Page 10 of the project I’m working on for Jason Rodriguez’s Colonial Comics anthology from Fulcrum Press.
My outline-y script reads:
Eunice further assimilated into Kahnwake culture. Daily life centers very much around corn: planting, gathering, drying, grinding, cooking. Being invited with the women to the fields is a big moment.
The home life in the longhouse is warm and communal.
So this is essentially a non-sequential page, but a series of vignettes that add up to Eunice’s generally happy childhood at Kahnawake. Â It’s a matter of putting the anecdotes into an overall page design or architecture that really can be read in any order. Â Since she left no written record of her time there, it’s all made up.
I definitely wanted to make use of the very first sketch I did for the story:
Longhouse interior with Eunice and new family
Then  lot of scribbling to figure how to arrange things:
The thumbnail:
Eunice Williams story, page 10, thumbnail, Dan Mazur
The rough. I decided to curve the drawings in that middle tier around the “archway” of the bottom panel, giving it more of an architectural feel:
The final line art, with blue pencils showing. Â No real reason to show this, I just like the way the blue pencil looks (the scan’s patched together, hence the different coloring):
And the final:
Eunice Williams Story, p 10, Dan Mazur *(line art)
The next page for this story, about the aftermath of the Indian raid on Deerfield Mass. in 1704, which I’m working on for the Colonial Comics anthology from Fulcrum Press, was originally scripted like this:
Â
PAGE 9Â
Page to be divided diagonally, maybe.
JOHN HALF: John returns to Boston. He becomes a celebrity, delivering sermons on his captivity. His book is a colonial best-seller. He continues his efforts to redeem Eunice.Â
EUNICE HALF Eunice further assimilated into Kahnwake culture. Daily life centers very much around corn: planting, gathering, drying, grinding, cooking.
Being invited with the women to the fields is a big moment.
The home life in the longhouse is warm and communal. Â
Thumbnailed like so:
But if felt like too much story to pack into an 8×8 page — at least with the kind of storytelling I’m going for. Â This was going to be too dense a page to be easily read. Â I asked the editor if it was okay to make the story 2 pages longer (it has to stay an odd number for the book layout, and I could use an extra page at the end as well).
So, the story will now run 13 pages and here’s the thumbnal of the new page 9, Â just the “John” part of the old page 9:
As you can see, I changed the text on the last panel. Â I liked the juxtaposition of ‘not giving up hope” with the burning-down candle, but… as you WILL see in the next page, it needed a line more suited to the transition back to Eunice at Kahnawake. Â So I ended the page on the notion of not knowing what was going on with her… and now we shall see!
The next page in the story I’m drawing for Fulcrum Press‘ Colonial Comics anthology.
My “script” for the page:
PAGE 8
The Mohawk children have an easy life. Running around and playing. Eunice watches shyly as they play. They call her over. Then she is playing with them. Â
Thumbnail:
As you can see I added in the element of Eunice’s Indian mother intervening on her behalf with the other kids.
 I also realized that the transition from the narrated/dialogue pages (John’s story) to the wordless pages (Eunice’s story), needed to be smoothed out with a line of narration.  Otherwise it seemed too abrupt.  The rough pencils:
The square format lets you do some fun things that wouldn’t be possible in a conventional rectangular page. Here I tried to play with the two diagonal axes of a page divided into four equal quarters. Â So there’s the parallel/contrast between the lonely girl in the first panel and the playing children in the last, in the axis running top left-bottom right between two square panels. Â And then the opposite, axis – top right to bottom left – Â in which we “ride” a rough diagonal through the series looks from one character to the others:
Does that make sense?
Final inks:
The line of narration, by the way, is invented, not from John’s book. Â I don’t want to take cheap shots to exaggerate John’s anti-Indian attitude. Â But he was quoted (I didn’t make a note of where, but probably in John Demos’ The Unredeemed Captive), referring to the Indians as “wretched.” Â So I thought it fair enough to use the word here.Thanks!
Continuing the process of drawing a short comic about John and Eunice Williams and the Deerfield Raid of 1704, for Colonial Comics anthology from Fulcrum Press…
Where the first 5 pages were primarily visual, these two switch to a dialogue mode. Â The majority of the dialogue is taken from John Williams’ text, some of it moved around from different parts of the book. Â For instance, the story John tells Eunice of the girl who’s forced to wear the cross, was actually a story told to John by his son (who was also captured) in a letter. Â I’m not sure if John had heard this story when he met with Eunice for the first time at Kahnwake, but I thought it presented his attitude toward children in captivity pretty well.
My script:
PAGE 6.
The Jesuits attempt to get John to convert (“by all means of flatteries and threats). Some of the following text to be used:
 I had many disputes with the priests who came thither; and when I used their own authors to confute some of their positions, my books, borrowed of them, were taken away from me, for they said, I made an ill use of them.
It was propounded to me, if I would stay among them, and be of their religion, I should have a great and honourable pension from the king every year. The superiour of the Jesuits said, “Sir, you have manifested much grief and sorrow for your separation from so many of your neighhours and children; if you will now comply with this offer and proposal, you may have all your children with you; and here will be enough for an honourable maintenance for you and them.†(and never expect to have them on any other terms)I told them, my children were dearer to me than all the world, but I would not deny Christ and his truths for the having of them with me.  What is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
 “After much supplication, Governour de Vaudreuil (of New France), arranged for me to see my youngest daughter.â€
 John is brought to Kahnawake see Eunice. Before he sees her, the Mohawk tell him that “they would as soon part with their hearts as my child.â€
 PAGE 7
The first meeting between John and Eunice, in the church at Kahnawake, with Jesuits present.
EUNICE: Father! Have you come to take me home?
JOHN: God has not willed that yet. Are you well?Â
She looks downcast.
EUNICE: Yes, father.
JOHN: Have you been mistreated?
JOHN: Do you remember to say your catechism?
EUNICE: Yes! But they make me say prayers in Latin, father! I don’t understand a word. Will it do me harm?
JOHN: Be strong: I have been told of an English girl bid to take and wear the cross, and cross her self: She refused; they threatened her: either to cross herself, or be whipt, she chose to be whipt; but seeing her choosing indeed to suffer rather than comply, they desisted.Â
Eunice doesn’t seem encouraged.Â
The layouts of these pages are fairly straightforward, my thumbnails were loose — extremely so in the case of page 7. Â I didn’t bother scanning the roughs, which I usually only do if I’m piecing them together from sketches and other attempts.
Thumbnail for page 6 – pretty loose.Thumbnail for page 7 – extremely loose!
Drawing these two pages was much faster than the previous ones. My main focus was on the stylization/schematization of the characters. Â The style of drawing the two characters turns out to be different. John is more of a caricature style – almost Mort Drucker-ish at times , while Eunice is more of a Manga-influenced indie-comics look, that’s a little new for me; I’m really enjoying the simplicity and expressiveness this approach to her character allows. Even so, keeping the depiction of the characters consistent from page to page is proving a challenge.
The final line art:
The Eunice Williams story, page 6 final line artThe Eunice Williams story – p 7 final line art
I don’t guess the following merits the word “script,” but this is what I was working from for this page:
PAGE 5
At Kahnawake, Eunice is welcomed warmly, embraced by her Indian “mother.â€Â Her rags are taken off and she is dressed in a new outfit, in the style of the Mohawk girls.
NOTES: Â The Iroquois nation at the time practiced the “Mourning War,” in which captives were taken for the purpose of replacing members of the tribe that had died, to ease the grief of their loved ones. Â “Captives could be adopted as a family member, literally taking the name and social position of the deceased” * Â It’s unknown whether Eunice was captured for this purpose, but possible, and I’m playing it that way.
The action of this page was also inspired by a passage in a book I read for research, “The Indian Captive,” by Lois Lenski, a fictionalized account (written for children in 1942) of a similar historical case.  The sensual appeal of the Indian clothes, faciliatate the  symbolic “changing of the skin” into that of an adopted culture.
I also thought  of the early shojo manga device of the “style picture.”  Shojo manga was aimed at young female readers, and the presentation of clothing and costume was an important element.  Often, an entire vertical section of the page was devoted to showing a character’s costume, in a panel that was often only loosely connected to the narrative flow of the comic, and using a decorative background rather than spatial continuity with the story:
Miyako Maki, “Maki’s Whistle” 1960
I wanted to get something of that feeling of that for this page.
The rough version:
Dan Mazur, Eunice Williams story, p 5 rough
The final (so far):
Since Eunice obviously can’t understand the language of the Mohawks, I thought of getting the dialogue translated, so that readers couldn’t understand it either. Â I emailed the tribal council at Kahnawake to see about a translation, but haven’t heard back. Â In the meantime, I think the blank balloons might be a good solution!
The decorative pattern around Eunice in the “style picture” is based on the Iroquois “three sisters” of beans, corn and squash. Â My friend EJ Barnes, however, has since pointed out to me that, because I’m an idiot, I drew gourds instead of squashes (EJ didn’t call me an idiot, that’s my term). Â So that will have to be re-drawn.
*Evan Haefeli and Kevin Sweeney, Captors and Captives: The 1704 French and Indian Raid on Deerfield
