My name is Hannah and I am a writer and visual artist currently living in South Portland, ME. Growing up in Northern California as an introverted and quiet child, I spent a lot of time with my reflections, with nature, and with a detailed noticing of the beauty in every day moments and objects. I began expressing myself through original poems at a young age, and in recent years have widened my art practice to include film photography, cyanotype, collage, and found/erasure poetry.
I find inspiration in ephemeral moments, living materials, the exploration of my inner and outer landscapes. I like to take something already in existence, already tactile and seemingly rigid, and turn it on its head to create new meaning. Beauty itself and the discovery of beauty in dark places are at the core of all that I create: transforming pain, suffering, heartache, self-inquiry, isolation, loneliness, and whatever else comes up in my experience into something beautiful.
My art practices are eclectic and vary depending on my mood. Some days I make a collage or a cyanotype, other days I write or take pictures. I try, as much as I can, to let creativity speak through me and decide the medium it wishes to inhabit to fully express its purpose.
For my poetry offerings, you can visit the following sites:
- Hobart Journal Publication: https://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/two-poems-35622562-be4d- 4d74-ac01-e7464dc2ad2c - Poetry Blog: https://thoughtsfromapalindrome.wordpress.com/ - Dim Dimmer Dark Chapbook: https://www.blurb.com/b/8975042-dim-dimmer-dark
Thank you and please enjoy my work.
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I’ve been saying that the narrative of The Wicked + The Divine has been hinting in ways that aren’t remotely subtle that something big with a capital BIG is coming, and I’ve also been saying ...
Cover
Here’s the raw pencils for it, which were used on Comics Worlds (Still available!) alternate cover.
Main thing is to say how Jordie’s colour choices transform Ryan’s pencil work. I think we were thinking that it would be a white background, but Jordie noted that anyone who does an Image book after a time in the mainstream does a white cover, as some kind of reaction to mainstream comics cover design. She suggested going black instead, with the reds and yellows being a little reminiscent of Grecian pottery, etc. Good work, her.
I’ve sort of been smiling in a why-did-we-bother way at some of the comments in the reviews, saying that it’s stylistically reminiscent of 300′s cover. Pretty much our watchword throughout Three was “If it’s going to get 300 comparisons, we don’t do it.” Bloody Corinthian helmets over-ruling everything.
Credit page
Typoed Stephen Hodkinson’s name here. Sorry, Stephen. Will be fixed in the reprint.
The whole design of issue was pulled together by Hannah Donovan, ex-last.fm, now ThisIsMyJam. She’s never worked in comics before, and wanted to try. She’s done great stuff throughout. The three-main-creators and-three-main-cast synchronicity is played. She tried to do things to imply disruption and order and similar.
1
The opening is basically the Jaws opening. We show the swimmer. We show the shark. We show them draw together. We show what sharks do to swimmers. It’s one of my overture-style openings which tries to set the world we live in – which, in this case, is a highly repressive state.
The first place is all about the mood. Just seeing how people are living. It’s not that clear, but this is a mixed grove. We’ve got stuff growing on the floor beneath the olive tress, which is how they did it.
2
The quote from Kritias is paraphrased here, which is clearly a key one for the series. We’re introducing a series of what are likely unfamiliar ideas, and trying to keep it accurate. Helots are a type of slave. Traditionally, we thought of them literally owned by the state. Current thinking is against that, but it’s believed they certainly have some state interest and commonality. The “Also Bear the State’s Fetters” is our way of squaring that circle. They’re privately owned by people, but they also have this State element.
We’re sort of dancing around Helot dress. There is some traditional helot dress that may turn up later, but it was goofy looking and as they spent most of their time away from Spartans, it struck us they wouldn’t wear it if there wasn’t a Spartan around.
You may note we’re doing the Greek rather than Latin spelling. When scripting this, I constantly bounced between the two. This involved a lot of proofing.
Anyway! The Krypteia. We went with nude, to make it feel more like a sport thing – Greeks performing sports in the nude, of course. Also adds an edge to the survivalist reading of Krypteia, as discussed below.
3
The declaring war on the helots once a year is an interesting one. The argument I found most compelling was that it was necessary as ritual purification would have to follow killing someone, and that murders were common enough to make that troublesome. A once a year “We’re in charge” covers their ass.
We talk a bunch about the Krypteia in the back matter for the next issue. There’s basically two readings – one is the culling terror groups and the other is a sort of rite of passage survivalist thing. We’re merging them both, as they’re not contradictory.
4
The red colour borders was a last minute idea by Jordie.
We pick up a key thing here – that it’s not just random killing. It’s killing people who look like they may be trouble.
Utopia is ironic, but true – Sparta was one of the first attempts at a Utopian state.
5
And our Shark feeds.
This issue is centred on the Helots. We actually go into the Spartans a lot more later, and get their side and motivatiosn, but here I wanted to start with the Helots and get the feeling of what it’s like living here, under this oppression.
Okay – five pages, not 100% part of our story. Is this a problem? Maybe. For a while, I wasn’t sure whether the opening was a darling I should kill. If I killed it, I’d have regained five pages back, which I could certainly have used for other things. I’ll talk a little about them as we hit them.
In the end, It seemed to core to the project. Here is the world we’re in. This is the way these people lived. And, as I said above, we need to show the Shark.
6-7
And after the prologue, we restart. Similar effect as the first issue of Young Avengers.
364 was chosen for a bunch of reasons that will become partially clear this issue and more clear the next. It’s at the period just past that of Spartan dominion.
8
Cut from one act of butchery to another. Not subtle, us.
The NAME CAPTION over the background is a device we’re using throughout. At one point we were playing with having all captions in that style, and keeping them incredibly terse and (ahem) laconic, but it just wouldn’t work on the page.
One invention on the history is that I’m using the concept of Helots having call-names. Basically, nicknames they choose themselves. A tiny little freedom they guard.
9
The Laconic gag is the one most people have talked to me about.
Klaros is a once-strong-but-silent type, which is tricky in a compressed 22-page comics story. Effects you can do in a half-second in a moving film are incredibly expensive in terms of time-and-space in comics.
Okay – the prior killing darlings. Extending the time with Klaros, Terpander and Damar before the later events is one obviously good use for five pages. However, other things take priority.
Terpander, as some reviewers noted, is the closest thing in the comic to a traditional-me sort of character. Loquacious clever-clever story-obsessed character. Where Terpander differs is that he’s a far less romantic version of that. He’s a fucking prick.
10
I love what Ryan is doing with the expressions throughout the page. He’s getting Terpander’s skeeviness brilliantly. And look at Damar’s body language, y’know?
This is the most intensive bit of dialogue in the book so far. Choosing the voice was tricky. The line between poetic and not archaic was what’s really going on. It’s stylised (as it’s mythic) but still recognisably people rather than a text book.
11
Lots of soft stuff about the social structure here. I originally used the proper greek word for farmstead here (and it doesn’t really mean farmstead, but a slightly different idea). I strimmed a bunch of the words at lettering for clarity’s sake. Enough Greek for atmosphere but not enough to alienate was the line. I suspect the experience of Uber – where I went slightly too jargony early on – helped here.
12
One of the best graphic sequences in the issue, and Jordie and Ryan working brilliantly. We played with a few choices of border throughout the issue, and ended up on this GREY FOR OUTSIDE, YELLOW FOR INSIDE structure.
The first appearance of the Corinthian helmet, which is anachronistic, albeit awesome looking. We’ll see the Pilos turn up next issue. We have a sort of class metaphor going on with the helmets – this is literal Sparta’s walking history vs Sparta’s present. These are ceremonial guards so wear helmets that speak to that. It also allows us to use the best visual available.
Worth noting that horses were crap in this period. We don’t push that too hard, especially visually, but it’s certainly in our thinking. There’s a reason why Chariots turned up before Cavalry on the battlefield.
13
You may notice I’m shutting the fuck up at times like this. Stuff like the opening was played as legend. This is time as lived, and the silence (for me) adds to that. There’s a lot about the back half of this book which is about the tension.
Red is Sparta’s colour, their clothes, their tunics. The red and white for the Ephor is an invention, but one we thought was visually interesting. Generally speaking, we worked on the rule that if History says it’s not true, we don’t do it. If history doesn’t disagree and we have something interesting and adds to the story, we go for it as hard as we can.
Notice no Shields. Spartans had helots to carry their shields when they needed one.
I love what Ryan did to dehumanise all the Spartans here. For the Helots, that’s exactly what was going on. The Spartan’s perspective comes later, but now it’s the world’s greatest killers, turning up unexpectedly.
14
Spartan beards basically lacked the moustache. Nestos is young, only just a Spartiate, and his beard is clearly crap.
“First Among Lessers” is an invented replacement for a real word which would have had everyone going “Huh?”
The cringing of Terpander here makes me smile.
15
There’s a few time cuts here which is tricky. The transition at the end of the page is one where I had to go some to make the storytelling clear.
Eurytos is an Ephor, and towards the older age of the group. Any Spartan could be an Ephor post… their 40th, I believe? We talk about Ephors in some future back-matter. They’re basically the civic rulers of the city, though – suffice to say – it’s complicated.
16
Eurytos links the two scenes. Time has passed, and we have highly drunken helots capering for the amusement of the Spartans. This is something the Spartans used to do to show the effect of alcohol to their kids – force helots to drink unwatered wine until they humiliated themselves.
From now on, all the helot men bar Klaros are fucking pissed.
17
Nice joke, Nestos. You and Terpander should get on.
I half wonder how many readers realise that Klaros is forcing himself to vomit here? He’s clearly sticking his hands into his throat, so I’d hope most of them, but I suspect not. The look of rebellion in 3 is also, I’d hope, telling.
18
This specific humiliating cruelty is an invention, but one I think is certainly on the scale of the humiliations Sparta wrecked upon the Helots.
Thermopylae was, as you may guess, important to the Spartans. One of the odd things about researching this is how often the phrase “300” turned up in it, in all these different places. One comes up again in this issue, but there’s another one we talk about in next issue’s back-matter.
Interesting expression in the last panel, I think.
19
Good violence in the kick too. RYAN IS KILLING IT.
The third panel totally gives Terpander an in. I wonder if it would have ended peacefully without that name and an obvious (for Terpander) line of attack. Hmm.
As Terpander notes, the 300 at Thermopylae were all fathers. This actually divorces them from the traditional spartan Hippeis guard of the king, etc. This number haunts Spartan history, clearly.
The “If I was not so angry” line is one of the classical Spartan ones. There’s a book of Spartan quotes (and another of ones of Spartan womens). Miller used a lot of them in 300, so take them out of my grasp (as if I use them, readers would take it as a comment on 300 rather than Sparta). However, there’s a lot he didn’t, and I use when appropriate. They had a way with a one-liner, the Spartans.
20
You may note I’m doing a lot here to stress Terpander is very drunk.
This is a really oddly challenging page for Ryan, I think. Asking him to show the front room and the back room to create the spatial positioning is just hard. This forces the first two panels to feel less naturalistic than most of the book, but that’s probably what I wanted. When a character starts talking about stories, there’s a sprinkling of meta going on.
Damar being sensible here. C’mon, everyone. Listen to Damar.
21
We played with a few ways about doing this kind of flashback, and Jordie ended with this. I was a little nervous around the blood splashes – that’s a key part of 300′s aesthetic – but the execution was different enough for me to be fine with it.
Nestos’ SHIT is one of those bits where I’m balancing various masters. Period swear words are, in terms of the effect on a reader, bullshit. It’s like Americans not really taking British swearing seriously as they think it’s quaint. The point of swearing is its effect. If swearing isn’t offensive (or, at least, being able to be mapped on an emotional level as offensive) to the reader, it’s pointless.
Terpander in the first panel is monstrous. The fringe, the shadow. It’s clear he knows where this is going already. Dionysus does have his tongue! Oh – that’s a thought. Spartan men have long hair and Spartan women short (As kids, Spartan boys have short hair and girls long). We figured it may be interesting that Spartans liked mocking the helots that they’d reverse that, insisting helot men have short hair and helot women long. As such, Terpander’s shaggy mop is quietly rebellious.
22
The second panel’s positioning of dialogue is one of my favourite beats in the book. Transforms the panel into three beats – the first line, the response, and a dagger twist.
First panel is some of the most delicate exposition in the book. I’m trying to tell the readers where this free Messenia is (and, in fact, there is one). This is about the basic world-building of the environment, the connection between the two. As the book is about people on the run, that’s important. Where are they running from? Where are they running too? What’s on the map? What matters?
Worth noting that Terpander is cheating with his description of this battle. His tweak on the battle is almost identical to the tweak the Spartan’s applied to Thermopylae. We also lay the groundwork for the Spartan political situation. We can see why Spartans are so cruel – they’re petrified of this shit happening.
23
Oddly, one of my favourite pages of the book. Ryan works the shocked silent panel like no-one else. Check the woman in the fourth panel “OH GOD.” Everyone knows where this is going.
“Spartans can laugh at anything” is from the research. No, clearly not true.
Jubilant Terpander in the third panel is lots of fun. Murderous black eyed Eurytos in the last panel quite another.
24
And Ryan wanted to try and make the final image evoke one of the big tableau paintings of a much later period, with their idea of these classical stories. The brutality is one thing, but I love the humanity he’s crammed in throughout. The woman, scrambling in the foreground is just great.
Okay – the kill your darling thing. Clearly, if I claimed back more pages, I could have ended the issue slightly later, and given a different ending. I didn’t, for reasons that will have to wait until next time.
Thanks everyone for buying THREE. A second printing will come out the week of the second issue for those who wish to catch up, and if your local shop hasn’t copies, there’s always comixology and Image.
