(Pictures above include spoilers for readers not reading the recent updated)

I was sitting with blocks of text in front of me for this half chapter.

It was tricky; how to illustrate it without filling the page of different shots of the characters covered by speech bubbles. It was important for Black to say all the things had to say coz he’s never a guy to say one line that says it all. Do omitting any of the lines was not an option.

Away from the chapter, I was in a place of self-doubt back then. A few people, apart from each other, told me things that shook me. And I was faced with realities that I didn’t like at first but accepted as part of me in the end. 

If you have problems with yourself, your art will suffer. Art is a very personal thing and the more the clutter inside one’s self surfs up, the more it creates a fog to your identity as a creator.

Thankfully, I got out of it while drawing this half chapter. And I remembered, or maybe realised, that this is how I like to write stories. Symbolic, slow-paced, silent and allegorical. 

I found the solution. Draw the open book metaphor as direct as it is. Illustrate it literally.

Coming from the character that’s an open book to the other, his talk is scattered pages flying around with written feelings. No need to show that speaker but only the expressions of the the other character, the reader of the open book, at the receiving end.