#and it can take a sec to figure out how to draw older folks without it looking like bad 'old person' prosthetic makeup

[kur0kvmi]

The Menacing Mind of Felix Lombardi-Act 2

I peek through the door glass one more time, to make sure I’m not hallucinating. Yep. Ami Fujinami in the mother, fucking flesh. 

“Felix? I know you’re in there, open up” Ami said, in between repeatedly knocking

“Yea I’ll open it up in a minute” I said as I frantically searched for a clean pair of sweatpants to wear.

Ami and I have known each other for the entirety of the 2 years I’ve been living at this apartment. She and her Grandma have taken pretty good care of me seeing as I’m not exactly the best at it. 

“Hi Ami, what brings you here?” I asked, trying to push out the conversation with my brother from my mind

“Well, a strange man in a dark blue suit was here yesterday and he gave me 2 tickets to Mysticon” 

And then it call comes rushing back

“Wow that’s weird, well have fun” I said as I tried to close the door on her, only for her to stop the door from shutting.

“He said he was your brother, and that I should ask you to go with me” Ami said, slowly edging towards me like she was trying to get a good look at the reflection in my eyeballs.

“Well, I have no idea who you’re talking about. I don’t have a brothe-”

“Hello? Mr. Lombardi? He said exactly what you said he’d say. Mhmm That he doesn't have a brother. Should I hand him the phone? Ok. Ok. I’ll tell him.” 

Oh fuck.

“He says if you don’t go to Mysticon with me, I should tell Obaa-san to lock you out of the wifi for a month” Ami said, in the most perfunctory tone imaginable.

“First of all, you can’t do tha-”

“Yes. Yes I can. And to be honest, I don’t care if Mr. Lombardi is your real brother or not, I want to go to Mysticon, and I don’t care who with. So you’re going with me Felix.” Despite the fact that Ami was more or less extorting a date out of me, she did so with the gusto and demeanor of a middle schooler who just won a spelling bee. 

“Why couldn’t you just go by yourself?”

“The deal is, I take you, and I get a free ticket. Mr. Lombardi was very clear about this” 

“So I have no choice”

“None at all”

“Alright. Come knock on my door on saturday”

“It is Saturday, you bum”

“Why aren’t we using your car?” Ami moaned as we exited the building. 

“The train is faster” I said, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of my jacket.

“Mysticon is in Hells Kitchen right?” Ami asked, whilst reaching into her backpack

“Yup, and it’s...3pm, traffic will be annoying, and I don’t wanna worry about driving back if I buy weed.” I said, pulling out my lighter

“What have I told you about smoking when you’re next to me.” Ami said, pulling out a batton, then flicking it to extend it’s length. 

I put the cig back in the pack, whilst prompting her to sheathe her weapon. Throughout the journey my mind is racing. Ami and I hanging out again? It’s not that I like her or anything, it’s just that I kind of missed her. Hey I’m allowed to have feelings aren’t I? I’m sure you’re wondering “but Felix, if you missed hanging out with her, why did you stop talking to her?” Why yes fair reader, that’s a very adequate question, however the nature of our relationship isn’t that simple. Ami is kind of an all around nerd aficionado, she cosplays, she writes fanfics, she draws, she sings anime openings on youtube, it’s kind of scary how much she does all over the place. Recently she’s started to get really famous online, she’s started to devote a lot more time to it, and She started ghosting. Being distant... And you know me, I ain’t exactly a butterfly myself, so we just drifted apart. She should be making money on youtube, couldn’t she just get her own tickets?

“Obaa San wouldn’t let me” Ami said as we reached the station. “She’s against anime conventions on principle”. 

“Is this about a ‘Japan is more than anime’ thing?” I asked, shifting over to the right as I stepped on the escalator so I could walk down past the standers.

“No that’s more my parents. Baa san is a reeeeaaally old school Otaku.”

“Then what’s her beef with anime conventions?”

“She thinks they’re ‘commodified caricatures of otaku culture’ or something along those lines” Ami said as we hopped on the train.

Granny Fujinami isn’t wrong in the slightest.

“So she won’t be mad at you for going?” 

“She’s only letting me go because I’m going with you. It’s aaalways about you with her.”

“Not my fault i’m the grandson she never had” I said while making a mocking face at Ami.

“She only loves you cuz you’re a broken mess she can nurture. You’re like my dad. Ugh, you’re like all men really.”

Ouch.

“Ouch.” 

“Suck it up loser.” Ami said, shifting her direction away from me. 

“You’re so cute when you go all Tsun” I said, pulling out my phone.

“That would imply me having any ‘dere’ for you.” Ami snapped back.

So hot.

[At the Convention]

What’s going on what’s going on going on. Everyone’s looking at us. Well I guess I am walking next to Amura. Yes that’s Ami’s social media name, you try coming up with something better at 12. Mine’s [REDACTED]. This is not what I signed up for. Louis Othello Lombardi you fucking bastard. You knew this would happen. You did your homework on Ami and figured out she’d be a lightning rod for attention. Keep me around her, and I’m bound to be assaulted by nothing. But. Fucking. People.

“OH MY GOD IT’S AMURA!” Two young girls screamed. “But I heard you weren't coming? You said so on twitter :(.“ I swear to almighty Haruhi Suzumiya, if there was such a thing as a frowny face emoji in real life, whatever that girl did was damn close. 

“Well change of plans ^_^” Oh my god, Ami can speak emoji too!

“So what panels are you going to? I heard Gail has a panel about anime piracy” Said one of the fangirls, angling towards it on the con directory. 

“Gail from Crunchyroll?” 

“Sounds fun! Felix, ikimasu!” Whoever this version of Ami was, I wanted NO PARTS. 

“Sounds lame. I’m going to the arcade.” I was putting my foot down

“Ok cool. Hand me your pass then. You can pay on your own.” 

“You can’t do tha-”

“Yes. Yes I can. You want this pass?.” Ami pulled out the 3 day convention pass out of her purse and dangled it in front of me. Obviously I tried snatching at it, only for Ami to move it out of the way. Damn japanese reflexes.

“Gotta be quicker than that. We’re going to the panel. Follow me.” Ami said, tossing me the pass.

“If you sneak off, I’m calling Obaa chan.” she said, in that her perfunctory yet declaratory way.  

“...So what you end up having is an environment where it’s harder and harder for us to justify hosting servers for anime distribution, because they don’t wanna pa- *ahem* because piracy.” Or something to that effect I’m not really listening to this Gail lady.

Anime piracy is a dumb thing to have a panel about anyway, it’s not like anybody in this room even knows how to torrent off wonwons, let alone\ how find the right codec for shows with bad compression. These are a bunch of crunchycores. The kinds of anime fans so hopped up on seasonal hype that the mere thought of an anime older than 12 months makes their tongues run dry, and their eyes wire shut.

“Are there any questions?”

“You got anything to ask?” chuckled Ami. 

“Why are we here. We both know Kissanime is in your bookmarks” I jeered.

“Networking dummy. I talk to Gail after the panel, and smooth out something over at Crunchyroll” For some reason Ami’s eyes did the dollars signs when she said “crunchyroll”

“In San Francisco? You’d hate it there.”

“I’d make it there. That’s the important part. I’d really make it. I’d be in.” 

“In what?” I said with a look of befuddlement. 

“You wouldn’t understand. You’re basically guaranteed a job after graduation” 

“Hey, don’t make it like tha-”

“Don’t make it like what Felix?” Ami snapped, but less with anger, and more a tired expression.

The Panel was beginning to wind down, and folks were getting up to leave. Ami bounced out of her seat and darted towards the stage. 

“Gaaaaaiiiil! Hiii, I follow you on twitter!” Ami screamed, like a schoolgirl seeing a classmate

“Amura! I follow you too! I love your singing” Gail responded in a surprisingly similar manner.

“Thanks so much, ugh. That means alot l love you and Sailor Bee’s podcast ^_^” This whole display was just. The worst. 

I backed off from the discussion, but I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to make it far without incurring that good old Fujinami wrath. Jeez they’re taking forever. Is this a meet and greet? Or a job interview. 

“Felix? Oh shit, how you been bruh?” This voice, I recognized it. 

I turned around, and yup, it was Tyler. 

“Who let riff raff like  you in here?” I said as we shook hands

“Is that any way to treat your one black friend:” He responded dryly. 

“I have plenty of black friends. Unlike you, most of my friends are girls.” I shot back. 

“Yea right, if you ever left your yuppie ass play pad I’d believe you.”

“You’d be surprised how many of em recognize me from Ami’s streams.”

“The streams she stopped inviting you to?” 

“Low blow T.” 

Tyler is a friend from Highschool who runs in the same online circles that I do. We keep in touch through discord and trade merchandise on message boards. He’s been trying to break into the FGC since middle school and recently struck a deal with a team based out of Brooklyn, The Mash Masters. He’s pretty good, quick reflexes, consistent muscle memory, but he lacks patience, and his neutral game needs work. 

“Where you headed to after this? Tryna hit up the arcade?” Asked Tyler as he picked up his backpack getting ready to leave. 

“I’m here with Ami, I gotta check and see where she’s headed to” 

“Whooptish” Tyler said, while making a whipping motion. 

“You know it’s not like that bro.” I shot back

“For her it isn’t, for you it is.” he retorted. 

I told him to wait up for a sec as I went over to Ami & Gail. They were still chopping it up like they’d known each other since band camp. 

“Shoot me a DM on twitter whenever you get the chance, I’d love to get you acquainted with the rest of my team. Maybe even talk bringing you to some other cons around the east coast ;)” Naruhodo, it seems this Gail is also of the emoji Clan. 

“Sure thing! Don’t forget to tweet out the channel link with the picture, and tell Vicky I said hi!” Ami said gleefully. 

“I definitely will, but uhh, she hates being called Vicky. Victoria or Sailorbee are just fine.” Gail responded, with a tinge of trepidation.

“Yea, I made that mistake on twitter once, it wasn’t pretty” I said with a chuckle.

“Oh hello, and who might you be?” Asked Gail.

“This is my friend Felix I was telling you about.” Ami said. Wait, telling her about what?

“Ah yes, the animator. Ami showed me your fan animation of Diebuster. Very interesting to see a Gainax show done with heavy Yutapon vibes” This lady knows her stuff.

“This lady knows her stuff” I said to Ami. 

“Of course I do silly, I work in the anime industry” The smile Gail shot me as she said this wouldn’t be out of place in a Shaft anime.  

“You definitely have some real skills. We’re looking for someone to do a sakuga heavy promo for our new youtube ad. If you’re interested, Ami has my contact info. It was so very nice meeting the both of you, don’t forget to keep in touch.” Gail said in a warm, professional tone as she got up to leave. 

“Well she seems nice” I said to Ami. 

“You’re welcome Felix.” Said Ami, in her usual biting tone. 

“I didn’t ask you for that. If I wanted a job at Crunchyroll I’d have one already.”

“‘Thanks Ami, I really appreciate you showing my work to someone really influential who can open doors in my chosen profession, would you like headpats?’” Ami said, in a mocking imitation of my sultry ciciillian speech pattern. 

“First of all, fine, thank you, that was a very nice thing to do, and I was pleasantly surprised. Secondly, do you seriously want headpats?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, you weirdo” And there’s the Tsun again. 

“I ran into Tyler, he says he’s going to the Arcade, and I was looking to go with. You in?”

“Tyler’s here? Yea sure, let’s go” 

Ami & I leave the stage and head over to where Tyler is sitting when I get a text on my phone. 

[11:58. Text from Lou]: Having fun?

[11:58. You]: Yea

He’s just like mom. 

“Oh my god it’s Amura! Could you sign my Fightstick?” Tyler sniggered, his fightstick outstretched. He’s such an asshole I love it. 

“Knock it off, I’d actually sign it if I didn’t know you’d just flip it on Ebay” Ami sneered, arms folded and head angrily tossed to the side. 

“Aww don’t be like that, I really did want your autograph. You’d be surprised how many Blazblue players would pay good cash for one” Tyler said, packing his fightstick back in his backpack. 

“If anyone’s gonna make money off the Amura brand it’s gonna be ME!” Ami retorted viciously.

“Now that’s just anti-black business” I said, chuckling as Tyler dapped me up. 

Ami rolled her eyes as heavy as she could roll them and stomped out of the conference room, and we sheepishly trailed after her.

By this point in the day I’d grown used to Ami being a lightning rod for attention. My camera skills must have leveled up big time from all those pics I had to take, of her with fans. Just getting to the Arcade area of the convention was a whole 20 minutes of photo after photo with weeb after arrested developed weeb, and to be honest I was practicing some big time restraint to not just walk out of the center and catch an Uber home. But surely enough, through fire by force, we found ourselves at the-

Boy was this the kind of place I wanted to be. The whole area was what you’d expect from a high profile convention in a big city. What seemed to be at least 30 TVs all hooked up with consoles spanning an entire auditorium. This wasn’t an arcade, it felt more like a Bazaar crossed with a colosseum. You have your old reliables for the boomers like Street Fighter, MK, ok that’s neat, there’s Melee, 64, Ultimate, Smash 4, oh even Brawl, full house, that’s impressive. As we moved through, you could imagine that there were furrowed brows due to the smell, but in all honesty it wasn’t as bad as most invitationals I’ve been to. We couldn’t find the game we were here for though; Blazblue. Tyler directed us to the kiosk so we could get directions. 

“Nigga where the Blazblue at?” Tyler said to one of the convention attendees, 

All the way at the back, by the Under Night” The Attendee responded.

I was just about ready to dart over there when Tyler said: 

“Nah hol’ up real quick bro, I got a question I gotta ask you” uh oh, I hear the Brooklyn leaking out. 

“Yea? Is there something wrong?” the attendee said, with a befuddled expression.

“Y’all always hide the anime fighters, what's up with that?” Tyler said blankly, almost with no life at all. 

“It’s not my decision where the games are set up-”

“That’s not what I asked bro. I’ve done conventions fam, I sat where you sat. NYCC 2017, bigger con than this, and from what I know about my time there, y’all have a meeting to coordinate where the games are set up. Correct?” Oh my god, Tyler what are you doing. 

“Yes correct” The attendee responded. 

“So you were in the room when the decision was made, correct?” This is so wacky

“Yea, but like, I didn’t have a choi-”

“Nobody’s asking about a choice, I’m asking you, what was the reasoning behind the decision?” Should I stop this? Or?...

“They didn’t want the anime stuff turning folks away” Oh no, here we go

“There it is” Tyler said triumphantly as he began to walk off. 

“Hey, I think it’s bullshit too ma-” t

“Yet you said nothing. You and all your boys said nothing. Aight, I see you fam. Haruhi’s watching you” Tyler said, his back already turned and walking away.  “Let’s go guys”

“Did you have to make such a big hoopla you maniac?” Ami said laughing her ass off. 

“Because I have Principles Fujinami, you should try em some time” Tyler snapped back. 

“That was the FUNNIEST shit I’ve seen all day, I’m so happy I knew to record that” Ami said, still cackling. 

“Wait you recorded that?” Tyler said, shocked

“I uploaded it. Enjoy being a meme” Ami said blankly.

“Not again…” Tyler sighed.

We finally make it to the Blazblue section, and it’s about as serviceable as you’d expect. Two TVs both hooked up to PS4s playing Central Fiction. There wasn’t much of a crowd, about 5 or 6 people, all looked to be around college age, couple on the boomer side though. All guys. 

“This game is so hyperactive…” Ami said, in a tone betwixt judgement and bewilderment. 

“Not every game gotta be Street Fighter” Said Tyler. “Ey yo, who got next?” Tyler asked a portly asian fellow playing Taokaka. 

“Uhh, I dunno, anybody got next?” the Taokaka player asked. The crowd shook their heads. “I guess it’s on you bro after this.” 

Nobody else noticed, But Tyler’s killing intent began to spike. I get you’re excited kiddo, but you haven’t even chewed the scenery yet. 

The game was pretty hype. There it was Taokaka vs Valkenhayn. Both characters with adequate rushdown capabilities and heavy damage. The Valkenhayn was an even match, but the Tao was just catching clutch reversals at every corner. It felt like seeing a tiger beat a lion by leaving a bigger gash every time they left the scuffle. Tyler, ever the professional, was quiet as a mouse. A mouthy prick like him? Quiet? I know right? But he gets like this when it’s Blazblue. The data collection phase. See if Street Fighter is Chess, then Blazblue is Mahjong. The same level of depth, but a wider variety of dealing with situational disadvantages and advantages. Tyler sees what I’m seeing and he’s analyzing, putting his pieces together, he’s not here for fun. This is off the job training. 

“FINISH” 6 red letters on the television screen. Read em & Weep. 

“My turn now right?” Tyler asked the Taokaka player. 

“Yup. What’s your name?” said the Tao player

“Tyro, and you?” oh yea I forgot that was his FGC name, everywhere else he’s Tyrilla. He sucks at names yes I know.

“I’m Yiao, nice to meet you.” Yiao said, pushing his glasses up.

The character selection screen pops up and… Wait don’t tell me he…Oh boy, Tyler’s picking his middle school main. Hazama. Yiao on the other hand started mousing over Tao then over to Litchi. Come on pick a character already. After more mousing, his cursor finally landed on Mai... From rushdown to range spam. Just all around bloodthirst.

Both of them sat in silence as the loading screen started up, until Yiao broke that silence.

“I’ve heard of you, Mash Master Tyro. To be honest I was hoping we’d meet. I have this Mai prepared just for you.” said Yiao. Yawn. This happens all the time. Tyler’s probably got him scoped already too.

“Yiao, third runner up at Anifight Staten Island. Three. Years. Running.” Yup, knew it. Tyler lives for this shit.

“You wanna know why HowRite was able to beat you 3 to nothing last year?” Tyler said, deadpan staring at the screen.

“THE WHEEL OF FATE IS TURNING” oh shit the round is starting.

“Cuz he knew if he lost, he’d never get to face my mentor in the finals”

“But wait. Ulysses isn’t on your team?” Yiao said confused, the backstory here is really weird, I’d be confused as well to be honest. 

“REBEL 1” 

“Ulysses is my stepdad.” 

“ACTION”

Told you. 

End of Act 2. 

#short story #lightnovel #light novel #anime #fgc #independent author

[longforgottenunofficial]

The Decapitated Knight

As we slowly wend our way through the graveyard, we continue to stop and to dig here and there, looking for the cultural roots or original inspirations buried beneath the various specters presented to us.  We've just finished looking at the band and the hearse tea party, and earlier we looked at the mummy and the operatic pair.  So what's say we wander over and take a look at the decapitated knight?  Let's see, in our last post we were standing in front of the tea party, so if we cut across, the knight should be easy to find.  See him?  A head, over on the right hand.

Some might think that the idea of a ghost carrying his head around is an original idea, or if not absolutely original, then an adaptation of the Headless Horseman from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a character thoroughly disney-fied in the 1949 film, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.  But actually, these kinds of ghosts are quite traditional.  There's a little lane in Wortley, England (near Leeds), where the ghost of a Yorkshire nobleman executed during the English Civil War is reportedly seen once or twice a year, carrying his head beneath his arm.  In 1760, it was reported that a headless priest was busily haunting a small village outside of Paris.  The Christian martyr St. Denis reportedly scared the hell out of his persecutors by appearing as a ghost with his head in his hands and giving it the old boogity boogity boogity.  Here's an 18th c. illustration.

Wow.  He looks ready to join the lineup at the Haunted Mansion (except that he's a clergyman, but we'll talk about that in a future post).  There is actually a lively tradition of beheaded martyrs behaving in this way (they're called Cephalophores; a big hat tip to ttintagel for drawing my attention to these). Between these firmly attested traditions of headless ghosts and the Sleepy Hollow connection, it's no surprise that both Ken Anderson and Marc Davis created a number of some-assembly-required spirits for inclusion in what became the Haunted Mansion.  In fact, Anderson was going to make the Headless Horseman himself the star of the show in one version of his Ghost House.

That looks like it could be concept art for the 1949 film, but in fact it's Anderson's sketch of the Ghost House version.  The old pumpkin chucker wasn't going to have a monopoly on the gag, however. Anderson also wanted ghosts based on historical characters, and in one script he had Anne Boleyn running around screaming and falling down at the top of the stairs as her wailing head rolled on down toward us.  Bumpity bump.  (How cool is that.)  In other scripts it was a bride character who had a hard time keeping her noggin in place.  He also sketched what looks like a decapitated pirate.

When Marc Davis took charge of things, he apparently liked the Boleyn character and dreamed up a changing portrait in which her husband Henry VIII is haunted by an understandably crabby Anne.

In time it was decided not to populate the Mansion with historical or literary ghosts.  There were still plenty of decapitated spooks left in the suggestion box, however.  Why not?  They're creepy enough even without a famous name attached to them.  For his part, Davis thought it would be fun if the afterlife featured topless women:

Then there's the Hat Box Ghost, and maybe Madame Leota.  After all this, you might conclude that the decapitated knight was just another twist on the same gag.  If Anderson could have a pirate; Davis could have a knight, right?  No significance to the figure itself, right? I wouldn't be too sure about that.  If you start probing for the origins of the "decapitated knight" figure, you strike paydirt right away. He goes back to Celtic mythology and shows up in medieval literature, most famously Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which was written about 1350.  When I was an English major in college (which was also in the middle ages), everyone was expected to read Gawain at some point.  It was like Beowulf; like it or not, you couldn't avoid it.  Nowadays I don't know if Gawain is still a regular on the college reading lists.  Here's an illustration of the beheaded Green Knight found on the original manuscript of Gawain, probably the most direct ancestor of our DL version.  Note that he's holding it on his outstretched hand.

What's weird about the decapitated knight is that he isn't a ghostly figure by any stretch. He's part of a literary motif called the "Beheading Game."  Basically, it goes like this: A stranger shows up at the court and challenges them to behead him, on the condition that he be allowed to do the same at some future point in his own court. The hero of the tale accepts the challenge and beheads the stranger, who does not die but returns home. Later, the hero keeps his promise and goes to the foreign court, encountering numerous tests and trials in the process, opportunities for him to prove his chivalry, loyalty, honesty, etc. The stranger either lets him off the hook or goes ahead and beheads him, after which he cheerfully returns home, none the worse for wear. The most bizarre thing about this bizarre motif is how popular it was. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the most famous example, but the same motif is used in other medieval poems and romances going back to the 8th century—which is basically the same thing as saying that no one knows how old it is, since we start running out of literary sources about that point. Since the beheadings don't kill anybody in these stories, the presence of the beheading game immediately signals that the literature you're reading is fantasy or myth. Like I said, a popular interpretation is that it goes back to pagan Celtic mythology, probably something about the turning of the year, as the new year slays the old year, only to be slain himself after the passing of a year. Naturally, Freud has his own ideas what this head chopping is all about, and there is no lack of other interpretations.  Sir Gawain is amenable to a Christian reading, for example. Point is, the decapitated knight as a fixture in Western consciousness is not rooted in ghost tales at all but in myth and fantasy. In his origins, he was not a frightening figure. Marc Davis and the Decapitated Knight Maybe it's the fact that the knight is not just another random candidate for the "decapitated ghost" gag but the tip of a much bigger and older cultural iceberg that explains Marc Davis's unusual attachment to the character.  One might even say stubborn attachment, for when you see the knight in his current graveyard setting you are seeing Marc's fourth attempt to get him into the Mansion.  I'm not sure of the order of the other three attempts, so the following account is a little arbitrary as far as sequence is concerned, although there are a few flimsy clues. In what may be the original concept, Marc presented the knight as a very fierce, stand-alone character.  Notice the dead guy in the background.  Don't be that guy.  

Tender is the knight—NOT. After it was decided that the graveyard scene should be a jumpin' jamboree and not a horror show (in no small measure due to Davis's own influence), it must have been plain that this scary dude was not going to be invited.  They put this artwork on a postcard eventually, and the caption writer practically admits that this portrait is out of step:

(If I were you I wouldn't put too much weight on that "1964" date.  Postcard captions are not too reliable.) Steeerike One!

Like I say, Davis evidently liked the character and re-submitted him as a possible hitchhiking ghost.

But the HHG gag that they ended up using plays off of the many urban legends about hitchhiking ghosts, who are never terribly distant in time from the unlucky folk who pick them up. You never hear about ghostly hitchhikers who are Roman soldiers or medieval monks, do you?  For one thing, you wouldn't understand their language.  The three HHG's in the HM are ambiguous: they are certainly a little old-fashioned looking, but not figures from remote antiquity. The decapitated knight wouldn't work as a HHG. Steeerike Two! Well, goshdang it, how about the decapitated knight as an opera singer?  Yeah, that's it, an opera singer.

This 1968 drawing is labeled as an opera scene.  Get it? "a knight at the opera."  Oh, that Marc!  This one may be his third attempt since it seems like it got a little further in the process: there's a maquette figure of the knight.

The problem, of course, is that a much funnier opera pair also emerged from Marc's pencil, and there was no doubt who would get the gig.

Steeerike Three! But Marc was not going to give up on the DK.  Come on, think.  There must be some way to get him in there.  What to do, what to do.... *lightbulb* Hey, wait a sec.  Somewhere in that thick pile of HM ideas there's this concept of a pair of ghosts, the Jailer and the Prisoner...

The jailer is already implicitly an executioner as well, what with that mask and all.  Well, why not make him specifically a headsman?  He could hold a keyring in one hand, and an axe in the other.  That's it: make the duo a trio, with the central character relating to the one character as his jailer and to the other character as his executioner. And so it was.

By the way, can someone explain to me why he's always called the "headless knight"?  What's that thing he's got in his hand?

Originally Posted: Wednesday, July 7, 2010 Original Link: [x]

#long forgotten #haunted mansion #decapitated knight