#and ruined your life. mmm at least you dont have to pay rent. or does that make it worse?

[shortnotsweet]

1. ANATOMY OF A KITCHEN (excerpt from THE THRILLING AND NOT AT ALL REPETITIVE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MAN AND KID DANGER: “A CHRONOLOGY OF ENTIRELY TRUE AND HEROIC EVENTS COINCIDING WITH THE END OF HISTORY”) [2] [3] [4]

If you want to know a person, watch how they treat their servers, how they treat their food. Living with them is the second best option. Living with Ray is not Henry’s only option, but it is the best. They don’t even need to watch the other eat; they know each other already.

[ “There is a man in my house. There will always be a man in my house. I will find him even when he is not there. And one day, when I find out there is no man in my house anymore, well—I will go find one and invite him in.” Paraphrased and reappropriated from Catherine Lacey’s “Cut”. The borrowed text refers to the uncanny feeling Henry experiences as an adult reflecting on his childhood relationships. ]

Catherine Lacey writes in her short story “Cut”: “If you're raised with an angry man in your house, there will always be an angry man in your house. You'll find him even when he is not there. And if one day you find that there is no angry man in your house—well, you will go find one and invite him in!” Peggy—a professor—reads this poem, which a female student has placed on her desk, and grapples with a response, to which she is advised, “It’s not your job to save anyone from their life or explain anything to them or even really teach them anything”.

PANEL NOTES

This follows the format of the catalyst stranger approaching the downtrodden protagonist in a dingy bar from behind, backlit by the hazy yellow lights and smoked out shadows. This is not a bar, but a kitchen—the center of any living space.

The borrowed text is tweaked, and excludes the descriptor “angry”, as the theme of the storyboards is not anger.

The use of red is limited and strategic, and scattered throughout like evidence; dusting for fingerprints. It’s tempting to drape Henry’s back in red against the blue background, as if bathed by an overhead lamp, but Ray is the anomaly. Henry is colored by an anxious, slightly melancholic blue (as well as shaky panel borders), while the flints of red signify danger (knock on wood) or non-literal symbolism.

The white wolf is curled around the blue in a protective gesture that also doubles as a stranglehold, snakelike.

Something, something, about wolves and lambs, consumption, and the simultaneous loss and retention of innocence through transformative processes. Note there are three lambs; these could stand either for Henry, Jasper, and Charlotte, or Henry (singular).