Writing

A style change! Book 1's theme coming home to roost! And the first time ever we get to see Alexander with another face and another name.

This chapter is the culmination of an aspect of Alexander's personality that I had presented throughout the course of Book 1: his hunger for conquest and breaking records. We saw his desire to hold on to his worldly achievements, to overcome death, to master the impossible monster horse, defeat a rival, see the world, and conquer more lands/defeat more rivals in his lifetime. This thirst for life, for being ambitious, and for never settling is what Arrian calls his 'pothos' (longing).

Alexander's longing is a motif of interest in many works about him, especially in the Alexander Romance -- where it's treated as both something to admire and a warning against the kind of greed or spiritual emptiness that comes from never being happy with enough. There's a moralistic, almost religious tone to the warning (which makes sense, as many variants are based on an Abrahamic core) -- go beyond the divine and you'll be humbled. Look down upon the earth, Alexander!

One of the legends in the Romance that touches on this theme is The Ascent of Alexander, a popular story in medieval Europe. The story's pretty much what's presented in the first half of the chapter: Alexander attempts to claim the heavens using griffins and a nonsensical chariot-throne. Then the angels scold him for his audacity, for daring to take posession on God's domain when he's barely known the entire world, so he gives up the project -- whether violently (by crashing) or peacefully.

Alexander the Great being carried by 6 griffins in flight, while a crowd gawks from below. Roman d'Alexandre en prose’ ('Talbot Shrewsbury book’), Rouen 1444-1445 British Library, Royal 15 E VI, fol. 20v

I'm not a religious person however, so my Alexander Romance is not interested in the religious reading, even though it does support the secular reading I'm interested in. Which is this: conquering personalities are toxic and they need to be stopped.

I'm being a bit facetious, but there is a reason behind this. Leaving aside the part where he was an actual warlord brought up in a conquering culture, I view Alexander's personality as analogous to the culture/personality type represented in start-up tech and game industries: workaholic, passionate, ambitious young men with a lifelong desire to "disrupt" established norms, to break records, to achieve unicorn levels of wealth and success. Demanding that their team members or employees match their extreme energy levels -- to take unpaid overtime, to disregard health, to ignore family, to sacrifice work-life balance -- for the sake of going beyond for the project, and behaving irrationally/angrily when they realise their team cannot make those same choices.

We see this most clearly in the Hyphasis mutiny in 326 BCE. This mutiny is interesting to me, and is included in this chapter, because it actually shows the toxicity of Alexander's passion, that it demoralised and harmed his people, that it can be weaponised to manipulate and guilt. Alexander had asked so much of his army to keep moving into Asia with no break, and almost none of them had gone home to Greece since their departure 10 years ago. 10 years!! Keep in mind that a huge part of the Greek army consisted of farmers, peasants, merchants, basically ordinary not-upper-class folk. To be away from home for so long in danger, in an unfamiliar place where you don't speak the languages, and at risk of life is incredibly difficult -- emotionally, physically, mentally.

Here is Arrian's recounting of the Hyphasis mutiny, starting with Alexander's speech from Chapter XXV to his defeat in XXVII.

For lack of space in the comics medium, I didn't manage to include Alexander's long speech attempting to convince his exhausted, burnt out, literally-in-rags army to keep pushing for more more more, but I hoped I got the gist of it across in the annoyed retort to Coenus.

Though there is something to admire about Alexander actually being on the ground with his men, marching and battling and risking his own life, there's a disingenous vibe about it when he weaponises his own participation to dismiss his army's burnout (to me anyway, being way too deep into internet and tech culture and having seen the many crashing and burnings of disruptive unicorn, great-man companies like WeWork, Facebook, Twitter, Blizzard, etc). The imbalance of power, privilege and access to safety between Alexander and his army must be recognised. Like many of the startup unicorns, both they and Alexander are advantaged by access to cultural, educational or economic power, and surrounded by a powerful network of who will protect them and feed them well (which many of the ordinary do not have). To put it simply, he never had to carry his own luggage. Recognising this does not discount the ideas or efforts of Alexander and his ilk, but it puts into perspective why they are able to maintain the energy to keep pushing themselves.

Anyway,

The army and the griffins broke because of Alexander's hunger.

The story that comes after is another famous one: of Alexander sacrificing his own cup of water so he can be in solidarity with his dehydrated, starving men as they go through hell in the desert.

Here's the other side of Alexander's willingness to share the spoils and scars of his men: that he is committed to be in solidarity and express the "good" parts of kingship: of responsibility and care. Of recognising suffering and to not benefit himself when he is given the choice to avoid said suffering.

Of course, we can all say what Alexander did is silly -- he could have just distributed the water instead of yeeting it away. In the 21st century, I don't think we're that impressed anymore by that performative expression of leadership. But it was something back then, and another reason why Alexander was held as a model king for centuries to come.

Both this desert story and the Hyphasis mutiny add to Alexander's complexity as a character, and there will be more of this type of pairing-of-stories to come.

----

The transcript for the medieval style portions is written in decasyllabic blank verse. It's not exactly iambic pentameter or consistent in meter all the way since I want to maintain some relationship to the default free verse (which has no meter except cadence, following the voice, and I have no aim for literary genius), but I kept it mostly all in ten syllables. I changed the writing style in the transcript to complement the change of visual style in the comic itself.

The dialogue in the comic tries to keep itself to decasyllabic blank verse wherever possible.

The Author's Voice is in alexandrine verse -- a 12 syllable verse with 6-syllable halves, indicated by a caesura, which gets its name from the French Alexander Romance.

----

Book 1 is an introduction to the narrative structure of the entirety of my Alexander Romance: a linear quest supported by non-linear flashbacks, anecdotes and legends that are thematically related.

It follows the East Asian 4 Act structure, known as kishotenketsu, which is my natural style of writing. A subject is introduced (Alexander and his greatness), explored and developed further (many anecdotes of his ability to dominate), followed then by an unexpected paradigm shift (the angels, philosophers) and finally, reconciliation of the shift with the original thesis (Alexander sacrificing his kingship). There are some other subjects being planted here that have not yet seen their shifts; I will let them blossom when the time comes. ;)

As mentioned, Book 1's theme is about Alexander's desire for conquest. Book 2 will follow up on a different aspect of his character, and will take us to Macedon more fully.

Thumbnailing and Sketching

Tools

Thumbnails: Moleskine notebook, mechanical pencil

Sketches: Procreate, iPad with Apple pencil

Time taken

Thumbnails: 10 minutes.

Sketches: Sketching took me an absurdly long time. In fact, making Chapter 7 was such a struggle that I lost track of how long most stages took. It didn't help that the entire time during its making I was followed by deadlines, travel, illness (not Covid) and then my first case of Covid. :/

Inking and Colouring

Tools

Inks: Procreate, iPad with Apple pencil

Colours and Letters: ipad, Procreate, Photoshop

Time taken

Inks and colours: As mentioned above, Chapter 7 was a struggle. Somehow, the medieval style rendering was so much time for so little progress despite its deceptive simplicity. I kept running out of patience.

No PDF for inks and colours since most pages are exactly what's shown on the archive.

Research

This is the first chapter where we see the many names and faces of Alexander. Each metamorph is based on or inspired by depictions of Alexander in medieval jewellery, illumination and carving (listed in the author's footnotes at first appearance). The layouts also borrow a lot from illumination, though I regret not having the brainspace AND the patience to actually push the visuals to its most experimental. Luckily there will be more opportunities to come... Hopefully not in a sustained way, because the physical act of rendering those pages was not pleasant.

Book One Thoughts, Coming into Book Two

(I will probably pursue a longer ramble on my blog)

I am overall very happy with Book One, but it's kinda being held back by its purpose as an introductory story out of narrative necessity. So I don't feel it's emotionally or artistically affecting me the same way The Carpet Merchant did, which is fine. Alexander Comic hasn't yet come into its full power. I haven't yet completely grown into what this project demands of me. The good thing now is that, with Book 1 done, I know what the baseline is. And I am ready to go very hard now on Book 2.

Writing

We've finally come to the part in our Hero's Journey where Alexander is given some Worldbuilding Exposition and a Mysterious Fancy Necklace from a strange lady of the lake.

Not just any necklace however. It's the wonder stone!

Aside from some explanation regarding the quest, the first half of this Chapter is about how kings and great men had always pursued but never achieved their goal for immortality. Attentive readers may also recognise some parallels (of the characters, themes, structure and setting especially) with a particular ancient epic given the set up of the previous Chapters up to now...

but hey, this is Alexander! He's a different kind of king - not like all the others - and whatever he puts his mind into, he gets it.

(We will see more in Chapter 7... the final Chapter of Book 1! OMG)

Thumbnailing and Sketching

Tools

Thumbnails: Moleskine notebook, mechanical pencil

Sketches: Procreate, iPad with Apple pencil

Time taken

Thumbnails: 10 minutes.

Sketches: 2-ish days without breaks, spread over multiple weeks of illness, stress and an overseas move.

Inking and Colouring

Tools

Inks: Procreate, iPad with Apple pencil

Colours and Letters: ipad, Procreate, Photoshop

Time taken

Inks: Everything's a bit of a blur unfortunately... due to the aforementioned life events.

Colours: It's definitely a shorter time than inks, for sure.

Research

The Lady's house and the Lady herself are anachronistic blends of two similar Alexander Romance motifs. One in which Alexander encounters a wall/fortress/castle/mansion and meets gatekeepers who refuse to let him through, but gives him a souvenir as compensation. ("I went to X and all I got was this.") The other in which he manages to enter a palace and discovers all sorts of wonders, from automata to booby-traps to fantastical treasures.  The closest variant that my retelling is based on is the variant where Alexander accesses by boat a city on an island in a river and is then given a stone with strange properties.

A wonder stone (or jewel) is a common enough object in the Romance, connected in some way to the Land of Darkness or Alexander's quest for immortality. The stone here is based on Nizami's version, where it's a key that shines light in a realm of pitch blackness (Canto LXIX, pages 798-800) and is a trinket that's heavier than a mountain, lighter than dust (Canto LXX, pages 811). With a little easter egg of the stone coming out a fish's belly (here's an illumination from a copy of the 14th century Trebizond Alexander Romance, Codex 5 in Istituto Ellenico di Venezia).

The stone as a prop I designed went through a few iterations. At first it was simply a loose blue worry stone that Alexander kept in a pocket and held in his hand, as depicted in the original Prologue.

Early 'standing in a white background' drawings of Alexander, Bucephalus, the Servant, the Lady (?), young Alex and Nicolaos, and two griffins. Some props like a wreath crown and the stone are featured.

Then it became a necklace, part of Alexander's outfit - so that its place in the story and his journey isn't easily forgotten. (Plus I can't explain where a pocket would exist on his chiton).

Writing

I dreaded writing AND drawing this chapter ever since I decided to include it in my Alexander Romance retelling. (see Chapter Four's Author Notes for the reasons why).

Man, sometimes I really envy writers who only need to convey a story through prose - they can just handwave all the logistics of the action i.e there's a difference between writing the sentence "Alexander dropkicks Nicolaos" versus drawing how exactly Alexander is dropkicking. I touched on the difference when I was researching how to draw someone drinking from a kylix.

You can read how the race was written in the original. It's actually not a very long sequence, though packed full of names and brief descriptions of who tripped over first etc. However it's not exactly workable as is. So I had to make up some of what's happening and solve the logistics of adapting this race to visuals.

The biggest change is Hephaestion's involvement as Alexander's assistant. In the Romance, there was no mention of the assistant, or if Alexander had one, it was some Olympian charioteer called Laomedon. Hephaestion himself is only mentioned by name once in the Olympic Race section of the original Alexander Romance (we're told Alexander brought him along on a best-buds trip to Pisa, pretty much the same way as retold in Chapter Four), and never again. So his presence here is a "plot correction", as expressed by Alexander. Why did Hephaestion suddenly vanish? Where did he go? Well, this time, he's not going anywhere.

Inserting Hephaestion back into the narrative actually helped with the logistics. The other change in the retelling, not too obvious, is the sequence of events that led up to Nicolaos' defeat. I added the bit about Hephaestion cracking the whip at a competitor's chariot wheel, which then inspires Alexander to do the same towards Nicolaos. In the original it was either simply "Alexander killed Nicolaos" or "Alexander caught Nicolaos' wheel and turned him over", which... is not helpful.

In the Syriac Alexander Romance, the colours of the charioteers were specified. Normally I would follow these details if given them, but the image of Alexander/Hephaestion in blue persisted since the early days of Hephaestion's character design in 2019. The decision to keep them and Nicolaos in blue and purple was mainly to help them stand out more in the overwhelming orange and yellow palette, especially in the chaos of the action.

Other than that, the race is depicted almost faithfully to the original. A lot of chaos. This chapter contains the most violent action sequence I had ever drawn in my career... so far.

All of this adding, correcting and editing from my end is itself the metanarrative theme of Chapter Five. I made it as if it was my Alexander who requested the changes, for narrative reasons that will become clearer later on; but emotionally let's just say in 323 BCE the grief is still fresh.

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The conversation between Alexander and the Servant is for sure very flattering. Alexander better soak it up, 'cause I am not going to be nice to him anymore. :)

Thumbnailing and Sketching

Tools

Thumbnails: Moleskine notebook, mechanical pencil

Sketches: Procreate, iPad with Apple pencil

Time taken

Thumbnails: 1 to 2 hours.

Sketches: Longer than usual because of how incredibly tough planning the layouts and logistics were. The portion before and after the actual race took a few days, and the portion with the race took a little more than a week.

Inking and Colouring

Tools

Inks: Procreate, iPad with Apple pencil, Photoshop

Colours and Letters: Photoshop

Time taken

Inks and Colours: about a month? This is counting the breaks when I had two brief bouts of illness from a flu and post-vaccination, AND some real life busyness.

Research

The bulk of the research is entirely visual: the chariots, horses, Olympic garb, etc. There's not much I can say here that isn't already in the footnotes lol

At some point I might have to make an artbook to show my sketches, studies and whatnot. We will see.

Writing

Another really short chapter to balance out the length of the previous story.

This Olympic Games premise is entirely made-up, as it never historically happened EXCEPT as an episode in the Alexander Romance legends (Book 1, Chapters 18 - 20) , immediately following the Taming of Bucephalus story.

It's definitely a Choice to feature this particular fiction when the Romance also includes other fake stories like Alexander being stuck in an all-night battle with a bestiary, his visit to the talking trees and his war with the fairies. Those will be in the comic eventually... but I found the Olympics story a really good opportunity to develop some more character, again with the competitive dynamic between Alexander and his father, his meh attitude towards sports, his relationship with Hephaestion and the budding of his need for conquest...

while introducing another metafictional aspect hinted at in the Prologue and Chapter 3: how would the subject himself react to all of these legends?

Exaggerated stories and gossips of flattery are endemic to royal celebrity. And Alexander himself wouldn't be resistant to the allure of them. Afterall, this is the guy who mostly believed himself to be the Son of God just because someone said so (helps that it also conveniently legitimised his power in the eyes of his newfound subjects of Egypt and Mesopotamia). A personal Olympic win is incorrect, but does it matter? Does it make a difference? Especially if it's a hit story that makes you look awesome to the peasants?

All who wrote about Alexander preferred the marvelous to the true. (Strabo, Geography)

The Rule of Cool applies to ancient propaganda.

The Servant here is taking on the role of an uncritical audience - or simply, a typical modern-day uncle cursed by Whatsapp chats - who trust hearsay and like these fanciful anecdotes. Or people like me months ago with an amateur's understanding of the context, to not realise that a Greek king of Alexander's time personally competing in the Olympic chariot race was way below their rank.

Chapters 4 follows more or less the sequence in the original Romance version. Alexander wants to go to the Olympics, he brings along Hephaestion (this story is also the only time in the original Romance where Hephaestion makes a named appearance), during a trip around town they meet a jerk...

Chapter 5 will continue from that point, on the actual chariot race itself.

Thumbnailing and Sketching

Tools

Thumbnails: Moleskine notebook, mechanical pencil

Sketches: Procreate, iPad with Apple pencil

Time taken

Thumbnails: 15 minutes.

Sketches: (not counting breaks) 2 days, approximately.

Inking and Colouring

I add dialogue on top of the sketches before moving on to the inks (or colours in this case). This is so speech bubbles are better integrated into the layout of the panels, and issues with spacing and composition are fixed. Nobody wants to squeeze a too-big bubble into a tiny space in post!

Tools

Inks: Procreate, iPad with Apple pencil

Colours and Letters: ipad, Procreate, Photoshop

Time taken

Inks: There was no inking involved besides the four pages in the middle. Those took a day and a half.

Colours: A week. One spread took one day, more or less.

I worked on each half in 4-day bursts, separated by a week and a half's break.

Research

Research is mostly concentrated on art direction and material culture (the parts that are not anachronistic).

The style of the "flashbacks" is a mix of red and black figure pottery, primarily in the Kerch style. The Kerch style is a variant of red-figure that featured multicolour paint and gold foil on clothing, and is contemporary to Alexander's era, beginning in 375 BCE and dying out in 320 BCE).

I wanted to adapt ancient Greek pottery art in a way that's fresh, but still true to the original. Fortunately, my natural style is already very close to the ancient Greek way of drawing (whether that's a good or bad thing, I don't know lol), so it didn't take much effort to tweak my style accordingly.

The most important thing about ancient Greek pottery art is that, like all limited-colour flat lineless art based on silhouette, it requires some planning. You don't want to accidentally complicate the composition - it has to be clear, easy to read and concise. Afterall, these were originally product designs meant for material goods, and it has to depict a story/scenario on top of that. The customer has to know what's going on in the vase they are buying, and the kind of status/value the vase represents beyond its practical usage. And how do they get this information? From the drawings. In that regard, ancient Greek pottery is closer to illustration and product design.

I didn't want to stick to just a red or black figure. I went with a mix, choosing to approach everything like the UPA style of animation with stylised graphics and colour grouping (see Disney's Rhapsody in Blue). Black figures are contained within red figures. Crowds and objects are grouped into red or black, with the main characters being in full Kerch colour. Colours are layered according to composition.

Googling modern takes of ancient Greek art brings up a solid bunch of examples, but the thing I've noticed most of them not doing is honouring the hand-drawn, wobbly, wonky aspect of the linework. A lot of these takes have clean, straight, precise, almost angular, symmetrical lines. But if you look at the original pottery closely you'd see how wonky the lines are. Which makes sense, because these were painted by hand. There's charm. There's an awkwardness that comes from an artist not drawing something properly, either by accident or on purpose. So rather than being so meticulous with my linework, I went loose.

Normally I'd hand-draw my sketches and inks and afterwards go though an almost-mindless, meditative process of dropping colours with the Fill Bucket tool, with additional hand-drawing for the details and decorative elements. But for this Chapter and the next, I hand-drew and hand-painted everything. It's the same process I used for my other graphic novel, Seance Tea Party. I've already described my process and art direction for that particular book on Twitter and in my blog and at the back of the book. That process is a bit of a pain, like, literally, because it actually puts more strain on my hand for some reason. But the end result is always charming, which is the goal.

A page in the middle of being painted. Procreate app on iPad.

A better view of the Kerch style test. Alexander laughs at Hephaestion's teasing as they hurry off hand-in-hand to the races, their horses beside them.

Writing

This chapter is a retelling of the well-known anecdote of a young Alexander taming a horse that no adult could, launching a wonderful tradition of horse girls and their forever steeds.

I based it mostly off the "historical" account, which had Alexander and Bucephalus encounter each other through a horse merchant. However the legends are an important part of this retelling too (for example, in this spread), as a visual-narrative layer that floats above the surface of the comic and in between the panels.

Here is the story from Plutarch's Life of Alexander (Parallel Lives, Part 1.6):

Once upon a time Philoneicus the Thessalian brought Bucephalas, offering to sell him to Philip for thirteen talents,​ and they went down into the plain to try the horse, who appeared to be savage and altogether intractable, neither allowing any one to mount him, nor heeding the voice of any of Philip's attendants, but rearing up against all of them.

Then Philip was vexed and ordered the horse to be led away, believing him to be altogether wild and unbroken; but Alexander, who was near by, said: "What a horse they are losing, because, for lack of skill and courage, they cannot manage him!"

At first, then, Philip held his peace; but as Alexander many times let fall such words and showed great distress, he said: "Dost thou find fault with thine elders in the belief that thou knowest more than they do or art better able to manage a horse?"

"This horse, at any rate," said Alexander, "I could manage better than others have."

"And if thou shouldst not, what penalty wilt thou undergo for thy rashness?"

"Indeed," said Alexander, "I will forfeit the price of the horse."

There was laughter at this, and then an agreement between father and son as to the forfeiture, and at once Alexander ran to the horse, took hold of his bridle-rein, and turned him towards the sun; for he had noticed, as it would seem, that the horse was greatly disturbed by the sight of his own shadow falling in front of him and dancing about. And after he had calmed the horse a little in this way, and had stroked him with his hand, when he saw that he was full of spirit and courage, he quietly cast aside his mantle and with a light spring safely bestrode him. Then, with a little pressure of the reins on the bit, and without striking him or tearing his mouth, he held him in hand;​ but when he saw that the horse was rid of the fear that had beset him, and was impatient for the course, he gave him his head, and at last urged him on with sterner tone and thrust of foot.

Philip and his company were speechless with anxiety at first; but when Alexander made the turn in proper fashion and came back to them proud and exultant, all the rest broke into loud cries, but his father, as we are told, actually shed tears of joy, and when Alexander had dismounted, kissed him, saying: "My son, seek thee out a kingdom equal to thyself; Macedonia has not room for thee."

And a version from the Alexander Romance. (Book 1, Chapter 13, 15, 16, 17) There's a timeskip in between Philip acquiring the horse and Alexander finally claiming him.

Now at that time the princes of the Cappadocians brought as an offering to Philip from their herds of horses a foal of great size, bound with fetters of iron, for, said they, he devours men. And when Philip observed his appearance and beauty, he said to his friends, "True it is what is said in the proverb, for they say, 'something bad springs up by the side of anything good'; but now since the chiefs of the Cappadocians, my friends, have brought me a present, accept it from them, and let him be kept in restraint and guarded in an iron-barred enclosure, and let the dead bodies of evildoers, by whom crimes worthy of death have been committed, and who are appointed to be slain by the decrees of the judges, be thrown to this [beast]." And when Philip had thus spoken, they executed his orders with all speed.

[...]

Then Philip returned from whence he had gone, and sent his servants to Polias the diviner at Delphi to ask of the diviner, that he might know who would be king after him. When they drew near, and came to the fountain of Castalia, they asked an augury. And the virgin Pythia answered them saying, "Say ye to Philip, the father and lord of Macedonia, 'He that shall receive the kingdom, being sent by the gods, the rulers of the world, to this kingdom of the Macedonians, this is the sign that I have seen concerning him ; he shall make the mighty steed which is called Bucephalus (the interpretation of which is Bull-head) run through Pella.' " And when those who had been sent to bring the augury returned to Philip, they told this sign to him, and he, after he had received this augury, used to watch when he might see this sign ; and he used to enquire of every one who made a horse run through Pella what its name was and how it was called.

[...]

Now when Alexander was nearly old enough to reign, he went to a distance to the place [where Bucephalus was kept] ; and he looked and saw from the door, and went out and saw the horse guarded by on iron grating, with its whole body bound with chains; and he saw that the horse was very excited and furious. By reason of the smell of the human bones and skulls which he devoured, the place itself was foul, and the horse emitted a foetid odour from his mouth. When Alexander saw the many human bones lying under him near his feet, he questioned those who had the care of him, saying, "I want to know what is the reason that this horse is bound in this manner ?" And they said to him, "This horse is a man-eater." Now when Alexander heard this speech, he marvelled and drew near to the iron grating, and admired the strength and size and beauty of the horse. He was especially struck with wonder at his being so terrible and at his fierce appearance. And after the horse took no notice of him, he put his hands gently through the railings, and put a bit into his mouth; and the horse licked the hand of Alexander with his tongue. Then Alexander began to rub his side and legs, and he was quiet.

And when he saw that the horse was gratified, he commanded and they took away the railings from him. And he led the horse out, holding the bridle with his right hand, while with the left he stroked the horse's body, and the horse wagged his tail like a dog. And when Alexander saw that he was so gentle, he led him by the bridle and brought him out into the street, and he saw upon the right side of the horse a birthmark in the form of a wolf, a sign that was born with him, and this wolf held a bull in its mouth. Then [Alexander] mounted and rode upon him, and made him run through the city [of Pella]. Now it happened that Philip was sitting upon the wall of the city, making the horsemen pass before him by number, and he enquired of them the names of their horses, if peradventure there might be one who had a horse called Bull-head, for he had learned the augury from the diviner. And while Philip was sitting upon the wall, Alexander came up to him at a gallop; and when Philip saw Alexander guiding the horse with his hand and standing upon his feet, he said, "My son Alexander, the whole oracle refers to thee; I believe that after my death thou wilt reign, and that thou wilt rule the whole world."

The story is the same regardless, but the details!

As mentioned before, I mostly adapted Plutarch's account for my retelling of the taming of Bucephalus, with the Romance appearing in bits and pieces. Where the Romance's influence is strongest is in Bucephalus' character design.

Caption: The first character design sheet of Bucephalus, explanation below.

Bucephalus' design is representational of this mix between history and legend. (Here's the original blog post with the character sheet and design notes plus the follow-up with an updated sheet explaining how I problem solve a design) Similarly to Alexander, I based Buchy’s design on the middle ground between the descriptions in the historical record and the Romance: a black Thessalian horse, with a star on his forehead and blue eyes, with the twist being the dragon-like head and reptilian eyes, referencing the Romantic version of Buchy as a monstrous man-eating creature. His silhouette is rooted more in Greek black figure pottery than any real horse.

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Anyway, the intent of Chapter Three was to build a few character-defining moments that will cascade into later chapters, particularly Alexander's dynamic with his father. To better evoke a sense of rose-tinted childhood nostalgia, I went with a more children's book approach for the tone and some of the visual choices, using more grawlixes than I would normally for the type of graphic novel Alexander Comic is.

Speaking of tone, the chapter also features the return of the narrator/author's voice inside the comic itself (transcript readers will have a slightly different experience) – introducing it as a metafictional element acting beyond the Prologue.

-

Since its start, I always wanted Alexander Comic to be metafiction, specifically historiographic metafiction – which is an embarrassing mouthful to say. But frankly, it's the only term that's accurate to whatever I'm trying to do here, intent and influence included.

There are a decent amount of metafiction comics, with most of them experimenting with the format (Asterios Polyp) or going all in on pop culture references (Deadpool) or the legacy of superhero comics (Watchmen). But very few centered on history/literature that's not in the point of view of a character (fictional or real, main or side), but the creator who's actually writing AND drawing AND researching the subject matter.

There's a precedent to this approach of metafiction in prose, like Miguel Cervantes' parody of chivalric romances and supposedly-true translations of stories from elsewhere; Jorge Luis Borges' pseudo-review of a fictional author recreating Don Quixote; and arguably Victor Hugo's sidenote rambles about Parisian sewers. There's a distinctive narrator's voice in these stories, which isn't always possible in a primarily visual medium like comics (unless you want to write a wall of text), or perceptible to readers unfamiliar with comics, as the narrator's presence if done successfully should be loudest in the artwork, similar to how a director or cinematographer frames a scene.

I am working out how to present my author's voice in a way that's unique to comics: not a wall of text, uses visuals, is an interaction between text and art in the way I'm trying with comics as poetry. Basically laying out train tracks in front of me as I go. In the Prologue it's pretty standard, with the text in a custom font framed around the artwork, like a storybook. In this chapter, I switched the tactic, with hand-lettering and captions.

At the moment I am leaning towards using my handwriting rather than a font just for the author's voice, kinda like a scribe's annotation at the side of the text they are copying. (The problem is I don't like how my handwriting looks when I am writing on the Huion tablet vs the iPad or paper) It's very likely that I will update these pages once I establish a solution for this. Right now, at the time of writing, you get to witness the messiness. In the future though, I will be taking advantage of gutter space and wackier ideas. Stay tuned.

-

The ending scene with young Alexander, Bucephalus and Hephaestion is completely my invention. That's all I can say without going into spoiler territory, but the choice will make sense more immediately in the next chapter, and who knows where in the comic. ;)

Thumbnailing and Sketching

Tools

Thumbnails: Moleskine notebook, mechanical pencil

Sketches: Procreate, iPad with Apple pencil

Time taken

Thumbnails: 1 hour.

Sketches: (not counting breaks) 24 hours.

Inking and Colouring

Tools

Inks: Procreate, iPad with Apple pencil, Photoshop

Colours and Letters: Photoshop

Time taken

Inks: A week-ish.

Colours: Less than a week. The one that took the most time was the Bucephalus medieval page.

Research

Following Chapter 2's take on Babylon, I took my approach regarding immersiveness up a notch with Macedon. Once again, this is still on easy mode, while I refine the approach and acclimate myself to drawing historical settings after a long break.

Macedon was/is northmost of Greece, on the other side of the mountains of Olympus. One of the details that struck me while I was looking up the Macedonian landscape was how densely green it is (which lines up with the historical record of Macedon's timber being in high demand for ship-building and whatnot). So that was the first thing I wanted to depict.

I love material culture and mundanity, so those two take the stage in the establishing pages with the small details. I gave the transcript similar treatment in the description of the marketplace.

The next two chapters are going to be the most challenging I've ever done. I can only hope the amount of art and practice I have done in the past, especially of horses, will be up to task.

Writing

A really straightforward chapter. 6 pages. Just Alexander and the Servant heading out and beginning their quest.

You may have noticed the appearance of a couple of ancient Greek words. Originally I had Alexander yelling 'WOOHOO' then replaced it with the vernacular 'EUAI-AI-AI'. Small details, but they mean a lot to me in regards to immersion.

Thumbnailing and Sketching

Tools

Thumbnails: Moleskine notebook, mechanical pencil

Sketches: Procreate, iPad with Apple pencil

Time taken

Thumbnails: 15 minutes.

Sketches: (not counting breaks) Around 3 hours.

Inking and Colouring

Tools

Inks: Huion Kamvas Pro, Photoshop

Colours and Letters: Photoshop

Time taken

Inks: A week and a half of intermittent work. Recovering from minor burnout and juggling that with the remastering of The Carpet Merchant Book 2.

Colours: Around 7 - 8 hours.

Research

The first four pages of the chapter are centered on immersion, or the building and layering of details to construct a lived-in world.

Recreating and exploring the historical past through material culture, art history and vernacular folk tradition has always been my niche interest in historical comics. The past feels more alive when I see the things our ancestors used to live their life, express themselves, and find comfort in their favourite foods or trinkets. So I try to evoke that same feeling of wonder and connection in my comics.

In my opinion, material culture is something that is done more effectively in visual storytelling than prose. There is only so much an author can do when presenting the sentence 'Alexander drinks wine from a kylix' to a reader, who may or may not understand what that action looks like... or even what a kylix is. (You can read about my descent into madness when I had to find the answer to this 'How Does One Drink From a Kylix' question) As someone who can present that sentence in the form of an image beamed directly to the reader's mind, I am able to show them how Alexander holds his wide-brimmed cup between his ring and middle fingers (the right hand, because the left is unclean). And that image alone does a lot of work to tell us how interesting their cups are with the individualised designs and how mundane people treated those cups back then. The past then feels lush, with that detail and many others.

In Chapter Two, I wanted to achieve the same goal of immersion in Babylon and its surrounding landscape.

-

I'm a little bored and frankly, annoyed at the standard depictions of ancient Mesopotamia, and in general the Middle East past and present, through the dry yellow-filter lens of Hollywood. Where are the plants? The colours? The green?? Like, I know that part of Iraq (where Babylon city is) has an arid climate and desertification, but there's a concept called land cultivation and apparently, the Mesopotamians of the Ferticle Crescent created this really cool thing called civilisation based off their mastery of agriculture which they also invented. So again, where are the crops and trees that supported and fed the cities? Where is the human touch?

But I'm also annoyed because a big part of why so much of the region looks so dry right now is because of war, sanctions and politics (not to mention the passage of time and climate change, hahahaha). And it's actually the consequences of those factors, and not the land of Babylon as taken care of by its people, that is exported in the form of imagery to the global north. Not to mention the present areas of modern-day Iraq with farmland and gardens... further emphasising the yellow filter as yes, a choice, yes, an artistic license, which displays the decision-maker's laziness of thought and incompetence in making alternative choices.  #hottake

-

I wanted a Babylon that was lush and rich, to honour its reputation as a grand, old city in the Fertile Crescent (though at the time of Alexander's reign the place was at its decline... then again, Alexander had been Great King for a while and if I recall correctly, there wasn't any destruction of crops or livelihood to the ordinary folks in Babylon...). If not lush, just enough to show that life was still happening, that food was still being produced. So here's a date palm orchard, a barley field... two of the stable crops of the city. And of course, people who were cultivating and harvesting these crops using their knowledge and labour. The sort of people who are lost to silence while the king and his military hog up the spotlight.

Writing

Now this is where the REAL work began. Beyond a few one-shot experiments, I hadn't actually drawn Alexander or the Servant acting as characters in service of the narrative. So it was fun and exciting to do that, to realise the story as I had imagined it (more or less) in my head during script-writing.

Chapter One is made to complement and contrast slightly with the Prologue; introduce my voice and my art style in their purest state; and establish this version of the Alexander Romance as entirely original (in the sense that it's mine). Unlike the Prologue, there is little to no intertextual allusion. Accordingly, Alexander's appearance doesn't shapeshift, since narratively and visually, I'm introducing his primary face to the reader (which I call "the Lysippos face"), an invention of my own design based on research and a combination of several references.

-

The writing of this chapter (and the rest of Alexander Comic) is very new to me. Rather than the standard way of approaching comics as a script, or sometimes, as prose squeezing itself into a visual medium – I'm trying this thing where I am approaching it as poetry, which values economy of words and precision of feeling/meaning/impact/imagery.

There’s this idea I have that comics writing is more akin to poetry than prose, since speech bubbles are already evoking actual speech (pauses, tone, emphasis, etc), and when bubbles are separated, the separation acts as caesura or enjambment.

What if I take this idea as far as I can go?

How do I combine the poetry of the written word with the poetry of the visual in a way that feels inseparable?

Especially in a way that only comics can do, with its ability to manipulate time by spatial relation. (basically, the closer two panels or bubbles are in the space they share, the closer they are in time. The opposite is also true)

Poetry has already experimented with how white space can change rhythm and meaning, which is exactly what I have done with the dialogue. The added spice is that I am also using panel arrangement and all of the other graphic literary devices to serve the same function. The most obvious example is on Page 25 - 26, when Alexander is talking about the omens:

"Not too long ago,
(enjambment, then the following line on the next panel/page)
I received an omen.
Many, in fact.

(three panels)

I'm to die soon.

(following panel)

Right here.
(end stop, with the reader turning the page)
In Babylon."

I am looking forward to more experiments in this area, especially when I get to the silent scenes, when images become the only linguistic device for meaning.

Thumbnailing and Sketching

Tools

Thumbnails: Moleskine notebook, mechanical pencil

Sketches: Procreate, iPad with Apple pencil

Time taken

Thumbnails: Under an hour.

Sketches: (not counting breaks) 9 hours. In real time, two or three days.

Inking and Colouring

Tools

Inks: Huion H610 Pro, Huion Kamvas Pro, Photoshop

Colours and Letters: Photoshop

Time taken

Inks: A week of intermittent work, starting from June 30th to July 9th. I was juggling both completing my other graphic novel and getting used to the new drawing tablet, which has a glassy surface texture and a retina screen that my outdated senses found disorienting. (I'm adapting alright now)

Colours: Another week of intermittent work, from July 9th to 18th. I finished colouring the last 8 pages (4 spreads) within a day. The one that took the most time was the banquet spread.

Research

In the Prologue Author Notes I mentioned the place-setting I had to do for this chapter. Place-setting was pretty much the entirety of the research this time. I had to design the interiors/exteriors of buildings, place appropriate props and dress characters accordingly. Fortunately it's still small-scale, on easy mode – I only had to expend most of my brainpower for the one room (the banquet). In the next chapter, I have to draw the outside of Babylon...

-

As for Alexander's clothes, I did the work for it ages ago. I originally began from this concept drawing, which was my first take on the first time he wore a hybrid Macedon-Persian outfit. The fashion snob inside me couldn't stand it though – it didn't look like something a king (or an actual person) would wear, especially with the Macedonian flat cap. So I did another pass (drawing below), which had more thorough research on the visual motifs of Achaemenid art and several design alternatives.

Caption: 6 fashion design drawings of Alexander in his royal Persian outfit, accompanied by notes and stock Achaemenid motifs.

Alexander's Persian outfit was a a purple chiton with a white middle, accessorised with a sash, diadem and staff. Pretty vague. A lot of possibilities are hidden within this description – many ways to pleat a skirt, tie a sash, decorate a hem – just as there are many shades of purple.

Some people would choose to give Alexander long sleeves up to his wrist, but not me. I decided to go with the long skirt down to his ankles.

This chapter will be the only time in Book One where we will see Alexander in this style of dress.

-

The piece that begins this chapter comes from another Alexander Romance author, Nizami Ganjavi, who I have referenced in the Prologue as an influence. It's taken directly from the prologue of his own Alexander Romance poetic epic, the Sikandar Nama e Bara.

The epic was translated into the only English edition in the late 19th century, but given its super literal translation, the whole thing is a bit of a doozy to read. Here is the original English passage by which the quote comes from:

(of Sikandar’s life) many the events that formerly (long ago) passed. --

Them, I make living by my own water of life (lustrous verse).

Sikandar, — who took the path of truth (spirituality),

Tracked out the fountain of life (the water of immortality):

Wandered, so that by the path of good fortune,

He might, by the fountain of life, becoming living:

Sought the road to the fountain of life (the poet’s lustrous verse),

— Found now that fountain, which then he (vainly) sought.

My consultant Richard Stoneman recommended I give a go at reinterpreting the passage – which was a bit worrying since I couldn't read the original Persian text hahahaha (obviously he can). So we had a brief conversation about creating a more accessible translation, and I came away with a draft, then revised it so that I merged the two sections of that verse into a single story. (The first section is Nizami stating the takeaway message of the second section, which is the actual poem) 

I felt that the subtle transformation of the water of life from a physical, bodily cause/effect into something more transcendent and intangible was the key to this poem, and the reason why I wanted to feature it as the opening for Book One. It reminded me of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, which more or less has the same takeaway message. And it also reminded me of the Epic of Gilgamesh, when it turned out in the end that immortality is not obtained through items but through deeds worthy of a poet.

Writing

The Prologue was initially written as a shorter piece, spoken by the Servant. Later on, I adapted and expanded his monologue for use as sample pages in a pitch packet… You can read the original prologue here.

In the first version of the comic, I wanted the Servant to be our narrator throughout. This is no longer the case, as I’ve now asserted my voice as the narrator instead. This doesn't mean the Servant has ceased his original function as storyteller. He just does it in a different way now.

Both old and new versions of the Prologue set out to establish the comic's core theme (Alexander’s kaleidoscopic legacy) and its reason for existence (the tradition of storytellers before me in an unbreaking chain of one king’s life and deeds). The Prologue stands in as “an invocation to the muse”, just like in ancient Greek poetry, but modified to become an invocation to both my creative elders and the reader as we embark on a retelling of this story once again.

I also took inspiration from the preambles of Arrian and Nizami Ganjavi, both of whom are authors of Alexander literature, and who also discuss early in their respective books the kaleidoscopic legacy of Alexander and the mad endeavour they were undertaking in writing about this king of many names and many faces. Even between themselves, about a 1000 years apart, they were encountering similiar issues of craft in the researching and writing process.

For example, the line “A keeper of pearls among treasures” is a direct reference to Nizami's invocation in the Alexander Romance epic, Iskandarnama. He described the research process as a kind of treasure-hunting, where pearls are strewn in every Alexander-related text and his job was to string them together into something pretty. In contrast, Arrian called most of it trash, and his job instead was to shift through the garbage and find reliable information for his biography on Alexander. (Well, reliable for the time...)

Personally, I am somewhere between the two. But look, here I am, in 2019 - 2021, a thousand or two years later, dealing with the same things! I could relate so much to their complaints and their fascination for this singular historical figure. All of those things remained true, and I think anyone who has ever written something about Alexander will get it.

Anyway, this theme of shared legacy and shared experiences across time and space and culture is really central to the concept of the comic. It's actually, in fact, the first and only reason why I took on the project. So for the very first pages I wanted to honour this intergenerational intertexuality. Not just through my words...

but in the art as well.

Thumbnailing and Sketching

Tools

Thumbnails: Moleskine notebook, mechanical pencil

Sketches: Procreate, iPad with Apple pencil

Time taken

Thumbnails: About an hour? Less than that.

Sketches: (not counting breaks) 2 hours 16 minutes. In real time? Maybe a day.

Inking and Colouring

Tools

Inks: Procreate, iPad with Apple pencil, Huion H610 Pro, Photoshop, Astropad

Colours and Letters: Photoshop

Time taken

Inks: (not counting breaks) 16 hours 21 minutes in the original pass in Procreate. About 3 days in real time, as I was juggling some other work. Then on Photoshop, about 1 day for additional inking.

Colours: About a week or so. It's much longer than usual because of the details and having to recreate the original illuminated miniature drawings. As you can see in the Prologue, a lot of the art's heavy lifting is in lineless colour.

Additional detail: I custom-made my own font, which took an entire night.

Research

As I mentioned in the FAQ, the way I do this type of comic, the research is interactive and dynamic and ongoing throughout every stage of the process. It'll be the same for every chapter of this comic.

The Prologue is generally light on research, since more than half of the 18 pages are my takes on Alexander Romance motifs and my original ideas, which came from work done during the three years of development. Plus selecting the miniatures to be featured.

The most research-intense pages were the Poets and Painters section of Pages 12, 13 and 14. It was simple enough writing the text, to convey that feeling of shared heritage, but whew, it's not enough to just say it, I had to actually show it. I wanted to show that there were people behind the books that we now see disembodied behind glass cases and picture frames in museums and libraries. I wanted to show the brushes and palettes and stationary these storytellers were using, and I wanted to make a visible evolutionary connection from illuminated manuscripts to broadsheets to zines to modern day comics and book illustration. Like, without the foundations of bookmaking and printmaking and mass printing, comics wouldn't exist. Without typewriters, we wouldn't have laptops. That sort of thing. It's a humbling and amazing thing to be aware of, as someone who writes and draws their own books.

Otherwise, the Prologue is alright in terms of workload. Chapter 1 comes next, and I am simultaneously looking forward to and dreading the amount of research I need to do for place setting (it'll be set in Babylon). But hey, at least I get to finally draw Alexander in his fashionable Persian King outfit.