Behind the Magic curtain #2 June 22, 2010

Hello and welcome to the second in an accompanying series of brief features looking behind the scenes of Magic of Myths, issue by issue. This time we’re taking a deeper peek into Issue two, which you can read in the season one sample by clicking on this sentence – which is recommended if you’ve not already read it, as the following contains spoilers…

Thinking happy thoughts

In terms of finding a literary reference for this issue, ‘Lost Echoes’, was a relatively easy job. Peter Pan, a story about self discovery and growing up, was a perfect fit to parallel Eve’s tale of… well, self discovery and growing up. Having Eve talk about herself running away as a child and ending up being in a far distant fantasy world as an adult rounded off the comparison nicely.

Peter Pan is one of Eve’s favourite books…

There are a fair few other parallels to note between this issue and Peter Pan, but one other thing to note is the theme of ‘escape’ in this chapter (although this also runs through the series). In Peter Pan, escape is an adventure which is said to lead to fleeting happiness at the expense of family, growth and safety. Here, Eve has also escaped into a fantasy world at the expense of family and safety, but finds growth. Whether or not she also finds fleeting happiness in this world where danger and challenge is constant is something which will come to a head in the latter issues. There are more clues to be had if you’re familiar with the story of Peter Pan (across its various iterations)…

Lost girls

I struggled with the title to this story for a while, and almost went with ‘Lost Girls’ (in reference to Eve being lost in both the past and present, and obviously a nod to Peter Pan’s lost boys). However, by the time I finished the story it bizarrely coincided with the launch of Alan Moore’s Lost Girls, which was picking up all sorts of polarising press because of its subject matter (I’ll leave it to you to find out what exactly that was). Drawing intentional parallels with one of the medium’s great writers – and one of my larger influences – wasn’t something I particularly felt like indulging at that time, so the title ended up being ‘Lost Echoes’ which, in retrospect, probably works just as well. It makes the reference a little more ambiguous and less obvious, and at the same time plays on the fact Eve is recalling an echo of her life and that this trial is sound based (making sure it all ties in with the use of subverting Eve’s childhood memory of a lullaby into something which is designed to potentially kill her). The fact child-Eve is resistant to listening makes it all the better given the time she finally does listen makes her aware that she’s in a trap.

Being lost is another theme of the series – along with what Eve does to ‘find’ herself…

The walls are closing in

The panel borders for this issue were designed to give off a nursery rhyme style feel that acts subconsciously while you read it, but also works with the lullaby sung by Eve’s mother and later the Siren. Sergio’s talent for depicting the likes of Mother Goose and other fairly familiar animals really shone, especially as the borders slowly switch from bright and cheerful into dark and sinister as we get closer to the revelation that the lullaby is no longer being sung in Eve’s head but by a monster looking to draw her in for the kill. We both settled on the use of stars in the border afterwards, to keep the nod towards Peter Pan (which has reference to stars as navigation to Never Land).

A prize to anyone who gets this character reference…

So if Tink isn’t a fairy, then what the hell is he?

…And why does he have those silly fairy wings? Tink is a massive, massive part of the world Eve is in, and in more ways than one. His race, his background and even the reason why he has silly fairy wings are all clues to a wider part of the story that is Magic of Myths. We’ve probably already said too much, but those paying careful attention to some of the seemingly throw-away lines of the series will probably be more aware of Eve’s circumstance and future than Eve herself…

Tink may be hiding more beneath his strange and stuffy exterior

Read the Magic of Myths: season one sample here: http://wp.me/PSxcG-d9