3-Hour Tour (2008 - 2009 Academic Year)

The directional sign at the center of Infinity

My concentration project for Kenyon's Integrated Program for Humane Studies, the graphic novel 3-Hour Tour is probably my most ambitious (but incomplete) experiment, and I will admit that I still go back and work on the plot from time to time.  The project was a hasty one, with much of the necessary character design and development being done during the actual writing and illustration process.  With only a year to write and illustrate a graphic novel that was projected to be in excess of 400 pages, I knew all along that I was attempting the impossible.  Even after cutting down my course load and restricting myself to my drawing table for 14+ hours a day, I only completed about a third of the illustrations and ultimately wasn't very happy with any of it.  I actually breathed a little sigh of relief when my hard drive crashed the following summer, erasing the project from existence and granting me a chance to look at it with fresh eyes.

The concept was actually a fairly good one.  Using Dante's Divine Comedy as a guide, I chronicled my main characters' journey through several various religions' afterlives.  These afterlives ranged from Hinduism to Greek Mythology to even the traditional Christian Hell, Heaven, and Purgatory as outlined by Dante.

My main character was a somewhat arrogant and smart-alecky bar owner named Sam Seawell who had simply grown bored with life and was tortured by questions about what came after death.  (In other words, even though I tried to take as many cues as possible from Dante, there was also some blatant author insertion going on.  Keep in mind that, when I was developing the initial concept, I was an agnostic, so my worldview was considerably different than it is today.)  Sam attempts suicide but ultimately botches it and winds up in a persistent vegetative state.  Frustrated with his arrogance and with his contempt for life, the death deities from all the various religions get together and decide to show him what he has to look forward to (in the hopes of teaching him the value of what he already has).  As his guide, they appoint Hela, the Norse death deity, but because her face is so difficult to behold and understand, she wears a Greek theater mask throughout the vast majority of the story.  Meanwhile, in the waking world, Sam's fiancee, Evie, is having to fight the legal battle over how long to keep Sam hooked up to the machines that are keeping him alive (even though she is not sure herself whether or not to grant his wish of passing on).  While most of the story follows Sam's journey, a significant portion is also dedicated to Evie's life story and her struggle with this life-or-death decision.

Much of the plot is based on a theory that I have about Dante.  Throughout the Divine Comedy, there are three forests that play a significant role.  Dante begins his journey lost in a forest shortly after the beginning of his exile from Florence.  He passes through another forest in Hell where suicides are sent to be turned into the very trees from which they hung themselves.  Lastly, he travels through the Garden of Eden atop the mountain of Purgatory before he can enter into Heaven.  The first and last forests symbolize major transitions for Dante.  The first forest shows him lost in his new life away from Florence and away from his now-deceased love, Beatrice Portinari; this is a place of great hopelessness about the future.  The last forest, however, represents the completion of his journey through Purgatory, effectively establishing Dante as a purified man despite his still being alive; he is now dead to his old self and able to enter Paradise.  What does it mean then that forests also have the connotation of suicide?  If the forest in Hell is for suicides and the forest in Purgatory is a place of death to the old self, then shouldn't that first forest have a connection to suicide as well?  I theorize that, for Dante, the first forest is very much a metaphor for a suicidal depression, and that is how I justify my exploration of the subject of suicide and euthanasia throughout this piece.

Evie with Sam's body

While working on this project, I was cranking out dozens of drawings every day and editing them using GiMP and ComicCreator software.  At this point, my experience with GiMP was still miniscule at best, so a lot of the coloration and effects used on the drawings are a little over the top.  Additionally, the ComicCreator program is fairly simplistic and was never really intended for a project of this size, so this limited my options quite a bit.  Still, I don't consider this that bad for a first attempt, but I do acknowledge that I could have benefited from more time, more planning, and consultations with other artists and writers.  Of course, it doesn't help that I was writing about incredibly deep subject matter that is still very much outside my understanding.  As much insight as I would like to think I have, I still haven't exactly lived these characters' experiences, and I think that hampered much of this project.

The Council of the Demons in Hell

I may revisit the project eventually, but given how my religious views have changed, I'm not sure if my approach to the subject matter might be completely different now.  As a Christian, I'm not quite as comfortable with the pluralistic "all afterlives are true" worldview that I put forth in 3-Hour Tour.  Additionally, my attitudes toward the Christian portions of the afterlife may be a little different now than when I first began this project.  I might not take Hell and Satan so lightly (even though I certainly treated them with gravity in the first run too-- in fact, sections of Satan's dialogue left me shivering).  Also, the ultimate message of 3-Hour Tour was all about embracing life and enjoying the here-and-now.  In fact, the conclusion even involved Sam finding God not in Heaven, but in the eyes of Evie.  This concept completely squares with Dante's beliefs, and it offers an interesting take on the idea of humans being made in the image of God, but it may be a little farther than I'd be willing to go now.  After all, it sort of implies that the meaning of life is really just finding a significant other, and as wonderful a thing as that is, there's a little more to life than just that.

The classic "Ox-Herding Pictures" used as a Buddhist teaching device but reinterpreted here with the 3-Hour Tour characters.

While the project is unfinished and due to be revisited, I still wanted to include it here.  It was a very important part of my college experience and a very formative project for me.  In fact, this project was the starting point of one of my favorite stories from college:

Charon the Boatman from 3-Hour Tour

I had only just recently reaffirmed my identity as a Christian.  In fact, it had been less than two months since I had accepted my religion and the call to ordained ministry.  Knowing this and looking to give me as many faith-related outlets as possible, one of the campus chaplains invited me to contribute to an event called The Good Friday Project that was all about human suffering.  The Good Friday project was a multimedia experience where artists, playwrights, authors, and other creative folks came together to share works about suffering and death and despair in solidarity with the ultimate suffering Christ experienced on Good Friday.  We thought that 3-Hour Tour would be a good fit (despite its ultimately hopeful message about the good in humanity), so I put together a powerpoint of animated images from the novel that gave a whirlwind version of the story set to music.

Lucifer from 3-Hour Tour

The night of the Good Friday Project rolled around, and I started getting nervous.  The other artists and writers and filmmakers were all really intense people who had put a lot of thought and energy into their depictions of human suffering.  They approached the event with all the gravity and seriousness it deserved, and they treated the subject matter with an absolute starkness that was as intimidating and disquieting as the crucifixion itself.  It was an amazing and moving way to remember the sacrifice of Christ, and I quickly found myself feeling inferior.  "I haven't lived the same pain these people have.  Will my own work measure up?  Is 3-Hour Tour really appropriate for this event?  Is it too uplifting and optimistic for such a solemn service?  Am I going to break the mood?"  I gulped as my turn came around.  I started up the projector, and the music began to play as my drawings and words moved across the screen, and then that's when it happened . . .

Four depictions of Yama from 3-Hour Tour

The projector stopped working.

I tried in vain to fix it, but the images would not play, and we were left with my musical selection (Jeff Buckley's hauntingly peaceful "Lover, You Should Have Come Over") playing in the darkened room.  As we gave up and started to shut down the projector, I suddenly had the most inappropriate response that I possibly could have.  It was the single worst thing that I could've done at an event like this.  I started laughing.  At first, I managed to stifle it a bit and hold it in, but as I thought about the situation, I couldn't keep the gut-busting guffawing laughter inside of my mouth.  Even worse, my girlfriend at the time was at the event, and on seeing my reaction, she started laughing too!  I eventually had to excuse myself to the vestibule and just let it all out.  This was the sort of laughter that makes tears well up in your eyes.  It was wild and joyous and soul-satisfying.  In fact, it was one of the most peaceful feelings I've ever had.  It was as though God had whispered to my heart something along these lines:

Hey kid, you don't need to take yourself so seriously.  Sure, it's a solemn occasion, but I'm the sort of God who moves in mysterious ways, and sometimes that means giving you just the right humiliation so that you get your priorities back in order.  It was Jesus that died on this night two millennia ago, not you.  Good Friday may be a time of great suffering, but it's also a time of great joy because it's a suffering that you will never have to know.  So go ahead and laugh.  Your silly little presentation broke down amid all these great, serious artists and writers, and that's okay.  In fact, it's funny.  So just laugh with me and take joy in me.

Evie and Sam

When I finally came back into the room, a few people whispered their sympathies to me about the projector, but I was all smiles at that point.  The event had been put into perspective for me, and I realized that I had been worrying about the wrong things.  I was grateful to whatever little gremlin had glitched up the projector and "ruined" my presentation.  God's funny like that sometimes.

I'm still not really sure what's going to come of this project, but it's already played a very significant role in my life, and even if it never gets released, it's taught me some valuable lessons along the way.