Long John

With “Jackie Vision,” I wanted to stick to a few things. First, I wanted the images we saw in “Jackie Vision” is weird in the sense of “weird fiction” similar to the stylings of H. P. Lovecraft or any work in the old pulp magazine, Weird Tales. “Weird fiction” is a style of fiction that is firmly rooted in horror, but it’s not about monsters and jump-scares; it’s about plausible deniability. A good weird tale can be explained both rationally and supernaturally, where both options are equally viable but the supernatural explanation is rejected simply because it’s supernatural. “Jackie Vision” is what Jackie legitimately sees; however, whether it’s what’s real or not is up for debate. Either way, those in her sights are subject to horrors all too real.

Second, as I said before, “Jackie Vision” is one of the main reasons why I wanted Josh to be on board for this project. More specifically, while developing the idea of Jackie’s character––and of how she saw the world––Josh’s paintings and drawings are what I imagined. Josh has always been a vivid dreamer, and I’ve always been envious (though not all the time) of the rather surreal nature of his dreams. He would tell me the atmospheric tales of the places he went in his unconscious and the creatures he saw, and often these things would be translated into his sketchbooks, left for me to stare at in wonder if only because he got the chance to see them move. It’s a talent I never had.

When sending the layouts to Josh along with the notes for the pages, I tried to be clear that “Jackie Vision” isn’t just a creepy monster-version of reality. I wanted it to be organic, a strange blend of flesh of and steel and landscape. The one thing I tried to impress was that even more than the creepy amalgam of human progress and nature was this idea of “The Rot” in Jackie’s world, it’s oily skim perverting everything in its path unless––according to Jackie––it is “purified” or “excised.” In truth, that was the only way I could describe it because I knew that whatever Josh came up with would be exactly what I was looking for. What was created was something I couldn’t fathom––which was exactly what I wanted, because only Josh could.

Josh’s Notes

This is where the fun stuff starts. I get to draw some of what Jackie sees. I didn’t want to draw monsters by any means (the guy with the full infection), I want to have a human side but have them “off” and a bit sinister. In the one panel there is a man with the emergence of the rot.

Original art by Josh Tobey.