The Narnia Covers, book 4: The Silver Chair

Book 4: The Silver Chair

This was a really cool cover. It was intriguing--why is that guy attacking a chair? Is the chair indestructible?! The chair attacker was a mystery, androgynous, long hair, slightly royal looking outfit, you can't see the face. What an exciting and mysterious cover! It almost looks more like a classic rock album cover than a kid's book cover--like a Led Zepplin album or something. I'm fairly confident I remembered it right (no missing sea monsters here.)

What I remember from the story: (this feels like I'm writing a school book report, 25 years after reading the book...)

Just two kids, a boy and a girl (girl's named Pole?) go on a quest with a weird swamp man, Puddleglum (who lived in a wigwam?) At some point they are walking in some deep canyons, and they find out that the canyons spell out a word (zero memory of what the word was.) They go underground where there is a race of people (or dwarves or something) being used as slaves by some baddies. I want to say giants. The whole thing takes place underground. The kids are trying to free the slaves, and also escape themselves. I feel like I remember this one pretty well.

I can't remember what the chair was. Was it a magic chair? I got nothing about the chair.

I also, very specifically, remember that this book was where I first learned the term "stop being a wet blanket." But I can't remember who was being the wet blanket.

Thinking back, this one should have been my favorite book in the series. If I remember correctly, it was the only Narnia book where you worried about the outcome--the only one that made you think, "How are they getting out of this?" Compelling! Of all the books in the series, I feel like this one is best suited for a movie. Self-contained with a spooky, tense plot.

Silver Chair--from here on we move into strange territory (I won't lie to you, I've got a yawning black hole in my memory bank where The Horse and His Boy should be.)

By the way, I have a big run tomorrow, the Utah Valley Marathon. I'm going for a personal record: Slowest Time Ever. It'll be my 8th marathon, but my training hasn't been the greatest. Here's hoping it doesn't rain like it did last year. I'd better go buy a plastic poncho. My poncho saved my bacon last year! Wish me luck!

Silver Chair Waiting Area

Hey everyone--I'm looking forward to the Silver Chair cover and discussion. But it's going to have to happen tomorrow.

It's now 1:21 AM, and I'm still fighting my page quota. Today's pages have been very elaborate--they are part of a complex naval battle scene. There are multiple ships, there is choppy water, there are hundreds of tiny sailors, cannons, explosions--don't get me wrong, I'm having a BLAST. But these pages are going LONG.

The comments so far have been very interesting. I've apparently flip-flop/mirror-imaged the last two images. So bizarre. Also, I seem to have misplaced a sea serpent on the Dawn Treader cover. I can't believe I missed a whole SEA SERPENT! I seriously can't remember the sea serpent. The day I finally Google these covers is going to be a VERY interesting day.

See you tomorrow. Bone up on your Silver Chair. I have a clear image of both the cover and the story--only one thing: I can't remember the importance of the actual Silver Chair. Don't tell me, maybe I'll remember.

The Narnia Covers, book 3: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Cover #3: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

This one. This cover, man.

I must have pored over this cover for hours. It was so cool! But I can't quite remember the color scheme. I think the boat was supposed to be brown, yeah, kind of a golden brown--now it's coming back (too late.)

What I remember from the story:

Because this was my favorite cover, it was also my favorite book. I can't remember WHY they were sailing around, or WHAT they were looking for. They were just sailing along, stopping at weird islands. I remember the pool that turned things into gold, the island of the Dufflepods (well, I remember the Dufflepods--I don't remember what they did with them.)

The scene I remember the clearest is the scene where Eustace puts the bracelet up high on his arm, then turns into a dragon and the bracelet squeezes his arm. I could really feel that arm pain. Then I remember the followup scene, where Aslan claws off the dragon meat. (They totally wimped out in the movie; Aslan does a spell and the scales just sort of twinkle off. Not the dragon vs. lion gore-fest I wanted. RAWR! RIP! SLASH! RIP!)

I remember an island where there was a star man. And I remember the weird final island which was like a scary tunnel(?)

Seeing the movie so recently has messed up my memory. I'm glad we are now leaving the movie-ized books (almost--I have seen the BBC Silver Chair, but it's been a long time.)

I watched the E3 Nintendo press conference--what a crazy controller-screen-thing. Should be interesting to see how it turns out. I love seeing the three big console companies try to outsmart each other. Not a lot of interesting games shown this year, seemed to be nothing but shooters and motion control games (and motion control-shooter games.)

Wednesday Shop Talk

I don't want to burn straight through the Narnia material too fast. I've got to space these covers out to better remember them.

I thought you might want to hear why I had a change of heart about the blog Summer Hours. I really was ready to shutter the blog last week. Wanna hear what changed my mind? What made my workload easier?

A stopwatch.

I downloaded a stopwatch widget for my computer. I figured I would time myself for each of the steps in completing a page. There are four steps. All of the pages already exist as fairly detailed sketches, so I need to take the sketch page and apply the following:

• Step 1: I create the borders, word balloons and letters. I'm hand-lettering this puppy, and all future graphic novels, hand-lettering just looks better.
• Step 2: I do the final drawing. I'd call that "inking," but I'm doing it digitally, so the word ink doesn't apply.
• Step 3: Is the layer of shading, all grays.
• Step 4: The final layer of blue laid over the gray.

This stopwatch is HUGE, it fills my second monitor with giant, angry numbers--it looks like the countdown timer on a self-destruct button from a movie. Anyway, I've been carefully timing each step. I record the times on a paper, then total them to see how fast I can do a finished page. For some crazy reason, the stopwatch has kept me on task.

Here are my records:

• Step 1: 20:04
• Step 2: 1:07:05
• Step 3: 48:43
• Step 4: 13:45

Those are all from different pages. My fastest overall page was 170 minutes total.

Also, I ratcheted my desk up to standing height, so I work standing up. It seems to give me more energy. These measures might sound crazy to you, but when you work alone, from home, this is the kind of thing you have to do to stay on your toes. It's a constant mind game. When I was penciling CALAMITY JACK, I asked Shannon and Dean if I could report my pages to them each week--just a page-count to keep me on track. They agreed, and we got that book finished on time. I didn't finish RAPUNZEL on time, but that's another story.

So, if I use the stopwatch, and the stand-up desk, I get my pages done in the afternoon. If I DON'T use the stopwatch, and sit in my comfy drafting stool, I end up working laaaate into the night.

If I don't use the stopwatch, sit in the comfy stool and live-stream the E3 (video game expo) press conferences all day, then I don't even finish my quota for the day.

• Monday, Press conferences watched: Microsoft (lousy,) EA (okay, new SSX looks good) Ubisoft (entertaining, side-scrolling Ray-Man looks fun) and Sony (if they put out a Monster Hunter on that new PS VITA, I'm so getting one.)
• Pagecount: only 1.

I hereby promise to use the stopwatch and the standing desk tomorrow. (After the Nintendo presser! Gotta see that! What will the new system be!?!)

The Narnia Covers, book 2: Prince Caspian

Cover #2: Prince Caspian

This was a cool cover--definitely in the top three. I remember it being very orange and aggressive. The one part I can't quite picture clearly is the Prince himself. I remember the big, hulking knight (Did he have a sword? I can also picture a big spiked club.) And, for sure, this cover had some very stylish trees in the background.

What I remember from the story:

Phew. This one is a little blank. I remember that the words, "Usurper" and "Tyrant" came up a lot. My first time through the series was as a listener, my Dad read them aloud to me (and my younger siblings) when I was a kid. I can clearly recall asking, "What is a Usurper/Tyrant?" every night. This book taught me those two words. That said, I can't remember who or what the usurper/tyrant did. I guess he usurped the kingdom. Prince Caspian's dad? Uncle? Can't remember him, or how they eventually beat him.

I have no memory of any English children being in this one, although I'm sure they were. There was a cool badger named Trufflehunter (I think this was the book he was in.)

I did see the recent movie, I think I saw it within the past twelve months too. I remember nothing. That movie is white noise in my brain. Was there a hunky centaur? I think I remember him, not much else. For some reason it blends into Disney's Prince of Persia (also white noise.) A lot of running around, some tents, lots of battle scenes where the two sides run at each other across a field.

I do have a different movie memory though, from the somewhat iffy, early 90's BBC series. There was a part where Prince Caspian was hanging out with some owls, and they were just actors in huge, people-sized owl costumes. Don't remember anything else, just that.

This memory stuff is fun! I can't wait to see the real covers. It sounds like a lot of you had this same set.

The Narnia Covers: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Cover #1: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

I'm almost 100% sure of the composition of this cover. The four kids framing the open wardrobe. I'm pretty sure the lamp post was centered. And I know there were fur coats and pine trees. This was not one of my favorite covers--in fact, I think it might be in the bottom two. I'm really looking forward to seeing the real image and how close (or far) I got to it.

What I remember from the story:

I remember every story element that appeared on the cover; the coats, the snowy landscape and the lamp post. I also firmly remember the Snow Queen (is that what she was called?) giving Edmund the Turkish Delight--which in my mind was something like teriyaki beef jerky, it never seemed like candy to me, definitely beef jerky. I also remember that Santa Claus/Father Christmas shows up(?) And I remember that the Snow Queen could freeze people into statues.

What I don't remember:

How they beat the Snow Queen, or, really, anything besides the stuff above.

Now, I saw the movie they made of this book, back when it came out. But I remember it even less than I do the book. I do remember that Tilda Swinton was the best part, and I remember thinking the kids in the movie made the wrong choice: when choosing sides between Tilda Swinton and a lumpy CGI lion, you should ALWAYS choose Tilda Swinton.

The Narnia Covers

I watched the Voyage of the Dawn Treader Narnia movie last week. It's been a long time since I read that series, and I couldn't quite tell which scenes were true to the book. Some things seemed familiar, but some things didn't. It made me realize I only have the faintest memory of those books.

I do remember my favorite thing about the Chronicles of Narnia. It wasn't the characters, or the adventures, or C.S. Lewis' writing style, or the Sunday School agenda. Nope, I barely remember that stuff. What I do remember are the paperback covers.

The 70's ones.

The psychedelic ones, where it looked like Narnia was just a few blocks from Yellow Submarine's Pepperland. I spent a lot of happy hours staring at those covers. So, for fun, I'm going to see if I can draw them from memory--it's been at least 20 years since I've seen them. I won't look the originals up (I'm sure they are just a Google search away.) Afterwards, I'll post the real covers and we can compare and contrast. Just for kicks, I'll see what I can remember from the actual books themselves too.

Tomorrow, I'll start with The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.

I Can't Quit You

I thought long and hard about it. I just can't stop the blog for three months. I've been doing it for too long, and too many good things have come from it.

I went back to check when I started this blog, and, can you believe it, two years ago today was the start date. June 1st, 2009 was when I officially started blogging regularly. I did Chuck the Lazy Isopod in May 2009, but I made the weekday posting official on June 1st. I'm 662 posts in. This thing is a habit I don't want to break.

So, hold on to your seats, there are no such thing as Summer Hours. This train keeps rolling!

Happy 2nd birthday to the Station!