Infected, This Is The Place...

Spoiler alert!  If you haven't read Scott Sigler's book, Infected, you probably should stop reading here, because I'm about to analyze the crap out of it.

Page one:

Scott Sigler's book, Infected, begins in medias res, a prologue of just two and a half pages of text in the actual book.  But it's a compelling and brilliantly written two and a half pages that neatly delivers the entire narrative of the story, telling you everything you need to know  about the motivation of the antagonist, the mindset of the protagonist, conflict and resolution.  It's an entire tragic story compressed into the tiniest and maybe most important bit of the book.  It's what sold me on the story and, coupled with how much of it takes place within the mind and the confined apartment of Perry Dawsey, it would be a challenging project I knew I wanted to make into a graphic novel.

My approach for this is, I wanted to tell the whole story visually, without relying on text to convey what is in the mind of Alida Garcia, the prologue protagonist.  So much of her story is about regret, about her shortcomings, and her inner struggles with both the demons in her past and the demons literally growing under her skin.  

As an illegal immigrant, her whole life had been a struggle, getting physically north across the border and establishing herself, with her husband.  Having her baby, an anchor baby that meant salvation for her relationship with Luis, her finally being able to live without fear from the INS, or "La Magra".  Her struggle with classes, moving up from poverty to a middle class life, the American Dream.

But then she became infected with another child of sorts, this strange infection that brought alien thoughts of paranoia, predatory insanity, with a northerly migration, mirroring Alida's during her early struggling years, of it's own driving it and her into some unknown part of desolate Michigan forest in the biting chill of winter, an environment quite alien to her warm Mexican upbringing.  Like a new male lion taking over a pride, it killed off the rival males and her cub, laying claim to her body and everything she was.

All that in two and a half pages!

I started out writing down everything I wanted to cover, all the events, all the emotions, then plotted out how long I wanted to spend on each bit, deciding how long I wanted the reader to dwell on this first beat.  I arrived at five pages of pretty dense storytelling.  A beginning, middle, and end, with three acts.  It could be a movie all on it's own.

Page one, I wanted to cover all the major points, the epic journey, the emotions, the paranoia, the almost schizophrenic nature of her inner struggle.

Panel one starts with Alida  trekking across the snow, missing a shoe, disheveled, she's fallen to her knees and is looking over her shoulder for something or someone chasing her.  We look down on her, this lesser pathetic and weak thing.  The branches of the tree above her come between us, the viewer, and her, the protagonist.  They spread across the page, from left to right like an infection.

The next five panels, four insets and one big one, demonstrate largely through close ups the struggle going on in her mind and in her body. 

We start with scratching the wrist until it's bloody, noticing the infected hand is holding a gun.  I was thinking of what it takes for a coyote to gnaw off it's own paw when caught in a trap, something that must take the most immense inner strength to do for the sake of survival.

Panel three, Alida sheds tears.  Regret, panic, fear, she's ready to give up, she just wants it all to end.

Panel four, the engagement and wedding ring on her left hand that symbolized everything she ever wanted in life, her family, love, the ability to afford such luxuries in America, to have enough money to buy gold and precious stones, and the pride of overcoming such gargantuan obstacles.  If not for the regret, it would certainly be inspiration.

Panel five, a suggestion from my editor, Bob Pendarvis, "I kinda wish one of the faces might've used a hand or two. nothing like adding a hand to a close-up to increase the "acting" quotient. like, maybe she's cradling her head in the third face, but then turns head behind her in the last, eyes peering between fingers"   It was a great suggestion that added a lot to the panel, where she demonstrates the evil has taken over, she has a gun she isn't afraid to use, and she is partially hiding her face, an act of deception.

This all culminates in a stylistic panel six, Alida looking over her shoulder, angry and paranoid, maybe at the viewer, maybe at the beginning of the next part of her journey, the train.

And finally, panel seven, a more realistic view of the train meandering down the tracks.

There's a world of difference between how the page started in thumbnails and where it wound up, here is my very rough first take layout to go over with the editor.

Next post: My approach to how the art is portrayed and why, techniques, materials, scanners and resolutions.  Followed by a page two analysis!