Text taken from 'Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you.' by Gabrielle Calvocoressi, which you can read at full here. I grabbed what made the most sense for my vision but the poem in full is more devastating.
Alternate version without text below, with some rambling which includes why he ultimately abandons this get up (tied into the poem).
BIG RED DISCLAIMER HERE, that this is all regarding my iteration of Jonathan, and is NOT to be confused with any of the canon versions. I'm just...throwing stuff at the wall here so to say.
While I did refer it as the first iteration of the Scarecrow costume, it won't be for a couple years that Jonathan actually settles into that identity and motif and actually connect it to his pursual of fear. Round 1996 he's still in university, and any outings of him in this outfit is more of the entertainment of the curiosity, a sort of dip in the water, as well as any perverse pleasure he gets from lurking in the dark.
The cloak is Grandma Keeny's, or at least a chunk of it. He adds onto it with other fabrics, and actually has to dye it even blacker to get the shade of black he wants. The hat is his own, well worn and also a victim of the dye. In present day he does regret dying the hat, as it was a pretty good hat and now it's kind of just. Pitch black as opposed to his Very Not pitch black clothing palette.
The wig is bleached seagrass and plastics. I really like it when writers or artists tie in his connection to poverty and decided to play my own twist on that here, because I do consider it important. His apartment is near the coastal area of Gotham, one of the various impoverished regions, and he takes from the more polluted areas of the beach. Him settling from the beach is also an attempt to separate from his life prior to Gotham; going to the opposite of the mountains in the sea, though he doesn't find too much comfort in it. Anyhow, the bleached seagrass and plastics are admittedly some of the more whiter things he comes across. He probably also crushes paler seashells to add as dusting on the wigs. The reason he's aiming for white objects comes into how the outfit is used as a whole.
The mask is probably the most intimate part of the entire get up and ultimately why he choses to abandon it. His mother taught him how to carve wood, and prior to passing had begun a project on some bark that Jonathan would keep with him well into adulthood. He carved the mask out of that wood, leaving the spaces his mother touched untouched, save for the eye (shown in the drawing), which cracked while he tried to figure out the best approach.
This outfit is meant to play on how it appears in the dark. The hat and cloak blend into the dark, the white stands out almost immediately, and it's being right next to the mask draws the viewer's eye toward it next. The red of the mask is meant to just subtle blend into the dark, but the white contrast around it would pull for an instinctive squint, if you hadn't already thought the better of it and ran away.
The poem is more a tie into how in these early university years, Jonathan finds himself missing his mother (and probably subconsciously, Grandma Keeny, though that is more complicated). My version of him does get to grow up with her for around 11/12 years; she was in and out of addiction to painkillers before she ultimately passed. (1) He's not social and far from home and he's spending his free time scaring people in parks or in alleyways, so uh, generally not going Well. And the mask is not helping. He can't touch it without wanting to pass over the grooves his mother left, and the worst bit is as time goes on, he begins losing where exactly those are. It's a wound that he hasn't even bothered attempting to close, his mother. And dwelling on it constantly each time is only making him more aware of her loss. And also the fact that he actually is, quite frankly, alone in this world. You can imagine how constantly depressing that can be, so he doesn't stick with the mask, and therefore, the costume as a whole, but he does depend on the blueprint of (big cloak + hat + wig + mask) for later iterations.
I think that's it. Below is just the footnote (I didn't want to clog the text).
(1) I actually debated on whether or not to have Karen be in Jonathan's life at all, and for a while the beginning was more akin to a twist on the Year One background, which I ultimately abandoned. Both hurt regardless; you either have a faint impression of your mother or none at all, and the desire to know her remains all the same. I personally am more fascinated by the tragedy of the former. And I tend to favor narratives of missing, which feels like expired yearning sometimes.
Expanded on yesterdays sketch…anyways..this is his little city outfit when he first gets to Gotham (mid 90’s). The orange glasses are his official first #cityboy purchase.
Originally photobashed some houses I liked together, then went off from there. I quite like the idea of it sagging it into itself, under no weight but it’s own; the symmetry being disrupted was another feel. I might remove the two windows on the first floor; it gives the feel of a home with no mouth. Two eyes, maybe a third though the attic is it’s own queer thing.
Lowkey miss this wip. Hasn’t like died or anything i just forgot how to draw. Pretty sure it was supposed to be poison ivy. Who knows. Who knoww ANYTHING really.
