I tend to have many creative spinning plates. Occasionally, I finish more than one simultaneously. There is often a link between the two works, and here I feel an opposing but complimentary energy. Tbf, they are both DG related – one for Danny and one for Drew. Tone wise, they are on opposite ends of the earth.
Drew’s is first – it’s based on the song he helped produce. Pun intended, but I’ve been hearing the siren’s song of animation again. I was looking at my 2024 year in review a few weeks ago, and at that time I had promised myself I would start learning animation in 2025. I regret that I didn’t, although the comic work may have been a necessary interstitial (….pun also intended).
I used procreate here, only because it’s the only thing I use. It’s funny how the darker parts of my mental illness give me creative inspiration, but healing and clawing back some self confidence has made art-making 100000x easier. Now more than ever I go into manifesting an idea with the delusional confidence that I can just open up my brain and plop the image perfectly on the screen. That’s not exactly true, but it happens more often and with less friction if I don’t overthink. It’s similar to when, if I’m trying to pick up a bunch of grocery bags, I just shut off my brain and let my hands and arms figure out how I need to hold stuff. If I try to “manually” think it through, I just can’t.
This is rough – the biggest thing I would want to fix rather than just polish is the final scene. I imagined her more laying down into the darkness, almost like curling up in a cozy bed and pulling over the duvet. She has that restful quality in the cover art – there is a soft resignation, calm surrender. I do like the fact that – even though it was unintentional – the length of the last 3 scenes are awkwardly short. To me it mimics the weird time signature I think the song has. There’s momentum but it’s from this unsettling, limping cadence. It’s intentional I assume, and captures perfectly the dichotomous feeling of being both depressed and anxious. Stuck in solid mud, hearing ominous footfalls. No way to run, just darkness closing in. Profound grief.
On a lighter note, the opening notes (hee!), were EERILY familiar- particularly the specific guitar sound. It bugged me for days until I realized it was Decode from Paramore. Laura told me that makes sense since drew likes that band. I don’t know why I feel surprised when I learn more about his music taste, even when it always absolutely tracks given what I already know.
But a song from Twilight is an incredibly convenient segway into our other segment. We are at code red stage – unironic Ned Flames fanfiction. To be fair to myself, I had intended to storyboard this. I started writing the script in my notes app like I always do, but it was long and I wanted to send it to Laura to read first. I started filling in the descriptions, but my OCD demanded it be nice to read…and here we are.
the one bit of awkwardness…well, formatting awkwardness, is that Vampire Dad is just referred to as “Vdad” as a placeholder. that takes me out of the story sometimes, but less so than a random name I picked would, I think.
The three of them sat at the smaller table, though in the context of Mr. Bartlett’s multi-million dollar mansion, it felt no less formal. “So, Ned’s your adopted son? You must have been awfully young when you became his father.”
Mr. Bartlett – or Jim, as he preferred to be called – was already through a wing and a half. His fingers were stained, though somehow the ice white tablecloth remained spotless. He had the jovial aura of someone with enough money to pay people to deal with inconvenience. The wealth brought out some eccentricity – he kept his cowboy hat on inside, even now at the dinner table. The rugged quality it might have leant him was undercut by his precisely manicured beard, and the never-been-worn look to every part of his outfit.
Vdad smiled. Ned felt a pang of anxiety when he clocked the mischief underneath. “I have a young face. A curse I could not bequeath to him, fortunately.”
“Heh.” Jim said between bites. Unlike the other label execs, the Texan was appreciative of playful sarcasm.
“I was somehow both too young to know what I was doing and too old to keep up with his …exuberant energy.” Vdad continued. “And yet, here we are.”
“Here you are indeed.” Jim agreed. “Seems Last Night ‘s a big hit with kids online. We took a deal with this new app Spotify, some freemium internet streaming… thing” he waved vaguely. “Not too sure about the business model yet, but my guys tell me the numbers from the euro launch were promising. Ned’s song is one of the most streamed from our label this week – he’s creeping up on a million streams! I bet it’s pretty exciting for you, Ned… oh! Checking out the hot sauce stash I see.”
Ned was rummaging through a repurposed spinning spice rack, till one bottle put an uncharacteristically huge grin on his face. “Dude, I haven’t had this since that location in Aurora shut down years ago!” Ned eagerly splashed his wings with the vibrant red sauce.
Jim nodded. ”It’s quite good, there’s a subtle smokey quality that—”
Just as Ned was putting the sauce back, Vdad took it from his hand. He looked it over intently, tracing the design on the label with his surprisingly claw-like nail. His smirk began to take on a more sinister edge. Jim could see Vdad unsubtly shifting his eyes up to the cross on the wall behind him.
“Devil’s Spit?” Vdad asked, not quite accusatory.
“Yeah, hehe, they get a little colorful with the imagery, don’t they?”
Vdad tipped the bottle to dab sauce onto his index finger. He let the tiny puddle overflow, and one drop landed on the tablecloth, blood on snow. There was a light crack as the bone in the wing Jim was holding snapped, his hand clenching suddenly.
“You seem to be a connoisseur.” Vdad observed dryly.
“I do always like somethin’ with a bit of a bite to it.” the flattery cut the tension, slightly. “Makes me feel alive, yknow?
Ned could see the oblivious irony luring out the predator within his father. Vdad let the pause hang before responding, “Quite. I find it’s almost like being resurrec—”
CoUGHCIUGh
Ned tried to sell a convincing almost-choke, to cut his dad off.
“Ned, you ok?” there was genuine concern in Jim’s voice.
“Yeah, sorry, something was just *KHUHM* going down the wrong way. Dad, be careful with that sauce, you don’t want to be doing too much *KHUH* –scus me, and regret it later.”
The attempted red flag was a red rag to a bull. “You know me too well, son.” Vdad lifted his finger and eyed the crimson liquid. “I always want to play with fire.”
In one practiced gesture, he licked his finger clean. “I guess I’m just excited for the shared fate of everyone at this table…damnation.”
EXCUSE ME?!
DAD!!!
The temperature in the room dropped suddenly, and a vignette of darkness settled around them. Vdads voice was deep and resonant, taking a tone that was unmistakably antiquated. “Facilius est camelum per foramen acus transire, quam divitem intrare in regnum Dei. Mark,10:25.”
Jim’s eyes widened in recognition. As Vdad spoke the English translation, it echoed the terrifying, booming voice of his own father, with all the weight of God’s judgement.
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”
Jim quivered, but was eager to respond. “..well, there is some context–”
“Now don’t get distracted by the colorful imagery, Mr. Bartlett. Look to the meaning — impossibility of salvation.”
Dead silence. After having his fun, vdad relaxed his posture. The room shifted back to normality.
“Then again, perhaps that is an uncharitable reading.” Vdad said, indulging one last quip. “Jesus was famously quite forgiving.”
Jim was stunned, but with it enough to pivot before anything further could happen. “…right. Soo….Ned. I see you must be a Cubs fan? Your shirt..”
“Oh! No yeah, I think the team is actually really great this year, despite the……..”
Vdad let the conversation fade out of his conscious awareness. Looking at the fanged devil on the bottle he still held, he realized his own canines were starting to protrude. If Ned only knew how much he was holding back. Maybe he’d appriciate a darkly literal twist on a political slogan? Or would that obsession with hypocracy keep him from the pleasure of morbid schadenfreude? When they say ‘eat the rich’, they don’t mean you, Ned. You know they don’t mean you.
*******
“I think that went quite well, don’t you?” Vdad sighed, self satisfied. His exhalation was invisible, despite the autumn night chill.
As Ned reached his truck he turned, unconsciously mimicking one of his father’s predatory stares. Towards any human it would have had the desired effect, even without the glowing eyes.
“No shot you’re getting a ride back with me, after all that. Go bat mode and fly home, you damned freak.”
————————- —————————————-
It’s funny how these scenes come. It’s often like today, where I’m driving, I’m remembering something (sometimes a joke or a reference danny made), and I see it slot into Ned Flames’ world. This time it was danny’s stand up bit about his dad’s hot sauce collection. I thought it would be so fun to have a scene where vampire dad is reveling in that irony. From there I thought ok, in what context would Ned and Vdad be at a dinner with an older gentleman who is overtly a devout Christian (catholic?). At first I was getting something like Ned’s girlfriend’s dad, but that didn’t quite work. A meeting with an exec after Ned’s viral success made more sense.
It’s still kind of a flimsy premise, but the purpose was really just for me to have fun with vdad’s character. That said, if I was taking the concept of this show/movie seriously, Vdad comes with a lot of issues. First of all, as I’ve talked about before, there’s the potential difficulty of mixing a mockumentary style with supernatural characters, IF the show is not first and foremost a supernatural show (before anyone comes at me with What We Do In The Shadows). Vampire dad as the only non-human character would be out of place, and more vampires starts to make it a vampire thing. Goblins are a creature that danny reaches for surprisingly often, so that would be fun to incorporate, but again – it’s supposed to be about Ned, and him grappling with the tension between creative authenticity, ego, and the need for connection through his work. The fantasy creatures might distract from that.
But even if there was a way to make the supernatural metaphorical and thematically relevant, Buffy style, my own characterization of Vdad is problematic. I grew up in peak vampire mania, although I was old enough when Twilight came out to be turned off by the incel/purity culture stuff. But Buffy, True Blood, Blood Ties, Moonlight, (those last two are guilty pleasure romance novel schlock in TV show form, please do not look them up or juuuuddddggeee aahhhh), Unfortunately, that very questionable character archetype got to me early on. It’s a chicken and egg thing when it comes to socialization vs inherent gendered appeal. But the fact that so many teen and even preteen girls are attracted to the narrative of “ooooo this sexy guy just can’t control himself around me, he’s so special and powerful and if things got spicy he might accidentally kill me 😌😍” Girl, what? STOP. HALT. DO NOT PASS GO.
I find echoes of that kind of character in the way I write Vdad – and draw him especially. It even goes back to Yugioh (Bakura) fanfiction. I remember feet-on-the-seat nesting in the computer room office chair at 12 years old, holding a Harkins loyalty cup full of half milk and half too-strong Folgers coffee, completely engrossed in a stupidly well written x-men/yugioh crossover, thinking to myself, “I don’t think I’ll ever be happier than this, in my whole life.” She was close to right.
But the brilliance, and original purpose of a Vdad as a character, was exactly to subvert that archetype – because Goverboe was intentionally cultivating an audience of too young girls, and knowingly playing into that toxic yet somehow appealing fantasy. To push Vdad in the direction I tend to is a betrayal of not only what makes him funny, but also what makes him compelling, and conceptually clever. It’s stripping the satire from a satirical character.
All that to say — I write/draw out these scenes because nothing gives me more creative joy, but if I was actually in a writers room for a Ned Flames thing, it might be a kill-your-darlings situation. Luckily, those darlings can find refuge in the world of fan content.
>>robyns_ramblings 