The wee bairn - Page 57 of the cartoon about Phill from GCHQ - a free comic that I have been working on since September 2016.
Introduction to this weeks page
First - sorry for the long delay.
It is quite some time since we heard from your protagonist, Phill, and we are deep into a flashback that is taking place in the late seventies and mid eighties: the tragic and Gothic story about Eleanor Knight, the insane grandmother of Gwendolyn (the high priestess of a small pagan sect) and the first known person to be chosen by the three evil Gods.
The story has taken a more grim and naturalist turn in this eighties detour. I have tried to create drawings of some highly emotional situations: a mother that nurses a child she is about to leave, a mother who realises that her own actions have driven her daughter to despair, and Eileen, who watches and slowly is dragged into the tragedy. If you look at this old post you can read a bit about how Eileen got to be more than just a caretaker (something about a heater) and how the story is created.
Some notes:
The ornaments in the upper part of the page is inspired by some real bronze age ornaments that I saw while Vincent @vcelier was visiting me and that I went to photograph Thursday <- see the photos in the link.
The gold necklace that Eleanor is wearing is a torc, a piece of jewellery worn by Celtic nobility.
Wee bairn - means small child in Scottish. Remember that both Eileen Fraser (who tells the story about Eleanor) and Judith Gunn (who listens... see page 55) are Scottish. I like the word because it derives from my own language. Barn means child in both Danish, Swedish and Norwegian, and was brought to Scotland and Northern England by the Vikings.
The strange sentence: "... the eye of sauron painted red on the petrol-tank ..." is taken directly from the Scottish author Iain Banks' first novel, The Wasp Factory. In that story another mother, a hippie (hence the Tolkien reference), leaves her child just like Badb does. Why a punk rocker in 1985 has it on her motorcycle is up to the readers imagination. I just knew she had to have it too.
Happy reading.
Translations
Thanks to some very dedicated and helpful people the comic about Phill from GCHQ can also be read in other languages. New pages are published on their respective Steemit pages. Please follow them and support their work!
- @vcelier has made the French translation
- @shortcut has made the German translation
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The comic is, like all my digital artworks, made exclusively with open source software:
I really like, that you started to add your references and considerations to Phill's pages. (Makes the translator's work a lot easier). Maybe I should read The Wasp Factory, as it crossed my path a few times now. Looks definitely interesting.
I owe it to you and your fantastic detective work in the older posts :)
The Wasp Factory is a great book. I know you are attracted to the bizarre and Iain Banks was doubly attracted to it.
Haha, yes! I needed all this extra hints to fully dive into the story and thought the other readers would also appreciate this. The printed version should eventually have an appendix, too.
Regarding the book, I‘ve just read a short summary and it really sounds extra bizarre, which is totally my cup of tea ;-)
The way to do it is to make a whole new book of literary analysis :)
I think you should dig into Banks, and the first book is a good place to start.
The word 'bairn' is used often by people in the North-East where I work but slightly further south (but still considered north), where I live.. its quite alien.
I think it penetrated the scottish southern border but didnt get much farther down the country.
Thanks for the info. I was not sure Eileen would use it (ie. that it was an oldish way of talking). As far as i could see from internet discussions, it is mainly in eastern Scotland you use the word, but I couldn't see how common it is.
Some cool emblems and designs in this. Extra point for referencing The Wasp Factory. What a great book. It's a shame Iain Banks is no longer with us
I wanted to show this world of signs that some religious people live in. So the Sun-duck and the Eye of Sauron is also a way of telling about the nightmare world the family Knight is trapped in.
Banks is one of my favourite authors, so I just had to include this hommage :)
It's fascinating to see the figures in various stages of development and then in the finish work, and to know from your posts were some of the inspiration came from.
BTW, I click right and view them in full screen and recommend others try it.
Celtics & Vikings, you gotta love it ;-)
It was @shortcut really that started to have these long interesting notes to his translation. I read German and was often surprised by the things he dug up, some of them I hadn't even thought of myself. So now I try to help the translators by spilling the bean in my own post. That way they will not have to write and ask.
If you want it in higher resolution go to the website. The page here on Steemit is smaller due to the 640 px width.
http://phillfromgchq.co.uk/images/pages/en/057-The_wee_bairn.png
Thanks for the link! Yes that is such a amazing thing that these guys are bringing your work to a much larger audience, that's the wonderful side of steemit :-)
@shortcut has really been the best mate here on Steemit, Vincent too. I have a tendency to just concentrate on the art, but they have been great advisors and pushers :)
Yeah! Glad to be your pusherman ;-)
You help us all move on up
Hehe ;-) We all help eachother moving up. That's what community is all about, isn't it?
You and me.
Yes, but who is the woman? Maybe more like this?
Really good artwork!!!
Thank you :)
This post has received a 4.16 % upvote from @boomerang.
OK, thanks.