Notes

Document – Hint.
Created in case I’ve got carried away creating the comic and made it too complicated to understand.

- My character wakes up. The photo is still blurred, symbolising his awakening.

- He finally awakes.

- The image sharpens. I decided on black and white style to draw parallels between colourful and imaginary dreaming and the real world. My character is b-w because he doesn’t belong to the dream world.

- He sees a vortex and a picture of a lion.

- Close up. In Dante’s Divine Comedy a lion was the creature that guarded the entrance to Hell.

- Classical scene seen in westerns: eye scene.

- The character notices clothe in his wardrobe…

- And puts them on.

- He remembers of the vortex…

- And touches it.

- As he passes through it he transforms. I’ve decided to play with photoshop effects in order to create a unique visual style. Sometimes messy, it although symbolises our dreaming. Dreams are only occasionally consistent and logical: often dreams are a mixture of what we see throughout the day glued together to produce an unrealistic, but visually stunning story. Unfortunately, we usually remember not the story, but the visual aspect of our dreaming. Thus it’s very similar to flashbacks.

- The character steps through the vortex and finds himself…

- On the staircase. He looks and sees a red whirlpool. To me it’s the end: the lowest circle of the hell, which has to be reached in order to leave the infernal dreaming. Every floor is supposed to be a circle the character has to visit. However, I won’t mention all the circles in my project as I didn’t want to just quote The Divine Comedy. To me it’s more a reference.

- The character goes down the staircase and notices a strange drawing on the wall: naked lady.

- He appears to be surrounded by the walls with naked ladies. It’s supposed to project an image of lust: the sin sinner suffer for on the second circle.
- These naked ladies don’t seem to be suffering from anything. They look at the character, inviting him.

- Naked blonde tries to touch the character, but he leans backwards, trying to avoid it.

- The blonde pushes him away. I wanted to show that unconsciously the character is unconfident. He might be afraid of women, who could have made him suffer from a broken heart in the past. The character mind projects his fears into his dreaming: beautiful blonde flirts with him, but attacks him after.

- The character falls into another vortex, which distorts him. That symbolises him becoming another person after meeting women.

- The character is hit in the head. The surroundings are acid. This is the circle responsible for gluttony. In The Divine Comedy Cerberus, who eats sinners alive, guards it.

- Doughnuts remind me overweight people. To me – it’s gluttony, so I thought to show it I needed to draw a parallel with Dunkin Doughnuts. A man with the dog’s head by the counter is Cerberus himself.

- Cerberus suddenly becomes angry. He wants the character to choose his meal, and he points at something.

- All food is rotten.

- Cerberus laughs.

- He closes the shop after, leaving the sign. It refers back to the misconception in the speech Cennedy made in 1963 in Berlin. Finishing his performance with “Ich Bien ein Berliner” words, the president wanted to show that he’s supporting people of Western Germany. However, he didn’t know that he referred to himself not as a citizen of Berlin but as a jelly doughnut due to an extra article ein.

- The character left on the spot without any idea what to do next. In the next two pictures I played with filters, setting every previous picture as the distorted background for the next one. The character suddenly notices coins dropping on his head from the ceiling.

- There are a lot of them. A picture on the wall is the original painting of the Infernal Circles by Sandro Botichelli. ‘La mappa dell Inferno.’

- The character looks up and notices a homeless person sleeping on the mountain of gold coins. He is upside down as I wanted to show the laws of gravity do not work in our dreams. We can fly, we possess telekinetic powers and ultimately cannot die even if we fall from heights. I’ve chosen the homeless person sleeping on gold to greed. Even having everything he needs to deal with his social and financial problems, the man refuses to spend.

- The character tip-toes towards the homeless man not to wake him.

- He grabs a coin…

- …Only to learn that it’s worthless: the coin perishes and turns to sand. Money comes and money goes, and the character still has to learn what bible teaches: not to presume tomorrow and seize the moment. Thus not be greedy.

- The character is sad. He tries to overcome his sadness…

- By going from one dream to another. I tried to do it three-dimensional and slightly odd. It suited me, however: we never know when one dream finishes and another starts. So I decided to show it like it is literally walking from one picture to another. Probably I’ve just enjoyed Interstellar too much…

- The character notices words on the walls. It’s his worries, what makes him sad. Sadness and anger - it’s the new circle.

- The character is surrounded by his worries. He feels sorrow.

- He faces his greatest fear: that he could be better at everything. The character is black and white, whilst his doppelganger is bright and in colour. He looks much more confident and happy than the protagonist.

- The final nail in the coffin is showing the character that he could be with the girl he loves. It’s his greatest fear that he isn’t good enough for her. The doppelganger smiles, showing no worries about that.

- The character is truly upset. He needs to overcome his doubts and fight his alter-ego. The background is water, as I wanted to include a special line from the song of my favourite band – U2.

- The protagonist is ready.

- Now it’s about violence. He punches hard the doppelganger, refusing to accept his reality and finally battling his fears.

- He violently tears off the head of the alter ego, which…

- …continues its way through a very odd place. It’s a dream sequence, so everything is simply a mixture of images seen somewhere and incorporated in a dream. Maybe the character has a cat in his real life, I don’t know.

- The character follows the head down the stairs. He sees a cross.
- He sees the grave of Steve Jobs. I wanted to reference the heresy circle, as I’ve heard people calling Apple creator a new prophet. I don’t think it’s right to compare his apple to the two most famous apples in the world: Adam&Eve’s and Newton’s. However, some people do, and I believe in a way it can be similar to heresy. Creating an idol, btw, contradicts the Bible. So this circle is for Jobs, buried in his grave under apples.

- The character his the head again in a distance.

- He follows it.

- The head explodes…

- And opens a portal…

- …which swamps the character.

- The character appears in a misty place.

- He is on the table watched by the horned ginger creature.

- It’s the devil, as it stakes on his jacker: ‘L. Cipher’, alluding to Lucifer.

- Lucifer points at three doors, demanding to choose one of them.

- The character is confused.

- I decided that he would choose the black and white because it reminds him of his reality. The character and the door both seem not to belong to the dreaming. The character opens the door.

- He fades.

- And awakens up in his bed. In colour.

- He is with his girlfriend, who is sleeping next to him.

- The character smiles,

- And looks at the window.

- He looks through it, outside.

- He smiles to the new sunny day.

- However, he doesn’t realise the tall building he lives in has got scary horns and an eye. I wanted to play ‘Inception’ here and show that unfortunately the character is still sleeping.