Cliff x Father Eugene comic- In the Cold Light of Morning (Patreon)

I've been working on this one forever, I'm glad to have finished, finally! I always think ah yes, a montage, what a great way to show the passage of time! And then when I'm drawing the many different locations and trying to harmonise the colour scheme I curse the past me, scripting a train interior so callously.

Cliff is at his worst here, embarrassed and angry about Eugene's rejection he falls back into thrill-seeking and impulsive behaviour. He's kind of swinging from high to high- drinking, fucking, fighting, drugs, danger, without the downtime to feel or process anything.

Father Eugene is feeling pretty shitty about how he acted, but he has no idea where Cliff is. he's torn internally between 'this is the best for everyone' and 'I failed a young man who I cared for deeply'.

He's also been avoiding poor Cliff's mum, who definitely suspects Father Eugene might know something about Cliff's sudden disappearance.

Cliff knows the nun from the nearby catholic school he went to, where being adhd did not serve him well At All, he was always in trouble and eventually kinda just accepted that he was a bad kid. Thanks nuns. In this scene I kind of wanted the heartbreak of Cliff trying to do the right thing, going back to church to maybe start over, and just fucking up momentously, being chastised just like he was at school, and cementing his belief that he's no good.

Ok also I don't know if praying to St Jude is odd, but I love the concept because St Jude is the patron saint of hopeless causes. I also got mixed feedback on the concept of lighting a candle for yourself, most people said it was fine for extreme cases, but they could be humouring me and my silly 'cliff has to knock over the candles because my plot doesn't work otherwise' dilemma.

I remembered to turn on recording for most of the inking, which I've attached below.

Process essay time.:

I initially went into this complex street scene like fuck it there's nothing wrong with tracing, but I felt kinda like a hack haha so I ended up sketch tracing some vague landmarks to keep the perspective right before eyeballing the rest in ink. I do feel like it gives a pleasant wonkiness. Cars can still get fucked tho, I traced those.  

The b+w photos are soho (London) in the 80’s, which was known for adult entertainment and the sex industry.

No thank you not today, cars. (sketchfab has an incredible database often with the exact car model you want)

You can see I just blobbed colours around trying to figure out what the hell I was doing, til it eventually came together.

Ye Olde tube photos.
You used to be able to sleep on the circle line in London for the fare, so that's what Cliff is trying to do here [I found this out in Johnny Go Home, a documentary about runaway kids and teens] But also I found a good few mentions elsewhere:

I don’t know why I did this ok. It truly could have been a random toilet but I enter into some kind of mad state when I go looking for references. The article is very interesting tho! 
I also think, dressed like that, the guy is asking to be arrested tbh.

A couple of nods to UK subcultures at the time, new romantics (the fancy lad in the loo) and skinheads (shaved heads). I realise it might be a bit weird to non UK audiences like why are all those lads identical, haha. Skinheads / New Romantics

The bigger church interiors are referenced from photos I took- again I loosely got some landmarks traced out (like the arches, where the window shapes were- and then I freehanded the rest using the sketch as a guide. This is the church I had to attend mass to get inside, so these photos were hard won haha. I've already told this story but the doors were closed and it was time for the service to start, so I took the plunge and went in, to find only 3 other people there for mass. Of course the priest was like oh :) who are you :)! hello! I didn't lie but I did most definitely omit the truth.

The place Cliff is staying is a reference to the London squat communities that were huge at the time. A lot of expensive houses were left empty, and homelessness was a massive problem. People with nowhere to go occupied the empty houses, and banded together in protest against evictions, protecting their homes.
Article

Taking ref photos like...that looks weird? Oh yeah, yoga. You can see my back is too straight even in the second, so I didn't stick to the ref closely haha. Cliff is not flexible *until its convenient for spice purposes >:3c.

Here I was getting confused about the window perspective so I got a piece of paper and folded it to have the angled sill. I often find doing things like this much faster than finding or making refs on computers. The weird bunny is a scribble game I was playing with nephews lol.

wistfully staring at a piece of paper cut out like a cross.

I took this ref for the hand and the blanket folds!

The title is a Placebo song (In the Cold Light of Morning)

I think for Cliff its such a moment of...this isn't how he wants to live his life, he's miserable, and lonely, and he doesn't want to give up everything he had because of his pride.

If you've read all this way, thank you so much, I hope you enjoyed the comic, and the messy history lesson ;).