Sorry folks, no commentary tonight. It’s been a looooong day and I’m way tired. See you in five days — P.

Another page from the Coquitlam playbook, this one a nod to my brother Dave.

Dave worked at one of these “travel infocentre caboose” for a couple summers I think, near about the end of his high school tenure. He worked the job with friends, either pals from before the gig or ones he made there. It didn’t change the fact that the duties were dull as dishwater.

What’s the job? You wait for tourists to spot your silly caboose, sitting pretty in the corner of some parking lot. Maybe they saw it as they zipped by on a nearby freeway, maybe they’re nearby-local and friendless, childless, whatever. You wait for them to double back, pull up, walk up and ask you “what does one do here?” Good question. You don’t scream to them “ONE LEAVES, IF ONE’S LUCKY; GET OUT NOW!!”. No… instead you hand them a pamphlet or six, mention a park, fluff up the town, and reliably earn a paycheck from the local municipality’s tourism budget.

Drive-by tourism? Really? I guess it happens… maybe I shouldn’t judge… but even in those “well-before-the-internet” days, it’s not like they did any kind of brisk business. Shit, it’s not like they did ANY kind of business, since all they offered was information, for free.

(Just like the internet. Wait, EXACTLY like the internet! Some jobs just don’t warrant doing, and yet here you are, finding poor schmucks doing them, all the same. Whoops, off-topic…)

Most summer afternoons there were dull, and lazy, and in dire need of excitement.

I love that first panel, because it really captures the art style I wanted here. High-contrast black & white, like Matt Wagner’s original first Mage series; enough detail to the clothing and environment to indicate the setting; and hey, narrow and vertical and wordless.

As for the LAST panel, well, it’s a little bit of a pity-fest. I’m not saying this is the best story I’ve ever told, the most profound or most meaningful. Getting released from an institution only to sit out on the steps and pout, hrm, um…. yeah whatever.

All I can say is, save your final judgement for later in the run. As I may have mentioned before, this first issue of Tales Of October is built out of four six-page stories, and I intend to post them all before returning to Salvager Kain. The first story, which this page concludes, is “Welcome To The City”. On Saturday, I’ll post the start of the next story “Summer Jobs” (and I look forward to providing you the commentary on that one!). The third short story is “Fun & Games”, and the last story (which won’t have a title page but you’ll be able to figure it out) is “Welcome To The City (Reprise)”. I say hold off until then before you judge me a talentless hack, k?

I’m still enjoying showing you this story, and I hope you’ll enjoy it being told. Welcome to Quitoclam! See you in five days –

Paul

Sorry I missed the Feb. 13 upload, my son was born instead

Also, no commentary today. Sorry!

Thanks for reading — P.

(Just in advance… I apologize if the next couple of installments are late, or erratic, or commentary-free. My wife is due in the next ten days with our first child; I’m pretty busy & distracted, but should be able to post the pages consistently, if with little accompanying fanfare.)

“Insane young man”. Ridiculously overdone, perhaps, but nonetheless, a pretty resonant thread throughout the fictions from my teenage years. Not just the cheap stuff I wrote, but also the slightly-less-cheap stuff I’d read (or, you know, watch / listen to). I think it’s a variant of the “angry young man” scenario, but where that anger perhaps doesn’t get an outlet? Angrier to the point of nuts? Not sure, but it was around a lot, and something I attached to… y’know, as an “author”.

And so when it came time to actually start introducing Pargimus and the main context through which Quitoclam defined him (or which he chose to be defined), I couldn’t shy away from it. I don’t know that I’ve come up with anything close to original in portraying a “confused” young man’s relationship to psychiatric institutionalization, but at the very least I hope I’ve stepped far enough away from the more cliché aspects I originally envisioned, in my own confused adolescence.

There was a building I knew (from reputation only) as a “mental hospital” just down the hill from where I grew up. I never knew what went on in it, but an old girlfriend whose grandfather once worked there mentioned some pretty uncomfortable stories once upon a time. Of course, it’d probably be something as mundane as budget problems that would close such a place before staff misconduct would. The place is probably closed now.

Alright, so:

What we’re looking at here is an introduction, from someone’s point of view — entering Quitoclam. Or, rather, re-entering… (just wait for page 1-04).

I’ve probably written more short stories / plot scribbles / thoughts / etc about Tales Of October (and the larger narrative it leads into, called Foolproof)… altogether more comprehensive character & story notes for this than any other story I’ve done. From a purely notes-standpoint, it still tops everything with Johnny Shallow in Exit At The Axis and Fool’s Errand. (Of course, if it were a contest of finished comics pages, EATA & FE would win at a count of 241 to 24).

So what’s that say? That I have a great idea I’m sitting on, and someday it’ll be an awesome novel, graphic or otherwise? I doubt that very much… but as evidence it does support a special love I must have for this story that came out of my teenage years, spent growing up in the Vancouver suburb called Coquitlam.

For all the work I’ve put into this story world over the years, though, very little of it exists as actual comics. Lots (and I mean LOTS) of sketchbook doodles or single panels of comic art exist… but really, nothing in a proper sequence, nothing more than at most a single page or two. So, when I sat down to formally start telling the first chapter for the work, it seemed important to me to do as proper of an introduction to the world as I’ve ever done for a story. Salvager Kain has a strong narrator’s voice at the get-go; Exit At The Axis just launches into Johnny’s life; for this, I wanted folks to journey into the world just like my main character was:

On a train, late at night, with a couple of hostile passengers correction officers.

I said I would write longer commentaries? What a fool I was….

I grew up in a smallish Canadian suburb of Vancouver. After having spent some time around a couple different urban areas in the U.S., I started to think that “suburb” generally had different connotations in Canada than it did down here… now I’m not so sure. Duplicate parcel lots and cookie-cutter homes, yes; not much to do but commute to the city for work or real fun, yes. The only difference I can still maintain in my head is that maybe Canadian suburbs, on average, have better trees, or better access to beautiful, beautiful nature. I’m probably still biased.

Anyhow, Tales Of October, and the larger story I hope to tell about the characters I’m introducing here, is essentially my love letter to the suburb I grew up in.

I’ve heard it’s not a good idea to tell a story you’re particularly enamored with, that it’s best to have some distance or remove from the subject matter so you can tell it with more objectivity and less personal attachment. Unfortunately, if I had to reveal my own honest criticisms of the work I’m doing with Salvager Kain, high up on the list would be that I have less attachment to the story than I’d like. (This might come from the rare equation of “survivalist / fantasy – comedy about amnesiacs”; I’m not sure.)

Does it mean I won’t finish that story? Nope. “No Story Left Behind” is my new motto.

Still, as I start to post these pages that I created a few years ago — inspired by experiences from much longer ago — it’s interesting to remember just how much passion I have for that quiet Canadian suburb I grew up in. I hope some of that shines through.

Once again, my apologies if this runs too slow for your tastes. I can only hope you’ll check back again from time to time to see how things have progressed. FYI, the short stories of this first issue conclude every six pages, so you *should* see a generally-faster telling than the SK stuff.

As for today’s installment, this is my favorite story start I’ve ever created. I miss black & white!

See you in five days!

P

Nothing much here, just the title page. I didn’t want the title to overlay on page 1, and I want you to have the title, so booyah, extra pagey goodness for you. Like, what, I’m wasting black pixels?

FYI, I’ll be posting the *real* first page here on Sunday, January 24 — since I still haven’t found a way to fix the “one-post-per-day” limit of WordPress. My apologies for the false start; there will be more for you here tomorrow!

Alright, before anybody gets unruly here, let’s all just agree to be adults. Here’s the deal: Salvager Kain #6 is going to have to be on hold for a little while. Why? Well, because I’m going to be a dad soon, that’s why! And frankly, by coincidence I’m swamped on paying gigs at the moment. Let’s think of those paying gigs as the kinds of jobs that allow me to afford telling the stories you get to read for free every now and again. These jobs are… well, they’re like the advertisers whose ads pay for the t.v. shows you love to watch (which is not much of an analogy — the jobs ARE commercials, after all)… by taking them on, I can keep telling you my stories. Good thing, too, because hey — I’M SURE AS HELL GOING TO FINISH THIS ONE! (Wow, was that a 7? I’ll try to keep it at a 4. Sorry.)

But hey now, put down the scrolling mouse… I’m not going to leave you high and dry. I *do* need a break, but I’m going to webbify something else up here for the duration, so you’ll still have something to read for free (besides, you know, the rest of the internet). It may seem like a strange fit, but the first issue of my Tales Of October story is my next-favorite tale to tell you, and that’s what will be popping up here as of today… and, again, with a new page uploaded every five days. The best part of putting that storyline up now is it’s four separate 6-page stories, and depending on how soon I can resume work on SK6, I may not run the full four (unless, that is, folks really insist).

Okay, so what am I doing still blabbing here? Sorry to have to leave you hanging, but I’ll be back with new color bug-eyed madness as soon as I can. Until then… enjoy the black and white and drama. See you in five days….!

- Paul