35Cruising_001

Cruising the Love Boat

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This is the first appearance of Vincent, who will factor into the Tales at various points along the way. The back-story between him and Jason will develop as the series progresses. Kind of like the TV series Lost, but without me making up a bunch of shit as I go along, and not knowing how the story ends. Well, OK, I don’t know how this story ends, but that’s a different thing in this case.

The title of this story is an obvious play on words, and I don’t apologize for that. In fact: get used to it. The “logo” for it is a combo of the logotype for the 1980 Al Pacino film (which featured a rather unflattering but ground-breaking depiction of gay BDSM culture) and the contemporary rom-com TV series (which popularized the cruise-ship industry in North America).

I have to say, the most difficult thing about this entire story was drawing the sex scenes in front of the mirrors. Drawing one naked figure is a little challenging … drawing two naked figures intertwined is really challenging … and drawing both those figures and also a mirror duplicate from the opposite perspective is yeesh!

This story was set in December 2010, and would you believe I started adapting it into a comic in … December 2010? Knowing I’d be stuck on a cruise ship for a week, I brought along supplies to do some sketching and taking photos for reference, in prep for when I got around to turning it into a comic. Of course I had no idea at the start what the story would be, but I think both the trip and story turned out well enough eh?

The next Tale will involve shifting gears a bit … but that’s all part of the plan for JAQrabbit Tales. We’ll be turning the clock back to Halloween 1997, a very different part of my life. The story will also involved a change in the art, courtesy of guest artist Rick Worley (something we’ll also be doing a lot of).