none of y'all know who Laurita Tohm is and I'm here to fix that
lol anyway, these are a sort of alternate ending to the Vader and the Ghost Prison series (please go read it, it's got fantastic art and fantastic characters and it's just five issues long, pleeeease)
I probably won't finish these but I had to draw best boi Tohm and I'm glad I did. and of course Trachta's guns
Like the concept of this is story is so good but I think having it be a 4 comic book issue story arc is a waste of potential instead of having it be it’s own book or even a larger comic book maxi-series.
A SHOW OF FORCE AS A PROCESSION OF POWER IN THE IMPERIAL ERA -- 0 BBY.
PIC INFO: Spotlight on a panel of Emperor Palpatine and Moff Trachta, followed by a regiment of the Emperor's Royal Guard, making ready to depart Imperial Center (formerly Coruscant), from "STAR WARS: Empire" Vol. 1 #2. October, 2002. Dark Horse Comics.
So kneel before us, and let the blood on your hands become a badge of honor. Let it make you loyal and brave. Let it make you fierce and unrelenting. And above all, let it make you imperial.
@thrawns-backrest as promised, I hereby present to you an overview of my little research trip to worlds unknown. (Now that I finally have the time to do so, after submitting my Bachelor's thesis. Thank goodness it's over.)
It all started out as a simple wish to get practice in drawing humans again, or in general, more realistic subjects. I've gotten a bit rusty after spending two to three years almost exclusively on cubism.
In comes my ongoing hyperfixation on the Ghost prison comic, specifically Moff Trachta. I get the genius idea to combine the two, not only would I get some practice drawing again, but also an opportunity to rotate a blorbo in my head some more. There was only one problem, I could not find any drawing references, for months.
Highlighting again, I'm still quite rusty in the drawing department, so I was not really keen on painstakingly reconstructing Trachta from every angle, solely relying on the comic, especially since half of his face is obscured by a breathing mask plus the ocular cameras. Which makes it a bit difficult to understand his facial structure and therefore, how his limited facial expressions work. The one panel showing him before the injury did help a bit, but it wasn't sufficient enough in the long run.
So I needed external references, and I am really confident that Agustin Alessio was relying on them too, not only for the established characters like Anakin Skywalker or Mace Windu, but for all of the recurring cast in the comic; it would also make sense for his artistic style in general. There are artists, who can make up unique human faces on the go, and keep them consistent with every comic/graphic novel page, but I believe, for the majority, this is unnecessary, additional work. (I mean, consider the Marvel comics, no penciler will spend their limited time meticulously drawing every damn rooftop in New York city, they copy that shit, or use references in some way or other, chances are, the same goes for people).
My first rounds of research were not really successful, the closest I got in vibes is Karl Urban as Lord Vaako in "The Chronicles of Riddick".
There are certainly a lot of parallels between Vaako and Trachta, they are both idealistic (and power hungry), high ranking commanders in a dark army/empire, who seek to usurp their masters and ultimately fail in the endeavor. (Except, Vaako did not die, he just had to wait a bit longer for a new opportunity to seize control).
Unfortunately, their faces did not match as well as their vibes, I had to look somewhere else... Well, I looked and I looked aaaand nothing came of it, so I paused the project for a few months.
But one day, on tumblr of all places, and through a reblog of Wil Wheaton of all people, I stumbled upon this gem of an image:
First of all, the premise here is hysterical and the aura of the new millennium painful but what really stopped me in my mental tracks was the dude crawling out of the computer screen, his face looked familiar, too familiar
Hmmmm 🤔
Hmmmmmmmmm🤔🤔
Too many similarities to be accidental and that meant, I was back in the game. According to the description, the image was published in the Playgirl magazine in the first issue of January 2000. There was no other information, but I am a historian and I know how to find things.
I started my curios journey with a reverse image search and by googling the image title, but 'Virtual Carnality' only lead me back to the original picture and tumblr, so I had to look for the actual magazine, which I wanted to avoid. Because academic experience with somewhat similar mediums and second hand experience with porn magazines through earlier research on Russian homophobia taught me, there's usually no easy access to this particular genre of print medium, especially when it's older than 20 years. There are no institutional databases (that I know of) and barely any digitally archived issues available. As expected, I did not find the fated Playgirl issue, what I did find instead were bounds of scientific articles referencing Playgirl and other similar magazines as sources. The topics around them ranged from the history of the US american porn industry, to the conceptualization of heterosexual female desire, from queer and gender studies to copyright law; there was everything and a good deal of what I skimmed open access too.
It was an interesting detour but it did not bring me closer to my goal. What I tried next was the official Playgirl website and suddenly there was hope in sight, they had an archive category... some random past articles... not what I was looking for, how unfortunate. Most of their content was hidden behind a paywall as well, but creating an account and paying a monthly fee of 13$ with no way of knowing if they even keep a proper digital archive of past issues, was in my opinion not a worthwhile investment. If only I had the name of the model...
Next I scouted Ebay for information. There was a chance some seller might have included the table of contents in the product scan and perhaps a name I could use. (Btw, the going rate for a vintage Playgirl Jan (1) 2000 lies somewhere between 40-60€, last time I checked). This idea did not yield any results either. I was about to call quits for the day but I had to try one last search
one last rearrangement of key words.
And surprisingly I was not disappointed.
I finally had a name
Praised be the gay porn community of adonismale.com and their extensive Playgirl database of male (porn) models and actors.
Here I could add an additional paragraph about the importance of media preservation through communal effort but I've used up all the spoons I had for today.
Summa summarum, I'm pretty sure I'm not hallucinating Alessio basing Grand Moff Trachta visually (to some degree) on a porn actor going by the name of Cheyne Collins, specifically on his appearance in the "Visual Carnality" photo shoot for the first Playgirl issue of January 2000.
