The irony of showing “behind-the-scenes” views of the creation of the main hall of a theater is not lost on me. Can you really show ‘backstage’ glimpses of the construction of what goes in front of the stage? Only on the Process can you achieve such a paradox, folks. It’s like using photography (a supposedly accurate representation of reality) to depict the theater in one’s own mind (the immaterial and imagined). Such are the philosophical conundrums that I am playing with here and before I let any more cats out of the bag, back to the business at hand:

Once again, here’s some sneaks of the theater hall I’m constructing. Things are moving very slowly as you probably already know but I think the results are worthwhile. The side wall will have a large reinterpretation of this famous alchemical illustration. The theater’s two balconies form three levels that correspond to Freud’s Id, Ego and SuperEgo. The lowest, floor seating area is the Id, the first mezzanine is the Ego and the top balcony is the SuperEgo. They are analogous to their terrains and fauna as well. The lowest floor is underwater and full of various sea creatures including a giant squid. The Ego mezzanine is on land and has a dragon and lion. Lastly the SuperEgo upper balcony is represented by air or sky and has an flying eagle. Here are a few more shots showing the latest progress. I’ll have more as it nears completion…

Things are moving a little slow thanks to a large construction for the next page. So, I thought I’d give you a little peak at what’s to come—boxed seats! You may be asking yourself, “but where are the seats?” and my answer to that is simple. This already finished seat was made to be photographed separately and to be added later when needed. I’m obsessive and meticulous but not so much so that I would make every individual seat in this cardboard theater! No, just meticulous enough to construct half an elaborate theater out of an inane and obstinate material for just one panel of the next page!

Stay tuned as I’ll likely be posting more images as this comes closer to completion. In the meantime, if you’re looking for something to do, vote for what free giveaway you’d like to get in the poll!

I’m sure this whole thing of creating cardboard sculptures is a little novel to many people and so I like to post up photos of some of the sculptures separate from their home in the artwork for the pages. It’s a way to see these things without the compositing and effects. So here’s a shot of the chandelier used in page 32. Going into making this I had very little worked out in my mind how to execute it. A lot of the problems solved in creating the cardboard chandelier came from a lot of trial and error along the way. The main column that provides much of the structure’s stability comes from a thin wooden dowel. Pieces of this same dowel were sharpened and used as the candles as well. The ‘chains’ are made from stripping the paper off of corrugated cardboard. The sheet was slit into roughly even strips and glued around the circular top ring. The strips splayed out nicely and were glued to the larger lower ring. From there, the addition of the ‘arms’ was easy and the whole piece was finished with some ink details. The result is what you see to the right. Enjoy!

Despite my worsening pinched nerve saga I have been able to do a few things towards getting the next page done. One of them is this theater seat. It’s made entirely of cardboard with a wooden dowel that allows the seat bottom to fold up. Without an official ETA on the next page, all I can offer you patient readers is to have a seat and take heart that I am doing the best I can.

This may be a long drawn out affair with the potential for surgery, physical therapy et al so I would again advise you to sign up for email subscriptions. That way you can always stay on top of things as they happen. If you do click the little envelope above and put in your email address, be sure to check your spam filter in case the confirmation email got snagged.

In the meantime, enjoy this little tidbit and stay tuned as I will be updating this blog with my progress with my health and with this webcomic. Thanks for your patience…