(Not Really) Blade Kills Twilight

(R: Violent Satire) Blade kills Twilight, bringing a sparkling franchise to a bloody conclusion.

Story Notes

This is a color version of "Twilight’s Last Gleaming", formatted as a co-feature for Inky Stories #4. I was just going to print it as it was, but development got out of control. Presented as a co-feature, I felt it had to be introduced by a fictional narrator. Inspired by Marvel's silver-age gimmick of using the Watcher to republish older works, I chose the Director from "The Null Device".

"Twilight’s Last Gleaming" is a horrible title I was in love with at the time. Remind me to replace it with this much better and more direct title.

With the new title and narration gimmick, I thought it was good enough in DuoShade black-and-white. Luckily for everyone, Jesse Farrell felt otherwise, volunteering to color! After spending a few hours color flatting, I gave him the files and no direction. Jesse worked on this right up 'til deadline...and a few days beyond!

page 6 of my Blade Kills Twilight story, in black-and-white Duo-Shade
page 6 of my Blade Kills Twilight story, in color
Page 6, noir and color

Jesse's approach to color:

The coloring on the first three pages were approximations of modern, computer-corrected movie color (a more subdued version of the infamous orange-and-teal color palette that predominates movies nowadays) and the comic coloring of Bettie Breitweiser.

As the story progresses, Blade's arrival introduces reds into the story, and the colors get more saturated and "comic booky" as the violence escalates.

The full-panel, post-massacre page reminded me of the similar scene near the end of Taxi Driver, and I heard Bernard Herrmann's ominous musical cue in my head as I colored it.

I made sure to get the colors of Jack Webb's Joe Friday costume: Friday wore the same suit in every episode of the 1960s iteration of Dragnet.

Dave M!

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