#lesmiscomix

Happy not-Barricade Day! I'd say something about how this didn't go up on the 5th/ 6th because It's not a Barricade Day comic per se, but the truth is that I started really late this year...

This was how my Marius comic from way back when was originally supposed to have ended, except that I simply didn't have the time to draw another three pages at the time. I'd always meant to go back and do the remaining pages, but other things kept getting away. Well, I've finally gotten around to it, and it only took five days of wearing my fingers down to nubs. Because I will always insist on drawing barricades in goddamn detail.

Cameos left right and centre, if you know where to look.

This scene was inspired by the following passage from Jill Harsin's Barricades: The War of the Streets in Revolutionary Paris, 1830-1845:

Something something Barricade Day to you all!

[runs for cover]

Not a comic this year! Due to Work, Life, and Other Weird Stuff, I had all of five days instead of the usual two weeks or so to get this year’s Thing done, which sort of limited my options. The script I’ve been working on for the last two years got shelved, Feuilly and Gavroche got spared.... and Courfeyrac won the Barricade Lottery. Umm.

My profound thanks to @ellie-valsin for her comprehensive guide to 1830s men’s fashion, which I consulted extensively while cooking this up. Any mistakes/inaccuracies/ anachronisms/typos lurking in this piece are deeply regretted (they are to be blamed upon excessive sleep deprivation). Any distress caused by this post.... not so much. ;)

[Yes, I realise I didn’t include every last item in a gentleman’s wardrobe, but there’s only so much I could complete in five days. LOL. Besides, (1) that would’ve been bordering on pedantry, and (2) I doubt if anyone wants to see me dragging this horror for longer than it already is....]

[If Courfeyrac’s Scarlett O’Hara impersonation looks a little familiar.... then you probably (1) follow me on Dreamwidth, or (2) used to lurk at Abaisse -- in which case, hello!]

[Re: Shirt (Section 6) - I realise that one likely does not carry off a body in such a fashion, but I doubted that anyone would appreciate Bahorel getting hauled off like a sack of potatoes...]

Oh look it’s 5th June, have a soggy Barricade Day on me ;)  I thought I’d do something reasonably light-hearted for a change.... okay, so it’s light-hearted until the last panel of the second page, whats your point I’ve been meaning to do this comic on Joly and Bossuet for several years now, but they’d earned a reprieve several times over on account of other stories getting in the way. Well, not this year.... Inspired by Vous rappelez-vous notre douce vie, Eglantine’s Things We Share, the last sentence of Colonel Despard’s Eyes I thought I Was Not Like To Find (I know it doesn’t seem related, but there’s something about the way the sentence was crafted that triggered the last two lines of this comic - and the rest of the comic just grew around it -, don’t blame me for how my brain works ok), and god knows what other fanfic/art I might have been soaking up over the years. (If someone else has done something in this vein, I am very, very sorry). I’d actually fully drafted a detailed script for a 12-page comic revolving around Joly and Bossuet’s friendship before I came to my senses and realised there was absolutely no goddamn way I could humanly pull this off by this Barricade Day and hacked it down to three pages. (Though I still regret the loss of the tale of how Bossuet came to move in with Joly...).

[I should point out that Panel 2, Page 2 does in no way imply that Joly doesn’t snore in his sleep; simply that Bossuet likely sleeps through it like a log. ;) ]

[Also, Joly and Bossuet are literally in every damn panel of this comic, although they were regrettably obscured by the text box in the first panel of the last page. Here’s proof that I didn’t manage to forget them.... ;) ]

This would’ve been up sooner, only it was at the eleventh hour that I realised I’d accidentally resurrected Feuilly from the dead in the second panel of the last page, and had to go fix the wretched thing. [Also, I mistakenly put one of Feuilly’s Six on the barricade, but that’s not the first time it’s happened, so I’m going to brazenly claim that I somehow meant for it to happen.] Also, there are unnamed characters that have been appearing in my comics for years, that I should probably get around to giving names or something. Because. Also, I am reasonably certain that I have by now drawn more bloody guardsmen than anyone else save for Takahiro Arai, and no I do not consider this any kind of accomplishment; outright stupidity, maybe. I’ve used too many bloody alsos. Also, @oilan​, please don’t scream at me. It’s a barricade. Barricade-y things happen. I don’t always have control of where my brain takes me.

[Insert appropriate greeting] Barricade Day to you all. Here’s a little, er, early barricade cheer for our fandom holiday. ;) 

Hey, look! It’s a comic about someone who lived! For a change! That’s good, isn’t it? ....... ;) Anyway, this exists because of something @pilferingapples​ once wrote about how it was upsetting her that Marius was stuck in recovery for so long, by the time he was back up and running, “everyone else is long buried [...] (bodies, June heat, etc) [...] and after six months, surely everyone’s families/friends/etc would have been through their houses and cleaned up and cleared out personal belongings; landlords aren’t going to keep a tenant’s room as  memorial. [...] The Amis aren’t just dead, from Marius’ POV; they’ve been erased.” And such a soulful, poignant lament simply begs to be illustrated, does it not? [Pilferingapples, I don’t know whether to use “credit” or “blame” in attributing this to you... ;) Take your pick!]

[Mind you, this is still probably a nicer alternative to what I’d originally had planned, before I changed my mind a little over two weeks ago... Which is not to say that it’ll never see the light of day either...]

Also - gasp! - Cosette openly displaying affection in public? The scandal! You will forgive me my artistic licence - I’d have drawn them in the privacy of their own garden, only it wouldn’t been as dramatic as having the Luxembourg for a backdrop. (And on that note, I couldn’t find enough information on what the gardens looked like back in the day - save that the statues came later -, so you will please pretend with me that it’s well, whatever I drew it to be, LOL).

Technical note: In case you were wondering about the weird size of page 3, it’s that way because, if it had been printed out, the page would’ve been rotated 90 degrees anti-clockwise.

[Yup, drew my fingers half off. Again. What was it you said again, Pilf? “You are an Icarus flying too close to the sun on wings of ambition and highly questionable time management XD”... Er. Yeah. At least I get a little credit for managing to finish it by 5th June this year? Heheh.] ----------------------------------------------------

A [suitably miserable greeting] Barricade Day to you all! As you can see, I’m late this time around... but still in time for you lot to swear at me. ;)

What’s that? A Barricade Day comic without any barricade fighting sequences? Well... if you’re M. Mabeuf and you’re the first to die.... LOL. I’ll admit that Mabeuf’s decline and death affected me more than perhaps any other in the book (except maybe the death of all the Amis?), and I’ve always wanted to tell his story, so that’s what you’re getting this year around. [Also I’ve always admired the aesthetics of plain black and white comics, and have been meaning to try my hand at it.]

@pilferingapples, you were wrong about this being Mme. Plutarch’s death, but you were so, so, very close. ;)

I’d say Happy Barricade Day, only you know very well there’s no such thing as “Happy” and “Barricade Day” and “Far.” ;)