REBUILDING NEKTOR

One of the things that I worked on during my final year at “big school” (as I’m nowadays wont to refer to my time at art school) was an idea for an illustrated story, something between a “children’s book” and a “comic strip” which, I suppose is now what the world in general would now call a “graphic novel”. I, of course, still find this term far too self-important and pretentious and still prefer to refer to them as “comics” which is never all that popular amongst those who take such things far too seriously.

Anyway, my “comic” was an exercise in narrative design, I suppose, because I wanted the pages to be big and square and, a lot of the time, to be one image to the page. I went through a huge amount of sheets of costly (and – it turned out later - surprisingly heavy) white-surfaced artboard creating images for it, and carted many of those images around with me for years in a ridiculously huge portfolio until someone was mad enough to offer me a job, and then I forgot all about it.

However, because I am a grade II, second magnitude hoarder (grade II – not an “official” designation - means that I can actually still get into the house but am reluctant – but can still be persuaded – to part with things), many of the images I created during those years still sit inside old portfolios lurking (and probably rotting away) at the back of cupboards and, every so often, when another great search for something probably quite pointless – but suddenly “vital” - is under duration, I will come across one or other of them, flick through its pages and mull over what might have been, had I been more determined or more talented.

A few months ago, we were having a bit of a clearout (Aaargh!) and I was surreptitiously having one of those quiet moments instead of carting boxes up and down stairs, so I didn’t notice that I was being crept up upon, so that some of the pages from my comic were spotted by the beloved who seemed to really like the characters before I hastily put them away back inside the cupboard, such is my traditional sense of shame and embarrassment at having to let people see my work or having to explain some of my more ridiculous flights of fancy.

The pages I was looking at involved a small character  who I called “Nektor” who was a bit of an “individual” living in a pin-striped bureaucracy known as “The Oblivion State”. This entire city, one of several “States” who traded with each other, existed on the underside of a brick in a sewer which explained the red and green colour palette which I was using – red, at the top, for the buildings, and a green sky below which was the reflected light from the sewage water.

The story opened with a Ratcatcher patrolling the sewers and being amazed to find a dead rat floating upwards which would, had I ever developed this, explained what the Oblivion State used as a food source.

I had, at least, thought this through, even though my sense of scale might have been a bit off.

Because everything in the Oblivion State was upside-down, all the commuting was done by means of pedestrians hanging from ropes in much the same way that commuters on the tube do when there are no seats, “strap-hanging” albeit without the “plummet” below them, which led to some interesting imagery (I thought…) with lots of characters dangling from the top of the page in a mildly surreal way whilst Nektor was trying to get in the opposite direction.

“Nektor” had a wise friend called “Purple” who was a purple daffodil with a red stem who lived on his lapel and gave him advice, and, apart from the fact that somehow Nektor was supposed to be either evicted, or accidentally “fell” from the Oblivion State and instead came into “our” world, with sudden growth to a more “normal” size being explained by him getting a dunking in the sewer water, or something, that was pretty much as far as I got with it.

Recently, I’ve been trying to make a drawing of “Nektor and his friend Purple” drawn from my own memory of what I remember the character as looking like. Despite the fact that I could pull all of the stuff in front of the old portfolios out and have a good old look at the originals, I thought that I’d do it this way. Some of the memories were a little hazy, but I think that I’ve captured pretty well what they used to look like.

Well, “Purple” was easy enough. Just a five-petalled daffodil coloured in purple with a red stem and slapped on to the correct lapel. Nothing hard to remember about that. It was more his wise and sensible language that escaped me, but I didn’t really need that to draw him.

“Nektor” was more tricky, but only in the details when I thought about them. I remembered the semi-translucent elongated egg-shaped head, but I wasn’t sure about quite where I put the eyes or the mouth, and I still haven’t worked out whether he ever had a visible nose or ears.

The grey morning suit jacket with tails I remembered clearly, although there were some detailings about the tailoring about which I’m not too sure. The 1980s shoulder pads might be something my mind has added more recently, and the shape and cut of those lapels might not now be what they once were, due to my own changing tastes, and the quantity of buttons I’m not sure about either. Was it once “double breasted”…? I really can’t recall, although the idea of four buttons in a square layout is nagging at me now…

I remembered the unusual “offset” skeletal structure with the strange “double joints” of the knees and the wide and bony hips, as well at the three-fingered hands and the two-toed feet. This was all very unlikely genetically, but it made interesting shapes to draw, even when many of the other inhabitants were buried in their overcoats for the morning rush hour commute.

For a while I thought that I’d given him big chunky gloves to wear, reasoning that any society that used its hands rather than its feet to move around would have a more glove than shoe-based practical or fashion culture, but, remembering back to my drawings, I knew that I hadn’t done that and so it must have been something I thought about later on, although it might explain the bare feet.

The clothing was more of a problem. I did remember the belt with the circular buckle, but I couldn’t remember at all what colour I used to draw it. The same goes for the trousers. I do remember that they had to stick out like a sore thumb amidst all the grey pinstripes of the other Oblivionites, but whether they were lime green is something I may have to look up later. I did briefly think that they had been stripy themselves, but when I thought about it more, I changed my mind, thinking that the contrast of having them plain was the more likely choice. Finally, the shirt. I remembered the style quite clearly, with the round collar for his neck to poke out of, but I still can’t remember whether it was plain or not. However, a lot of the people I knew and liked (and singularly failed to “get off” with – but that’s another story) wore horizontal stripes in the 1980s, so it’s quite likely that “Nektor” did, and if he didn’t, well, he does now.

So, I’d like to introduce you to “Nektor” and his friend “Purple”. If this isn’t quite how they once looked, well, it seems as if it might very well be the way they’re going to look from now on. Unless, of course, I go rummaging in the cupboards again and find out just how wrong my memory is.

Who knows, they might yet have some new adventures one day. They may even get to complete their first one, if I can ever remember what on earth I intended the story of “The Oblivion State” to be…