Little Orphant Annie

If you missed last year’s offering, here is The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe

The Raven

Pulp World 1935

In order to give these maps flavor, I decided to go with a period look. I wanted the maps to be interesting props, evoking the feeling of the setting as well as being an informative guide.

The first step was of course, the maps themselves. This proved to be no small challenge. There are numerous sources for maps with modern or recent boundaries, but when you start to dig into historical eras, you quickly discover that sources disagree—sometimes wildly—about place names and even the geographical extent of whole countries. Part of the reason is that national boundaries are nearly always in a state of flux; map makers of the period often had to make decisions on what source to follow (i.e. who to listen to for disputed territory). Also, place names rise and fall in favor. No one nowadays refers to Persia or Leningrad, though the places are roughly the same locations now that they are called St. Petersburg (again), or Iran. Peking is Beijing now, of course. These problems multiply enormously when you are dealing with sources ranging over the period of a decade or more, and when the maps originate from different countries.

This was probably the most educational series of maps I ever produced, since it forced me to learn quite a lot of history very rapidly. It also impressed upon me the enormity of the transformative event that was World War II. Just look at the part of the map depicting Africa and compare it to a modern one. WWII put Africa through a blender in more ways than one.

The production of the series was complicated, comprised of detailed maps for each continent, and a special time-spanning map detailing German Expansion from 1930 to 1939. For this article, I am presenting the world map, and the German expansion map.

I had continent outlines from the very helpful source of the Cartographic Research Laboratory of the University of Alabama. They were very nice to give me permission to use them for a commercial product. There are a lot more sources for such maps these days, but some sources are of doubtful provenance.

Of course, the continent outlines were only the start. I had to re-draw every border as painstakingly accurately as possible, using a 1935 atlas as a guide. The atlas was lent to me by the publisher for the duration of the project. It was extremely useful.

World Map without treatment

Once the base art was created (using the wonderfully period-feeling Copperplate typeface for the main titles), I needed to give it the period feel I mentioned earlier. I used two techniques for this project. The first was to create a textured surface to give the feel that the map was printed on an actual piece of paper. (Well, of course the map really was printed on paper, in the game book, but you know what I mean).

I took an ordinary sheet of bond paper and folded it map-fashion. I also carefully dog-eared some of the edges and corners. I then photographed it. I purposely did not scan it. A scanner uses a source of light at right angles to the scanned surface. This eliminates cast shadows. For this project I needed those shadows to be very prominent. The viewer needed to see the folds and creases very clearly. So I photographed it in bright sunlight, with the sun at sufficient angle to give me good relief. Then I took the photo into Photoshop, corrected it for lens distortion (a square is never really square in a photograph), removed all color, and heightened the contrast. This gave me an overlay I could drop on top of the map to give it a real folded look.

Folded Paper Texture

The second feature all of these maps had, was a prop. Each map had some real-world object sitting on it to give it some character and enhance the verisimilitude. I fortunately had enough things sitting around the house, or that I could borrow from friends, that looked like they might come from the era and area. The Africa map had a pair of spears my father had bought in Africa in the 1960’s. The map of the Middle East had an old-fashioned oil lamp (Aladdin-style), and so forth. The World map had an old bellows-style camera, to symbolize a world that was just starting to see the exotic sites of foreign lands through photography. This particular camera is likely from the forties, but it’s close enough.

Old Fashioned Bellows Camera

For the German map I had the extreme fortune of having a friend (Thanks, Kevin!) who had some props he had bought for a costume party: a replica luger pistol, and an SS dagger. I don’t know how accurate the dagger was, but it just looked perfect for the image of a nation gearing up for brutal conquest. I was particular pleased that the arrangement allowed me to do some foreshadowing by placing the dagger through France and the pistol pointed at Warsaw.

German Expansion, 1930-1939

These items were also photographed in bright sunlight, against a white illustration board background. In many cases, this gave me an actual shadow I could incorporate into the final composite image. Sometimes I needed to re-draw the shadow for better composition.

The maps were created in Adobe Illustrator. The paper texture and the objects were manipulated in Photoshop and dropped into place in Illustrator, so that I could move them around for best effect. Once the maps were approved, I output the entire image as one file, in Photoshop. This is the file that went to the customer. It’s safer that way, rather than sending a customer the working Illustrator file. There is far less that can go wrong before the image gets to the printer.

This is an example of a common difficulty in historical fantasy game maps. There is a constant battle between accuracy and artistic authenticity. On the one hand, the customer wants a map that will look as much as possible like a map of teh time. They want a product which the player or gamemaster can hold and get that visceral feel of connection with the setting.

CLICK FOR MAP

In this case, Solomon Kane lived in the 16th century. The world was far from fully mapped. At the same time, much of the action is in the discovery and exploration of far-off lands, or strange hidden lands within places once mysterious and unknown, such as Deepest Africa. You will note that Australia is hinted at on this map, though it was not discovered by Europeans until the following centruy.

This is a nod to Accuracy and Utility. Though we want a map that looks like something Kane himself might have held, the players and gamemaster want something that they can use to accurately gauge distances, or spacial relationships between land-masses. They want the arcane and the familiar in one product. In general, these aims are incompatible, and the problem gets worse as you “zoom in” to larger scale maps. In a future post, I will show a portion of a map of the Eastern seaboard of North America that also illustrates this point.

The concession was arrived at in this map, that landmasses that had been discovered would be shown faithfully, even if they were not already fully mapped. The farthest north, the farthest south, and places like Australia would be faded and ghostly.

The rendering of the map was done as follows. I started with an outline map of the world, used with the permission of the Cartographic Research Laboratory of the University of Alabama. I converted this to Photoshop format and laid down some base colors, using the climate zones of the real world as a guide. It doesn’t look like much at this stage. The detail comes next.

In step three, I lay down the major surface textures of the world. At this scale, this is primarily mountains, hills and vegetation. These are each done on separate layers in the Photoshop document. By putting them on different layers, I can quickly and easily make changes, should I make a mistake. I don’t have to worry about destroying my forest work with a misplaced mountain range, for example. (For those unfamiliar with layers in an illustration program, imagine them as layers of clear paper. Each piece of paper is layered one over the other and each layer can contain different artwork. The final piece for this project had 13 layers, not including the type.)

You will also note that the surface detail I have painted does not look particularly naturalistic. The forms do not flow into each other convincingly. Once I have finished the rendering of the map, none of this artificiality will be visible. Especially since the printed product was destined for a standard 8.5″ x 11″ page. At this scale, minor details become obscured. The impression is the important thing. (You may remember that lesson from my last featured map.)

Now that the details are in, it’s time to make it all look pretty. I created a virtual piece of parchment (4 layers: for dirt, texture, color, and edge effects) and composited the map with the parchment, using Photoshop’s transparency tools to make the image look as if it was painted on the parchment. It’s all still editable. All of the preceding images were taken from the finished work, just by isolating the layers. Here is what it looks like when assembled.

The final step is to put in all the type. (This image shows a detail area, with type in place and a close up of the parchment texture.) Photoshop is a great program, but it really isn’t designed to handle a lot of individual pieces of type. It wants to put each label on a separate layer. Thats’ really unmanageable and a nightmare to edit. So a link to the graphic is placed in a different program altogether: Adobe Illustrator. The Illustration workhorse has so many features that it really deserves a post of it’s own. Suffice it is an essential compliment to Photoshop. Here all of the labels are affixed to the map, the gridlines are superimposed, and that critical “KAC” signature is placed at the bottom.

A final advantage of using layers. This map had two final copies: one usable by the players, and one usable by the Gamemaster, who needs to know the location of mythical places Kane visited, of which the characters would be unaware. By placing the Gamemaster’s labels on a separate layer, I could generate a player copy and a GM copy with little trouble. This savings is of course passed on to the customer, and the second map was practically a freebie. (It might even have been thrown in gratis; it’s been a while since I did this.)

Once the customer approves, a final, printable copy with no layers is generated. (This is like I took all those pieces of transparent paper and fused them all into one image.) Why don’t I give the layered copy to the customer? Well, sometimes I do on request. But there is so much that can go wrong with a layered image. What if the printer doesn’t have the right font, for instance? Or what if the customer makes an experiment with the layers and winds up producing something unprintable? I use a lot of little tricks to make things work right, and they are not all immediately obvious. It’s also just a lot smaller and easier to transport and print.

Finally, once again, the finished image.

I love living here.

Well, we had a budget workshop today at the Fellowship Hall, and the future of an R.E. program looks grim. Families were scarce on the ground to begin with, and the continued turmoil serves only to put them onto the Endangered Species list. Who wants to hang around here?

This is a retirement community population, and there is a small but vocal section of the church that seems to be fine running the church on a cruise ship mentality (i.e., this is a pleasant place to wait to die.) The continued polite infighting which led to the resignation of the Minister has soured many of the former proponents of having kids and young people (i.e. under 50) in the Fellowship into leaving.

This means lower and fewer pledges. No one wants to commit to something they feel is not secure. I cut my operating budget by about 45%; there is no contract minister, and still there is not enough in the budget to fund and promote a program. People have argued themselves out of a growing church into one that is shrinking and becoming bitter.

There is another UU church, vibrant and growing, about forty minutes farther away. I might wind up going there, since without an R.E. program for my daughter, the local Fellowship has little to offer.

Still, we’ll see. There is one more month to go before a formal budget is proposed. It is possible that pledges could come up. I am willing to run a program, even at the barest-bones level. I’m not really even mad at the folks who want to cut the program entirely;I understand the realities of money. It all comes down to a lack of vision. The church does not have a unified understanding of their goals. Until that is resolved, they will continue to shrink and splinter.

I used to think that Vision Statements were a bunch of jargon-y doubletalk. Now I can see how the lack of one is killing an important part of my life.

A debate is like trying to convince someone their house is built poorly. The more fundamental the debate, the closer you get to the foundation of the house. The big debates are all about foundations. No one wants to tear down their entire strong, comfortable house because the first course of bricks is drawing criticism. It is a phenomenal amount of work, requires destruction of something you love, and leaves you without shelter in the interim.

Hence, people rationalize the work they have put in, saying yes, there might be flaws, but it is otherwise strong and serviceable. In fact, it is a well-constructed as any house out there. Better, in fact, because it suits them. Other people’s houses are strange and uncomfortable, so where is the impetus for change?

These are some early ones. They are a painterly style, which, although it gives a realistic feel, was time consuming and not always satisfactory. Antaea for instance, I like very much. The lighting on Mako sucks. Since these are avatars only, I don't want to spend too much time on them.

Antaea

Defense Counsel

Mako This was loosely based on Dirty Harry

Celeste

Ragachu

Speed was more of a priority, rather than photorealism. I also didn't like the hit-or-miss I was experiencing in the results. I've recently switched to a much faster and more consistent method. I think of an actor or type of person I think would be close. I do a Google image search for portraits. I use that as the basis for making a quick ink-line drawing, modifying as needed to make it closer to my vision. I'll add a layer for flat color, then in-between these layers, I will put a shadow layer and a highlight layer. Then I can quickly paint in modeling without being destructive. I'll add an edge light to make it pop, and then a background to establish mood or typical setting. The results are not nearly so realistic, but they take half the time and are much closer to what is in my mind's eye when I start. The final drawing is more of a comic book styles and frequently deviates drastically from the reference image. Here are some recent examples:

Dan Hu Based on some Indian Child actor

Cormac A random portrait, found on a search for "Farmer Headshot"

Carnassus Based on David Jason (Rincewind or Hogfather's Albert)

Rantza based on Angelina Jolie

Krait Based on Marlene Dietrich. This was my first attempt at an avatar using this style, and is flatter than the others.

 

The trilogy draws from some of the premises set forth in Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, specifically, a war in heaven against an authoritarian God. Beyond this, Pullman’s work is mostly an attack against dogmatic religion, specifically the Catholic Church.

The charge of intellectual dishonesty comes from several points, so I’ll need to set up some background first. It is the contention in the novel, that God is not the creator of the universe, but merely its first sentient being. The entire structure of heaven and hell is an elaborate ruse, designed to consolidate temporal power for the “Authority” (God) and eventually as God becomes senile, his lieutenant Metatron (also from Milton). The afterlife is presented as a dim gray existence akin to the Underworld of Classical Greek mythology. Souls are eternal here, tormented psychologically by harpies (whose existence is just a given. No explanation is given for their own immortality or their omniscience regarding their charges foibles)

The main characters release these souls from this afterworld, returning them to the material world, where their “atoms become part of the world”. In essence, they are given oblivion. This is presented as a rapturous experience.

Now for the dishonesty. Pullman takes what on the surface seems to be a battle between atheism and theism, or at the very least humanism versus organized religion, but he does not arm the combatants fairly, nor does he employ balanced tactics.

First. He demonizes the opposition. Every member of the Magisterium (his Vatican analog) is presented a zealot. In the furtherance of power, they are to a person, capable of lying, murder and the torture of children. There is no sincere or likeable character in the lot. The protagonists essentially face an army of straw men of the most blatant sort.
Conversely, the likeable characters are those who are completely secular (the scholars), naturalistic (the bears, and the witches, who also have pagan elements), or areligious (The gyptians, a gypsy analog). These people show selflessness, kindness, devotion and honor.

Second. He tears down a construct he does not like, using the same tools that were used to build it. Specifically, he replaces the supernatural “lies” of the Magisterium by using completely new (and wholly invented) supernatural elements. The elements he creates are designed to fill the gaps in the thing he is destroying. Since he does not want the Authority (God) as the creator of life, he invents a barely-explained natural phenomenon called Dust, the source of all consciousness. These are free-floating particles created by life and sustaining conscious thought. No explanation is give to its existence; it just is.
He does not like heaven and hell. So he creates an alternative afterlife, because a real heaven would ruin his premise. And since he doesn’t even want the lie he has posited to have validity, he creates his own alternative: oblivion. The souls of the afterlife overwhelmingly find oblivion a joyous and rapturous experience. Only a few misguided adherents of the Magisterium’s structure elect to remain in the Underworld.
His characters seek to create a “Republic of Heaven”, a made afterlife. But even after the harpies are tamed, no attempt is made by the souls of the underworld to turn their eternal world to a paradise. Instead, they choose complete destruction of their being. No explanation is ever given why there is an Underworld at all. It’s merely a place for people to suffer as a result of the Authority’s lies.

Third, his arguments are narrowly targeted, but presented as if they were universal. In other words, his narrative is structured as if the conflict were between atheism and theism. But in reality, it is targeted at the Judeo-Christian dogma, and almost exclusively at the Catholic Church. He has posited a vast multiverse, filled with innumerable beings both human and non-. Yet in all this multiplicity of beliefs and cultures, his examples of the “enemy” could only be applied to his Vatican analog. His story of the Authority and the Magisterium could not remotely be replied to Buddhism for example. Or Shinto. Or Baha’i. For that matter, they are barely applicable to Judaism.
In seeking to tear down a specific dogma, he attacks all dogma, lumping them together but without referencing the others.
Finally, in order to make the book marketable, he creates analogs of his targets, since specifically naming them would hurt the sales of the book. (He does reference them obliquely, but not until the middle of the trilogy, by which one can assume you have already bought the set.)

To sum up, Pullman decides to attack a particular dogma. To do so, he demonizes it, conflates it with unrelated dogma, and replaces it with something made up whole cloth to fill in the gaps left by the destruction. He uses the same tools (the supernatural in its broadest sense) to both refute and replace. This is deconstruction of the most dishonest order.

There is a reason why the film adaptation of the Golden Compass removes all religious elements and presents the story as a straight fantasy. It would not otherwise be marketable. The story itself is entertaining. The methodology is deceitful.

I could not in good conscience recommend this story to young readers, who have not yet sufficiently developed the ability to spot literary chicanery.

Seriously, so many films can be put into the category of, “If you like this sort of film, you will like this particular one, but if you don't like this sort of film, you won't like this particular one”. This philosophy is a subset of People who like musicals vs. People who don't like musicals.

In the case of Mama Mia, this arbitrary distinction might also be made between, “People who can look back on a life history of good and bad choices” Vs. “People who have yet to accumulate a lifetime of choices.”

Or “People who like stories about relationships” and “People who don't”.

These are all valid viewpoints. People don't decide what they find entertaining, what they find entertaining is one of the things that defines them as people.

The thing that gets my goat is those that cannot understand this distinction and automatically dismiss a film (or other creative endeavor) in the opposing category as “vapid” or some other disparaging label.

Again; I liked Mama Mia. Not enough to have paid money in the theater, but I have my own criteria for theater-going [I want spectacle). It may not be for everyone, but I cannot see anyone in honesty and good conscience calling it a “bad movie”. On any rational and dispassionate set of criteria, it's as good as most anything else out there.

I suppose this probably flies in the face of Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap). Perhaps I'll put forth my own Curtis Amendment to Sturgeon's Law: “90% of everything is Not For You.”