"Tailypo"

I have decided to start off the project with the story of 'Tailypo', from modern North American folklore. I knew when reading it that I wanted to make quite a large comic out of it, so it's best not to leave it too long. I have struggled to find a wording that I like enough to use in the comic, so rather than struggle to write a new version myself, I have decided that the comic will be for the most part wordless.

So here is the general gist of the story.

A man lives in a remote cabin in the woods with his three dogs. Food is scarce, so they go out hunting. The man shoots a small rabbit, which he cooks and shares with his dogs, but they are still hungry. He comes across a black animalistic shape with glowing eyes. He tries to shoot it, but only gets a glancing blow and the creature runs away into the woods, leaving its tail behind. Desperate enough for food, the man makes a stew out of the tail.
That night he hears a strange voice: "Tailypo, tailypo, all I want is my tailypo..." The man sets his dogs on the creature, which runs away, but only two dogs come back. Again the man hears the voice, and again he sets his dogs on the creature, but only one comes back. For a third time the creature returns and the man's remaining dog chases it away, never to return. Terrified and unable to sleep, the man cradles his gun and waits for dawn. The creature returns once more, and again demands the return of its 'tailypo'. The man tells the creature he ate its tailypo. The creature attacks him, ripping him to shreds, with such force that all that is left standing of the cabin is the chimney.
It is said that you can still hear the creature's voice: "Tailypo, tailypo, now I have my tailypo!"

Style-wise I have struggled to research artwork that is distinctively American, without relying on Native American artwork. I decided at the beginning that I would use Norman Rockwell as influence, but I realise now that I need a bit more.

Rockwell famously portrayed everyday American life in his illustrations. They are for the most part entirely realistic, which doesn't suit my project goals, but there are still certain elements I can take from his work, including the poses of his characters, the expressive faces, and the colouring - he generally uses very warm colours, and skin tones often have a lot of orange and red in them.




I decided I could also look at early Fleischer animations, as these have an incredibly distinctive style, with their simplified limbs, exaggerated poses and recognisable eyes. They are almost all, if not entirely, black and white. Everything looks very 'rounded'.

 Brian Taylor has used the Fleischer style to great effect in his series of prints, with a little added creepiness which would be suitable for this creepy tale.

Due to the creepy factor that the story holds, I thought that though Fleischer is distinctive, and I could take certain elements from it, it was still too "nice"... The comic book scene took off in many countries, including the UK, but nowhere did it see more success than America. I chose to look up images from Batman comics, as the Batman story is generally very dark.

 What I like about these comics is the high contrast between black and white, with almost no shading in between. The black shadows are almost stencilled. The comic strip pages have cross hatching for different textures and shades, reminding me, though not shown here, of half-tone. I think I would like to include some half-tone. The colour schemes, when colour is used, are amazing. A lot of blues, but also occasionally some warm colours to offset the blues. What I really love about the more modern, coloured images is that hte backgrounds are faded slightly to give depth to the scene. I would definitely love to do that in the Tailypo comic.

Back to the story...: The creature itself is generally drawn something like this:

By Michael Wandelmaier

... which is along the lines of what I imagined anyway. These artists n DeviantArt have given designing the creature a go too:

By SelfRightousSuiside

By TurtleShelltered

 The one by SelfRightousSuiside is along the lines of the traditional drawings of the Tailypo creature, but more fox-like than cat-like. I love the Cheshire Cat style grin; I think it makes the creature very creepy!
The designs by TurtleShelltered are not the traditional. They are also pretty mucht he only ones I've seen in full colour - usually the creature is just described as a black shape and so that is how it is drawn. I like that this artist has gone against that and used colour, as well as coming up with some very unique designs. I love the glowing effect around the eyes, and the fact that they are blank and perfectly round - this is roughly what I pictured in the story when the glowing eyes are mentioned, so it's great to see it visualised.


http://celiasbluecottage.blogspot.com/2011/01/norman-rockwell.html
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Bluto-popeye-fleischer.jpg
http://museum.walterfilm.com/cpg14x/displayimage.php?album=22&pos=27
http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l7mrb4ZVfX1qagzayo1_500.gif
http://drawn.ca/archive/brian-taylors-bumtown-bruiser/
http://waffyjon.blogspot.com/2009/06/cool-stuff-original-comic-art.html
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Batman_%28Bruce_Wayne%29
http://www.lostateminor.com/2008/05/12/michael-wandelmaiers-tailypo/
http://selfrightoussuiside.deviantart.com/art/Tailypo-111953676?q=boost%3Apopular%20tailypo&qo=0
http://turtleshelltered.deviantart.com/art/Tailypo-Concepts-256418435?q=boost%3Apopular%20tailypo&qo=1