The Christmas Truce

A story of goodwill toward men in our darkest hour

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Part of a longer story available at http://christmastrucecomic.com/

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This web comic is a fictionalized story about an actual event in World War One: The Christmas Truce. It explores questions about the perception of "the enemy" and is character-driven. http://christmastrucecomic.com/

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The Christmas Truce is a historical fiction in graphic novel form about a particular non-fictional event in WWI (not WWII) Since these two live in Bavaria, Here is an obligatory lederhosen/dirndl picture. When I was in Munich, an older man who we befriended with our (hopefully charming) at-times-clumsy German, gave us a tour of the city and explained that you look really dumb when you're wearing these out of context. They are really only for festive occasions, like a kimono. Also, he said the lederhosen should really be made out of deer skin. He also amusingly pointed out all the silly things tourists do while shaking his head and muttering "Tourists..." apparently forgetting that my husband and I were, in fact, tourists. Maybe we didn't count because we speak German?

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More experimentation. A smart person on the internet said that a good exercise is to make up a context and have your characters react to it. My context, all questions of "Why are we all hanging out?"/ "Who's house is this?"/ "WHAT IS THAT MAGIC PICTURE BOX?!" aside, Is "They are all watching Anchorman."

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Pictures from Facebook

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The German Soldiers from left to right- Johann, Karl, Otto, and Lukas.

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Due to positive feed back on the last one, here's a Q + A for Johann. Let me know what you like ;)

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Johann is a typesetter! Here he is in the shop. I didn't post the sketch because I've posted too many sketches already ;) Experimenting with inking and color. I think I like the slightly grittier lines- it feels less modern.

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Some of my visual research. The top two are German and the bottom two are English, but from later in the war. English soldiers were originally sent into battle without helmets!

What do you guys think of the propaganda piece? (click to enlarge)

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Some sketches of moments from Johann and Charles' pre-war lives. Johann and his wife fawn over their new baby and Charles sits with his mother, bored in church.

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A sketch of Adele giving Johann some good news. Aren't they sweet?

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Here's a little Christmas Truce doodle. Let me know if you like this kind of thing!

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Here's one of our main characters, Charles Borthwick, at his home in the slums of London, in 1914.