David Meadows
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Registered: 09-2003
Posts: 442
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 #21: Samurai (Writer's Comments)
With a villain called "Powl the Samurai", this issue was the obvious time to flashback to Jerome's past and flesh out some things hinted at in earlier issues.
The biggest difficulty in writing this was how not to make it an obvious copy of James Clavel's "Shogun". The issue was actually planned before I read Shogun, but on reading Shogun a few months ago my first thought was -- oh no, it's Jerome!
The next obstacle was my (self-imposed) 22-page limit. I wanted to spend a lot more time in ancient Japan, but the space just wasn't there. I toyed with stretching the story over two issues, but this interfered with the dramatic flow of the escape from Powl.
So in the end I compromised and merely "hinted" at what happened in Japan, leaving the reader's imagination to create the full story.
Maybe I'll return to Jerome's past if I get a lot of requests, but I don't think there's much more that actually *needs* to be said.
Trivia: yes, Jerome speaks Dutch and Portuguese. He's a well-travelled sailor, so it seemed natural that he would speak the languages of England's main rivals. And, as an educated European from the 17th century, he can no doubt speak Latin also. And he speaks Japanese, as you may expect, though I had to cut the scene where he is learning it.
Last edited by David Meadows, 26/2/2006, 20:54
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Everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world.
Clayton Moore
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26/11/2004, 9:52
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