Writing
I’ve actually written what will be the majority of Chapters 8 and 9 in 2019 – very early on during the project’s lifetime. Tragically it took a stupid amount of time to cook, for many reasons which I will explain below.
Book Two is an extremely challenging script, mainly for these reasons:
- It represents the retelling of the Alexander Romance proper, meaning that out of the four Books, Book Two would have the most similarity to the traditional storytelling structure of the Alexander Romance. Chapter Eight beginning with the story of Nectanebo parallels the original Alexander Romance’s beginning, and as we will see later many of the details are taken from and follows the thread of various Alexander Romances. And oh boy, the details.
- It has a lot of information. I’m retelling almost the entirety of Alexander’s life, from his birth to his peak, as well as about the people around him. Book Two will be where we see many of the who’s who: Philip, Olympias, Antipater, Parmenion, Aristotle, etc.
- Telling the story of Alexander isn’t the most difficult task: it’s the editing and the presentation of it all… in other words, the execution. Alexander’s life story has been mined for centuries for retellings and adaptations even outside of the Alexander Romance legends, and while many have done as well as they could within their ability, the toll is always obvious in their art. I jokingly call this the Alexander Curse, the bane of anyone who attempts to be his storyteller: there is so much that is so alluring, that if you’re not careful, you will fall into the trap of making it all very boring (narratively, creatively and/or structurally). In my 6-ish years of trying to navigate the Curse my theory is that the key rests in understanding that Alexander’s narrative needs a specially jaded media-comprehensive methodology: the jadedness to not be taken in by his glamour, and the comprehension to be able to view his life in context to all the media built around him. Which also means realising that a basic life-to-death retelling of Alexander is going to produce the most unsatisfying narrative arc, because that’s what the real history is (Alexander’s life ends suddenly and mundanely)… and everyone’s already heard the same old story so many times. Since the “he is born, he lives and he dies” presentation is not in the cards for me, I had to develop a new approach to execute the goals of the project. However frustrating, I am glad I took the time I did.
- Life was quite harsh on me for the period between 2023 to 2025. I undertook my Masters degree, which coincided with a very stressful years-long crisis at my previous employment and compounded by migration uncertainties. Happily, all of these struggles are in the rear view mirror, but I had been running on max capacity for years, and today I am dealing with physical burnout. My creativity is preserved luckily (I can and want to write/draw); just that I don’t have a lot of energy before feeling exhaustion.
It wasn’t until early in 2025 when everything clicked for me regarding my execution to the 21st century Alexander Romance, after several small breakthroughs across the years. In solving the biggest conundrum in the entire project – the conundrum that existed since the project’s birth in 2017 – Book Two became lighter as well.
Chapter Eight represents the outcomes of all that thinking and cooking. We begin with the typical Alexander Romance opening setpiece, but not exactly. The Author’s process and voice are front-of-mind, emphasising artifice. What does that say about the stories of Alexander we will hear of later? Stay tuned.
Thumbnailing and Sketching
Tools
Thumbnails: Moleskine notebook, mechanical pencil
Sketches: Procreate, iPad with Apple pencil
Time taken
Thumbnails: ? Probably 20 minutes for each revision.
Sketches: Chapter Eight has the hilarious misfortune of being stretched across multiple years in random bursts until very recently. I’d say drawing the sketches themselves didn’t take very long, but thinking about the best layouts for the sequences took months’ worth of time.
Inking and Colouring
Tools
Inks: Procreate, iPad with Apple pencil
Colours and Letters: ipad, Procreate, Photoshop
Time taken
Inks and colours: Each double-page took over 6 hours to complete, due to their detail. I was lining and painting everything by hand (no shape vector or paint bucket shortcuts) and almost entirely on Procreate via iPad.
Research
The majority of research isn’t so much for the content in Chapter Eight, but the approach that would shape Book Two and subsequently, the remaining parts of the comic, including the execution of the ending. I spent years reading up on the philosophy of history and art/aesthetics, media studies, and other literature that dealt with similar challenges.
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