Edgar Allan Poe is the inspiration for my final exam at Noroff Fagskole, simply because he inspires me personally. His stories and his way of mind is something that I find fascinating, and I also wanted to explore my skills more within illustration as I also have a growing interest in illustration and comic books.
MY PERSONAL ANALYSIS OF THE SHORT STORY
A plague known as "The Red Death" is being spread across a fictive country where the story is set, and it's causing the people there to die a quickly and gruesome death. The prince, Prince Prospero, is feeling happy and hopeful even though this plague is raging. He locks the gates to his palace to ignore this plague. After 6 months he decides to arrange a mascarade ball in his palace, together with his thousand rich friends. He decorates 7 rooms in simple colours. The easternmost room is decorated in blue, with blue stained glass windows. Next room is purple, with the same coloured glass window pattern. The rooms continues westward with the colours: green, orange, white and violet. The seventh room is black, with red glass stained windows. Also in this room there is an ebony clock made out of wood. When the clock rings every hour, the sound is so loud and disturbing, that everyone falls completely silent and the orchestra stops playing. When the clock is silent the rooms are so beautiful and odd that they seem to be filled with dreams, perplexing among the revelers. Most guests avoid the last black and red room because it contains both the ebony clock and an ominous atmosphere.
When the clock strikes midnight, a new guest appears dressed more "ghostly" than the rest of the guests. His mask looks like the face of a corpse, his clothes as a kind of funeral robe and his face reveals blood stains suggesting that he is a victim of "the Red Death". He is also wearing red which is a forbidden colour at this party. Prospero is furious when he finds out that this person has come unbidden into his masquerade party. The other guests are so afraid of this masked person that they are unable to prevent him from going through all the rooms. Prospero eventually gains courage enough to go after him and finally catches up with him in the black room. As soon as he tries to confront this mysterious figure, Prospero dies. When the other guests finally enters the room to attack the masked man, they find out that there is no under the costume. Then they die one by one, each in the despairing posture of his fall, because "the Red Death" has infiltrated the castle. Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.
My interpretation of the story is that all people are equal and in the end we all share a common destiny (as in death) no matter whether you are rich or poor.
THE FINAL PRODUCT
The cover page of the comic book
After flipping to first page
This is the very first scene in the comic book
PRE-PRODUCTION
In the process of making the comic book
Sketches before the final redrawing, scanning and printing
The spine sewn by hand. This is the sketch version of the book, so not the finished printed product.
