So here we go: the final short story in Tales Of October #1, called “Welcome To The City (Reprise)”. No title — it would have been too abrupt. I was looking to keep this story tied with the end of “Fun & Games” a little, to show that it’s all supposed to occur in the same Canadian suburb: Quitoclam.

Now, yes, Quitoclam is fictional, but only barely; it’s blatantly modeled on the small Canadian suburb I grew up in, which for the faintest stretch of privacy, I’ll leave unnamed. A real trait of the real suburb, though, is the comparatively high level of undeveloped natural areas (”high level” compared to most American suburbs from my experience). Many parks, a number of ravines, just large sections of woods. Of course, this better describes the area of twenty years ago. Nowadays there still are some parks but the rest of it has been developed like crazy. “Ay, oh, way to go, Ohio…”

The view at the top of the page invokes a very specific wooded corridor near my childhood home, where the power lines reach down from one plateau into a more-developed urban corridor and then back up the mountains on the other side. Not much point to it, except it’s a view I know well… and seemed appropriate to represent Pargimus’ supposed “high-altitude” observations.

What’s supposed to be the streetlights on the bottom half of the page is my poor inking choice de jour. Live and loin.

For those of you just joining in, I’ve been posting these short stories for the last couple months here on salvagerkain.com while I’ve been busy being a new dad. Once again, the plan is to resume postings of Salvager Kain #6 (already in progress!) as of May 29, 2010. Thanks for your patience and I hope you enjoy this last little tale.

Ah, some nice Dave-Sim-inspired lettering. Big and effective and built right into the art! This is the kind of thing I would do all day, if someone would pay me. Seriously. I’m here. I live and love to letter. This isn’t a creepy come-on. Write me.

So the final joke is here: it’s dull in Quitoclam (a familiar thread to these stories, you might have noticed?) and for most folks, you have to make your own fun. Maybe you try and rob a place that doesn’t carry cash, or get lit and hassle a mall employee, or try to make forced moves on a juvenile in a dark corner of a parking lot. Fun fun fun! Hey, I didn’t say this was War and Peace. Bite me. Then write me.

Panel 3, hm, that’s bad art. Panel 4 too. It’s funny, when I remember rushing the art as I drew it, I see it here as still rushed, only preserved in ink and apparently online as well. Oh and hey, what’s with all the background zig-zags? Looks like all of this is taking place within the mouth of some big fish. OH SNAP I JUST GAVE THE SURPRISE ENDING AWAY… right.

Okay, that’s the end of that. Coming next time: the start of the fourth short story to Tales Of October #1, titled “Welcome To The City (Reprise)”. Starring Pargimus again! We’ll get to see just how far he’s come since leaving the institution. See you in five days!

Whoops, I lied, it’s just Quitoclam’s best & brightest doing a parking lot sweep.

Panel 3 works for me. Travis’ best look to date, rendered well enough. Have I mentioned I have a hard time inking hair?

And for more art analysis: nice division between foreground and background for panel 1 (even if that’s nowhere close to the right proportions for a cop car). And panel 4’s driveaway-mad-while-leaving-those-guys-behind, yeah, I’m buying it, even if it’s all a little bright. I might not be able to ink very well, but at least I think I’ve got a handle on showing the space this all takes place in, who’s standing where, etc.

Yes, that’s supposed to be a Canadian cop.

So Kathryn’s been spared something that could have been pretty nasty — yay! All the same, I get the feeling that, even if she’s not some glamazon hottie, crap like this is just an average night for dear Kathryn. Did you ever know someone who just seems to get the raw end of the deal every time? That’s Kathryn… part of her, at least.

One more page to go, and then we’re on to the last short story in Tales Of October #1, “Welcome To The City (Reprise)”. Thanks for reading… I hope you’ll be back for more!

Still far from perfect, one of the better jobs I had as a teenager was working at a game store in a mall.

What made it better? Well for me, that was the age where working in a mall seemed like the best of all possible work scenarios, for socializing and status, equally. Plus, the store sold board games and pool tables and darts and dice and stuff, so I figured (and rightly so) it didn’t seem anywhere near as dull as, say, staffing a tourism caboose for the summer. By happy coincidence there also was a lingerie store right next door; this allowed for the optimism (if not the payoff) that an attractive female who might be looking to purchase some lace panties along with plastic poker chips might choose to solve her shopping strategy in our corner of the establishment. Better still, our store sold a Wurlitzer jukebox we could program to play any manager-approved ‘45 singles we brought in… continuing my streak of “it’s a good job if you can listen to your own music”.

And, lastly, anything was better than a damn paper route.

So here I finally get to introduce the second of three key players into Tales Of October (and what I hope will someday be its larger longer stronger story, Foolproof). Her name is Kathryn Sharkey, and I’ve blatantly borrowed her appearance from a cartoon version of my ex-girlfriend Kristine.

(Let’s be clear, though, that’s it; any traits or tragedies that could be compared between the real person and my crudely drawn protagonist are purely coincidental and should never be construed as me trying to serve out some petty payback agenda with pen & paper. Got it?)

Where was I? Oh, right; Kathryn Sharkey, lost in a paperback, working the night shift at the local gameroomery. Kathryn, in advance, I apologize to you, my fine creation, for every horrible thing that will ever occur to you in the future of this story and others. It’s not like Pargimus who — as a tall, gangly, big-nosed freaky creep wandering the streets of Quitoclam — bears enough resemblance to me that I don’t wince when dealing out bucket after bucket of Story-Caliber Pain. No, with Kathryn, she has plenty of hurt coming her way, and for that… yeah, I feel guilty. Reading that paperback will probably be one of the calmest points of your story, dear, even if almost all of it is yet to be told.

Not much to say about this page except I don’t much like how I handled the art or the conclusion of the story. Something about how inconsistent the characters look within each of the first three panels, and how insufficient their “huh, weird!” observations are for the event. The only thing that I’m reasonably satisfied with is the art of the last panel — that’s how those dang cabooses looked, just situated in a corner of a mall parking lot, no explanation, and really, no point. If I’d thought about the issue as a whole any more, I probably would have tried to tie the end wide shot here — of the mall parking lot — with the night shots of the same lot from the next story, “Fun & Games”. Meaning, Quitoclam ain’t that big… and these stories are all occurring in the same general area.

But that’s just me.

Okay, so coming next: the start of the third short story in Tales Of October #1, titled “Fun & Games”, inspired in part by yet another old job and yet another old girlfriend. If that’s not a draw for you, your standards are daunting! Plus: scary harassment by drunk & shady creeps — a staple in every small suburb. See you in five days… I’ll be here, typing like a thousand monkeys!

P

Don’t know where I got the idea to have two losers try to rip off an information stand, but I still like it, and think it still stands within the realm of reason. If you disagree, the fault is mine for at this point failing to establish Quitoclam to be a reasonably safe, reasonably quiet suburb of Vancouver, in Canada, in the 1980s: kind of dull. And for two young (if not particularly bright) would-be crooks, its little tourism outpost is a bland apple, just in reach and ripe for the picking.

No, the real-world inspiration for the tourism-sponsored information caboose was never robbed, or at least not on my brother’s watch. Instead, when Dave and I talked recently about the caboose, he reminded me of one outstanding prank that DID occur: one summer day, apparently me and a couple of my friends stopped by (let’s call it) “Caboose A”, to see if Dave was there, and presumably hang out and shoot the shit. We were out of luck; Dave was at “Caboose B”. So my friends and I decided we’d cross town and go visit my brother at the right location. But first, we had the staff at Caboose A call my brother, “warn” the other station that managers had just stopped by to pull a surprise inspection, and gave them a bit of a hard time about protocol… then say “they’re on their way over to you right now!” Of course, that’s when my friends and I showed up at Caboose B, started rearranging the furniture, the pamphlets, and (this sounds correct) even locked Dave outside the caboose at one point.

Ah… to be sixteen and idle. Good times. And, uh, sorry Dave. All for a laugh, right?

If the (unnamed) young woman is based looooooosely on an old sort-of girlfriend of mine, then her cohort Lee is based loosely on a twenty-year-old me. Visually, at least; I had better summer jobs, though (sadly) no better haircut.

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

(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.