PJ Holden's Blog

Davy Jones’ Locker. The deep-sea Hell of the drowned, according to pirate-lore and later nautical-lore. Davy Jones a diabolical figure, sometimes said to be glimpsed among the rigging during a storm. More often than not though, the sea-devil simply waits below.

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Who was Davy Jones? The name was first recorded in print (in reference to the deep sea graveyard or Hell known as “Davy Jones’ Locker”) in Daniel Defoe’s 1726 work Four Years Voyages of Captain George Roberts. The locker. and the fiend himself. were described in more detail in Tobias Smollett’s The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, published in 1751:

“If it was not Davy Jones himself. I know him by his saucer eyes, his three rows of teeth, his horns and tail, and the blue smoke that came out of his nostrils. What does the blackguard hell’s baby want with me?” […] This same Davy Jones, according to sailors, is the fiend that presides over all the evil spirits of the deep, and is often seen in various shapes, perching among the rigging on the eve of hurricanes:, ship-wrecks, and other disasters to which sea-faring life is exposed, warning the devoted wretch of death and woe.  

It’s been hypothesised that the name Davy Jones may derive from the Welsh Patron Saint, David, whose name would often have been invoked by sailors from that country. Jones is, of course, one of the most popular Welsh surnames, so “Davy Jones” may have originated as a kind of joke. Others argue that Jones in this instance is a corruption of Jonah – the Biblical figure who was famously swallowed by a whale, or giant fish. The term “a Jonah” has long been used by seamen, meaning a someone whose presence on board brings bad luck to the ship and her crew.  

David Jones was a real pirate, who flew the skull and crossed bones as he sailed upon the Indian Ocean during the 1630s. He was not very well known however (and is even less so today), so it seems unlikely that he went on to become the Devil of maritime hell.  

Some say that Davy Jones was a pub landlord, who would throw drunken men into his ale locker (a lockable, strong cupboard) so that they could be press-ganged into service aboard ships. Again though, there seems little if any concrete evidence for this.  

All in all Davy Jones remains something of a mystery; a piece of eighteenth century folklore whose origin is obscured by vague and conflicting sources. The fact that Jones is seen as a hoarder of treasures, cargoes, and souls, suggests to me that he is greed, and perhaps hubris personified. He is a warning to those who would dare to overload their ships, and think that they could best the mighty ocean, and defy its power. 

Perhaps then Davy Jones is best thought of as a more modern incarnation of the Norse sea Goddess Rán, whose very name meant “plunder”, “theft”, or “robbery”. Rán would cast her gigantic net, dragging sailors and ships down to a watery grave upon the ocean bed.  

Published: 22 August 2019

Hey, if you’re here, then welcome, settle in and I hope you find something you like. This is mine (PJ’s) old patreon, and so there’s still some old posts. I debated deleting them all and then thought, to heck with it, that’ll take ages, so have left them up. But going forward (ugh, please forgive me for that expression) you’ll get a weekly update on the new one page folklore thursday comic John and I are doing, and maybe more posts as we either talk about the process or stick up some articles on the subjects. We’re here for the long haul, so stick with us!

Unusually this particular folklore thursday tweet went through a rewrite… I’ll start with the finished article, here it is:

On the 23rd of September the Sun will cross the Celestial Equator, marking the Northern Hemisphere’s Autumn Equinox. As Earth enters the final quarter of its year, celebrations like Mabon and Harvest Festival are held in thanks for all that Summer has bestowed. #FolkloreThursday

We’re constantly fighting a number of limitations of time and space (not being timelords, this will always be the case)

John’s original tweet read

On Monday 23rd of September the Sun will cross the Celestial Equator, marking the Northern Hemispheres Autumn Equinox. Thanks Giving festivals take place around the Equinox, including the CofE Harvest Festival (est. 1843) and the Modern Pagan Mabon (est. 1970) #FolkloreThursday

Altered because, as John says “[the edited version] It still sounds a bit like the voice-over in a planetarium, or the start of a BBC documentary, but I think it’s a bit more poetic and interesting (hopefully) “

All drawing is disappointment. You learn to live with the limits you’ve set for yourself. I had a few hours to do this and lacked time to dig in as much as I wanted – ideally the wall of space behind the earth would’ve included an accurate starmap, and an earth that was more realisticly inked/coloured and maybe more of a crowd. But you have to get-it-done. 

So Google Earth to the rescue, and a quick search fo 3d stonehenge and a photo of a horn of plenty for some ideas and that was the pencils…

GAAHHHHH!

I’ve had quite the day. Nothing going as it should.

The Royal Mail, who I want to support, but, ironically, are the least capable postage service amazon uses.

Went to collect a parcel that we missed. Came home to find a note saying “While you were out…” ugh.

Went to collect my son’s ipad – got it repaired last week. They guys repairing it screwed it up, so the screen went hay wire. Texted them yesterday “Sure, that’s ready for collection”. Popped in today. “Oh yeah, it’s ready. But it’s in Downpatrick” (A distance of 47 miles).

Decided to cancel Adobe Creative Cloud. I signed up for the photographer’s licence, it’s a good deal if you use photoshop – tenner a month for access to photoshop. But I don’t use it, everything I do is done in Clip Studio Paint.

I signed up last month, you have a reasonable 14 days to try and cancel. So I went to cancel, they offered me two months free and I thought “Oh, that’s class. I’ll take that”.

Still didn’t use it, and being a conscientious fellow, I decided to cancel even though I’m in the middle of that two month free use.

Cancelling costs £44 – ie, half of the remaining contract. And you lose access to it on the next billing date. ie within the month. So the optimum time for cancelling, where you pay the least and get the most is … er… at the end of your contract.

I was furious. Effing Furious. (To be honest, the adobe thing came after the post and the ipad, so I headed to adobe support and this happened…

 

You’re chatting with Bill ***

Thank you for contacting Adobe membership services. You will be attended to shortly.
Thank you for your patience. Your wait time is approximately ‘4’ minutes.
You are now chatting with ‘Bill ***’
Thank you for contacting Adobe Membership Services paul. I’ll look into your account right away to view exclusive offers for your membership.
Hi Paul, how are you doing today?
Bill, I had assumed my contract with adobe could be cancelled at any time – it’s not a service I ended up using to any extent
When I tried to cancel in septemeber (shortly after beginning the service) I was offered two months of free use (or so it appeared). I took the offer, but still didn’t use photoshop to any greater extent and decided to cancel it altogther, but I’ve just discovered the cancellation fee is £44
Paul, I see you are using Creative Cloud Photography plan (one-year)‎.
When I first tried to cancel, this was within the 14 days cooling off period.
Okay.
If I had known that accepting the “two months free” would negate the cooling off period I would not have accepted.
Paul, I would like to inform you the subscription plan you’ve is under annual commitment/monthly billing.
how much notice of cancellation is required for there not to be a cancellation fee?
The early termination fee would be GBP 44.91.
Just to reconfirm, may I please know the reason why do you want to cancel it?  
Are we still connected?
Will I still have access to the service for four months (which is approximately the value of that fee?)
If you will cancel it you will no longer have the access to it.
May I please have your phone number to update your profile?
We have not heard from you for some time.  Do you wish to continue to chat?
So I have to pay for four months access to an app that I won’t have access to? This is an awful way to treat customers.
Don’t cancel. Can you give me an email address to contact customer services.
I will be taking legal advice. It is utterly unacceptable to charge someone for a service and then to no longer give them access to it.
Paul, just to let you know that you currently have 9 months remaining.
Yes, and if I want to cancel, I have to pay – IN ADVANCE – for four months and then get to use it for only one month. Astonishing to me that adobe think that’s acceptable.
At the time of purchasing the product I believe you must’ve go through the terms and condition regarding the subscription plan you have.
It’s not asking you to pay for 4 months.
That’s the early termination fee charge if you wish to cancel it now.
That is why I asked you the reason for the cancellation.
The early termination fee is equivilant to the price of half the remaining contract – and the contract is no longer available.
As I’m here to help you with it.
Yes that’s correct.
I do not use photoshop, I had originally signed up for it to test it to see if it suited my purposes, and had intended to cancel within the 14 day termination period. When I went to cancel adobe offered me two months of free usage
I had no idea that this would then lock me into paying £44 to stop the service I never used to any great extent.
Okay, so now you are looking to cancel it without fee right?
Ideally.
Yes, ideally, I would like to cancel without paying a fee.

[ I lost the last bit, but that’s what happened – cancelled, no fee. ]

Here’s how it works:

Commission, day 1.

Work begins day 2.

Work completed day 30.

Invoice day 31.

Invoice paid day 61.

Cheque from US required to clear: 4-6 weeks (ie day 89 to day 103)

Bills arrive: day 1 – 30. And repeat.

It’s insane.

Cheque from the US is unusual (but just happened) normally it’d be a direct bank transfer, in which case payment is more-or-less instant (from the invoice paid date).

But even at that generous scenario, at any one time, as a working comic artist you need to have approximately 2 months worth of money in the bank, one month for the month you’re working, then another for the month you’ll be waiting on payment.

And even that assumes nothing goes wrong.

And if you’re smart you’ll bank 50% of your income for tax (you won’t need it, but it keeps you right at the end of the year, and any you don’t spend on tax acts as a nice little bonus for you).

(Don’t forget, you’ve got to keep doing this month after month, until you die)

Black Snow starts this week in 2000AD, here’s the pencils of the first three pages. Just a gentle reminder, if you sign up to the patreon you can see stuff like this AND MORE as it happens!

Things to never do: name a file “M” (the reason will become clear later). Then send a lo res off for approval. Six months later, after a computer upgrade and some faffing about with files discover that looking for the file “m” that you’re not sure is even on the computer is almost impossible.

So I redrew the entire thing (well, I reinked it, taking the low res image from a sent email and then digitally inking it). 

Pain in the but.

Anyway, you’ll see what this is for soon.

Sometimes a writers script will call for a crowd of people, or a crowd of tanks or some other crowd.

As the artist your job is to make the final call on whether that crowd is absolutely necessary. 

Say you’re drawing a crowded scene in a prison, our hero (let’s call him Alex) has a bruising argument with a big tough prisoner (let’s call him Brute).

Panel 1: crowd of prisoners, we see Alex and Brute. Brute is walking towards Alex.

Panel 2: same crowd. Brute confronts Alex.

Panel 3: crowd. Alex shrugs.

Panel 4: Crowd. Brute Grab grabs him by collar, Alex looks surprised.

Panel 5: Crowd. Alex lands a punch, brute goes down.

Ok, now we have a crowd in every scene.  But the story isn’t that there’s a crowd. The story here is the confrontation between Brute and Alex. That said we DO need to establish a crowd.

So, my parsing of this might be:

On the left, on the right where I’ve dropped the crowd out.

The heart of this story ISN’T the crowd of prisoners (though it’s important for setting the scene). 

Let’s talk through the crowds version first.

Panel one, I’ve done a top down shot (this helps build the idea of a prison, because it feels like a security cam view) I’ve also placed the crowd AROUND Brute and Alex, with the crowd just milling in no direction, but Brute and Alex focused on each other (that may not be apparent in the very rough sketch, but that’s certainly how I picture it). Long distance.

Panel two, two foreground prisoners help frame the action, background characters mill around. Mid shot

Panel three, Alex shrugs, crowd behind (these shots are pretty clear on-the-nose). Mid-to-long shot.

Panel four, close up of the grab. (Close up pulls us right in, it also, handily, fits better in that panel that a distance shot).

Panel five, pull out for reaction. Mid-to-long shot.

I’m building a rhythm  of shots – trying to make sure, unless we’re doing it for a specific purpose, that we don’t have two of the same shot length together (one page, one action scene, with an establishing shot, makes it easier to do that without it feeling jarring).

We have two characters that are ignoring the rest of the world, and the rest of the world is ignoring them, so dropping the crowds on the second, third and fourth panels here makes sense.

It all helps give, in the reader, a sense of intimacy – the reader is no longer part of an amorphous crowd but is, in fact, listening intently and focusing on the protagonists. (I find dropping background, and panel borders helps do that too)

 On the fifth panel, I bought the crowd back because, it’s a reasonable expectation that prisoners would react if a fight actually started.

On the ‘no crowds’ version, I’ve kept the artwork identical, but, panels one and five aside, I’ve dropped the crowds. This helps the reader feel like they’re drawn in to the conflict between Alex and Brute, their focus is entirely on those characters. Panel 1 I kept the crowd because, well, it’s an establishing shot and is neccessary to give us a sense of where we are. Panel 5, we needed to bring the crowd back in and the percussive action of a punch gives us a good natural, non-jarring moment to make the crowd visible again. (I say non-jarring, the punch itself is supposed to be jarring, so anything you can ladel in to that give it more impact, the better). Also at this point the crowd can be reacting.

Now, let’s say the script called for a third character (“Toad”) who’s listening in on the conversation. He doesn’t take an active part but DOES pay attention (and on the final panel he scurries off when the punching begins).

In that instant it’s important, firstly to spotlight him a bit in the first panel crowd scene (here I’ve tagged the important characters in the first panel as drawn, you can see, I think, how I’ve drawn the crowd to frame those characters) from then on, probably a good idea to keep him on panel 2 as a background player, and then we can drop him as the action unfolds until panel 5 when we see the crowd and Toad. It could look like this:

Panel one, having toadie back to us, watching the action (where the others are milling around) and shaded darker, so he looks important despite being in the crowd)

Panel 2, toadie without a crowd looked a little odd, so I’ve added the crowd back, but largely as an amorphous blob representing a crowd – nothing filled in, in this instance it probably works better as a filled colour (if the strip was being coloured) or as a pure white blob, rather than a black silhouette. 

Anyway, never take the writer’s word for it – sometimes you don’t need to draw EVERYTHING.