished projects and short-term goals unrealized. i was no longer in the art class that required its completion. consequently, i put it aside as i moved forward in my architectural education. i was going to be practical. i was going to build buildings. right?
[2006] december – [2007] april:
during the winter break of my sophomore year at university, i happened upon a pile of old sketches, cartoony and exagerrated, anatomically impossible ridiculous in the extreme–yet, strangely compelling. heaped atop a white cabinet in the corner, i decided that i would take it upon myself to finish what i’d started. this compulsion, as it seems many do (at least for me) began with a simple passion to finish something. i felt it was my own kind of coming-of-age to complete a long-term project, to commit and push forward with it. regret seemed ideal–having already been begun (in a dozen or so pages of rough pencil sketches on folded, yellowing 8.5 x 11.) i have the dim recollection that i (idiotically) thought it would be quick and easy to complete this project–a fun diversion to keep me busy and drawing during the two weeks of winter break remaining to me.
unfortunately, i was extremely wrong. in an impressive variety of ways. i continued working with non-archival pens on acid-laden 8.5 x 11, afraid of the resolution using more expensive bristol board would imply. it wasn’t the money–it was the seriousness that using real materials connoted. if i drew on bristol board, i was married to this! i labored in the reverse of an intelligent comic artist’s order: i began by lying down with a mug of tea (it was december!) and just drew whatever exciting action scene came to mind. springy, elastic characters danced ridiculously across the page, their vaguely-oriental clothing and ludicrous accouterments jangling wildly. they stabbed each other and exploded. i deluded myself that there was a plot–to some extent there was–but mostly i just wasted several months. over that time (until summer when i began to give it real thought), i penciled about fifty or sixty pages; i inked, scanned, edited, and formatted about twenty of those. at a certain point, however, i was forced to confront the bad taste having a poorly-written, occult-tinted superhero comic left in my mouth. if i was going to have something badly written, it should at least be pretentious. i was, after all, nearly a college graduate! in retrospect, of course, there’s nothing wrong with a lighthearted fantasy comic.
[2007] may – december:
at the outset of this period, i launched on my first of several large-scale page-genocides and rewriting frenzies. i spent several fairly intense weeks hunched over a keyboard, typing furiously. i don’t remember all of the changes that took place during this effort (since some of them have since been supplanted), but i do remember sacrificing the vegan-demon, the disassembling body, and dominic demonic (gabriella’s original name). i first introduced the idea of the memory trees at this juncture and began to get interested in my near-obsessive incorporation of dream/waking and memory/forgetting motifs. the entire character of the work had changed–many of the protagonists’ wisecracks evaporated into the ether, and the entire book began to take on a paler, grayer hue. uh…lack of hue.
over the course of the following months, i worked through pencils and inks on about sixty pages. i altered the art style to match more systemic changes in plot and mood. i abandoned the playful, earlier style of combining inked artwork (bare and white) with soft solids and cel shading, and did my best to avoid compositing in photographs in post. for a comparison, take a look first at discarded (the first incarnation) and then at inked work (the current style). i had gone analog.
[2008] january – april:
faced with another highly intense semester, a certain amount of project burnout, and the impending prospect of job applications (and commensurate necessity of preparing a portfolio and, possibly, a website) i was forced to take some time off from the graphic novel. i did not entirely stop working on it–and i certainly never stopped thinking about it–but the vicissitudes of life blah blah. as a result, the months were slow and by my birthday in late april, only five or so additional pages had been completed. if i wanted to try to close the gap, i would have to work hard during the summer.
[2008] may – [2010] february:
one and a half years might seem like a long time to condense into this paragraph. well, simply put, it was. i did take another multi-month break in 2009 (during another time-consuming studio). that aside, however, i simply worked continuously on the project, refining concepts, proofing, writing and re-writing pages until i had reached a semblance of catharsis. i added a twenty-page prologue that helped tie the book together. i worked with a printer (brenner, in san antonio) to manufacture the books themselves. i received 800 pounds of books at a loading dock in new haven in early february and carried them up to my third floor apartment. i’ve been trying to get rid of them ever since.
semeurge: source materials
i have every intent of providing a more thorough record of my researches and readings at a future date. for now, however, please enjoy the following background / peripherally-related-but-nonetheless-interesting readings. i do not claim categorical knowledge of, nor expertise in, any of these works or authors–i only mean to give them the credit they are due. a special thanks to nana last, who introduced me to many of the authors that have been a formative influence on this work. they are listed in no particular order.
VISUAL INFLUENCES
- yoshiyuki sadamoto
- emmanuel malin
- enrico miralles
- charles burns
- käthe kollwitz
- eddie campbell
- josé antonio muñoz
- david hockney
- katsuhiro otomo
- todd mcfarlane
- will eisner
- albrecht durer
- dave mckean
- banksy
- jamie hewlett
- frank miller
- enki bilal
- tardi
- justin sweet
- gerhard
SIGNS + SEMIOTICS
- charles sanders peirce
- giuseppe peano
- ferdinand de saussure
- émile benveniste
- roland barthes
- jacques derrida
- jean baudrillard
- gottfried leibniz
- roman jakobson
- umberto eco
- giuseppe peano
PHENOMENOLOGY
- roscellinus
- lewis mumford
- edmund husserl
- plutarch
- maurice merleau-ponty
- rosalind krauss
THOUGHTS + DREAMS
- sigmund freud
- jacques lacan
- rosalind krauss
- erich fromm
WRITING INFLUENCES
- alison bechdel
- stendhal
- hideaki anno
- tim o’brien
- cormac mccarthy
- susanna clarke
- george r.r. martin
- alan moore
- henry miller
- jorge luis borges
- tim rutili
- t.s. eliot
- j.d. salinger
- elliott smith
- e.m. forster
- art spiegelman
- emile zola
- wallace stevens
- adrian utley
- david zindell
- bill watterson
THEOLOGY, OCCULTISM
- thomas aquinas
- giordiano bruno
- heinrich cornelius agrippa
- sylvester mazzolini di prierio
- pythagoras
- constantine
- euripides
- aristotle
- zuangzhi
- gilles de rais
- johann weyer
- the munich manual
- psuemonarchia daemonium
- helena petrovna blavatsky
- clavis solomonis
- abraham of the worms
- robert burton
- dante alighieri
- tacitus
semeurge: about
regret is a graphic novella (or long-form comic, if you prefer) written and drawn by ethan feuer (me). the book centers on an amnesic murderer’s bodily disassociation from his past intent to violence and the subsequent doubt it engenders.
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO WRITE A PAGE?
the writing (plotting) of the book has been a whole different kettle of fish. typically, it’s something i do separately from the process of drawing. but drawing a given page, from thumbnails / preliminary sketches to a finished, inked product typically can take anywhere from 8 to 12+ hours of labor (actually time with the pen in my hand, not including peeing, sleeping, eating, writing faqs, etc.) before you ask: yes, you’re right i should’ve drawn the whole thing in the clear-line style. i’m an idiot.
WHAT MATERIALS DO YOU USE?
mostly, i’m pretty dumbed-down and cheap. i draw on bristol board, though some of the earlier pages are just on folded 8.5 x 11. i (mostly) use felt-tip pens (a sign of unprofessionalism if ever there was one), often microns or pigmas. once in awhile, i’ll resort ot a grayscale brushpen if absolutely necessary (pitt), but i’m loathe to do it. sometimes i uses (real) brushes–for black ink, white ink, or mask. i use tape a lot. for more or less everything. i mean, it’s even hard for me to make dinner without tape.
DO YOU USE PHOTO REFERENCES?
mostly, no. this is less practical for fantasy or plots which incorporate ridiculously difficult to arrange situations. still, my artwork would probably be better (or at least a lot less spotty) if i did.
WHY ARE SOME SPEECH BUBBLES SO BIG? WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH YOUR PUNCTUATION? DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?
some speech bubbles are big to make the words look small–i.e. they are spoken in a smaller voice. this is similar to (but not quite as effective as) a trick often used by walt kelly and (particularly) will eisner. eisner tended to make the letters smaller, but with the size of my lettering, i’m already worried about people being able to read it without eyestrain. the punctuation is usually very deliberate. if i leave a thing that seems like a sentence without any punctuation at all, it usually means that the statement is to be continued shortly. if there is an em dash to close a phrase, it typically signals an interruption by someone else. i use semicolons sometimes because for the longest time i hadn’t a clue what they were for and was fearful of their use; i’m making up for lost time.
