The Luminary Lark Mirror: Development Art #1

Welcome to the very first development art log of a personal comic project I've been slowly chipping away at since late last year. This is practically the first time I've spoken about it to anyone in depth, so to be frank, writing this post has been a little nerve-wracking!

Inspired by the mythically surreal pinball raids of the 1940s in America, in which pinball was outlawed in a couple states and systematically destroyed on the streets *public execution-style*, The Luminary Lark Mirror is a fairytale about the most extravagantly dangerous pinball machine ever made. It's a fairytale in the classic sense, an indictment of lax morals and ending with the punishment of the sinner. The sinner in this story is the casino clerk and sculptor Polly Feneck, who is also our main character. (You can see above she was called 'Margaret' in my head for the longest time).

The crux of the story is that Polly willingly destroys everything, and herself, in the pursuit of the truest recognition of her craft. Her masterpiece is a meticulously engineered wooden box glimmering with lights and mirrors, music, and moving pieces: the titular Luminary Lark Mirror. It is her bed, her coffin, the physical manifestation of her inner world. Spoiler alert: this does not end well for her.

In history, a lark mirror was a glittering device made of wood and glass used by hunters to entice larks into capture.

From John Bunyan’s “Upon the Lark and Fowler”:

This fowler is an emblem of the devil,

His nets and whistle, figures of all evil.

His glass, an emblem, is of sinful pleasure,

And his decoy, of who counts sin a treasure.

I first heard of the device from one of my favorite texts, Sartre’s No Exit. There, it is used to evoke the enticement of an eternal observer, one who can bear witness to the subject’s faults and virtues and by doing so confirm their existence in the world. Inez, the speaker of the phrase, means to woo the self-absorbed Estelle in this way.

Inez:  …you know the way they catch larks - with a mirror? I'm your lark-mirror, my dear, and you can't escape me...

Polly is not the gambling type, though she is surrounded by gamblers. She lacks the compulsion, and she hates uncertainty to her core. Pinball is won through a point system, but inevitably, the result is always the same. The little metal ball springs out from its compartment, the little metal ball goes hurtling to the drain. It is an addictive and meaningless ritual, punctuated with bright lights and harsh, colorful sounds. And she loves it.

I'm still sorting all the details, but I know for certain that this story ends with a CRASH! Like the Cronenberg film, a solitary moment of immense, obliterating intimacy. 

I hope you all will be around to see it!

Casper

Art notes:

#1: Mock-up cover concept. This image of Polly lying, backlit, atop one of her pinball machines is a central one. It is her most vulnerable state.

#2: Polly (then Margaret) character development sketches. A nurse at a clinic I was at saw my sketch of her and said she looked like 'a hard woman' in Vietnamese, so I knew I was doing something right. Her most notable feature to me is her neatly shaped hair, almost a solid object, stylized with a whirling internal checkerboard pattern to hint at stormy depths.

#3: Polly on the phone, enjoying herself. Voyeurism/exhibitionism is also a major subject in this story.

#4: The first line-up I did of some central characters. I always like to color-code my characters, to evoke an intuitive, abstract feeling of them through that color, but I also specifically had Fantasia 2000's Rhapsody in Blue on the mind when I made that choice.

#5: Second line-up, which I think consolidates some of the things I liked most from the first one. I tend to over-correct and lean realistic when I'm still in the exploration stage, but ultimately I think a more cartoonish and simplified style would work best for this project. These are the primary members of the casino Polly's brother, Enoch, runs. If you hadn't guessed yet, they are all named after US presidential pets.

#6: Line-up of some goons, and the primary "antagonist" so to speak. Francis is a sheriff and a number of his subordinates are his children from failed marriages. They are vaguely cultish in demeanor and are nicknamed "The Swans" in fear.