Character creation for LHF: Here's a new member of the cast.

So I picked up a bunch of local history books at the library recently. One is In Our Own Words: Stories of North Cambridge, Massachusetts 1900-1960. The most memorable person in the book is Ruth Jones (1895-1996), an African-American townie. She comes across as a take-no-shit person who tells you what to do because she's experienced and smart and wise, and she knows it. She's also incredibly smart and stubborn, in an admirable, ambitious way. In the book, she gives all these great details about cadging food from the gardens of the rich white folks and being the first black girl to graduate from Somerville High (1915) and dealing with racism when she went to Boston University in the late 1910s. In the interview, she obviously loves to tell stories and to preach.

Anyway, after I read about her and decided she was completely awesome, I wanted to work her into the story somehow. I decided I should have a vampire based on Ruth Jones in the general details of experience and character.

( Read more... )

"Davy Crockett" doll

I see more of David Bowie than Fess Parker in Tonner's upcoming Davy Crockett doll, but then, Tonner isn't known for accurate likenesses.

While I'm commenting, the entire Agnes Dreary line makes me crack up. The costumes remind me strongly of the production and costume design for the Series of Unfortunate Events movie. I especially like Agnes' Dreary Dinner Party Dress because I am a sucker for poofy sleeves. I also like Sister Dreary's default outfit, a magnificently impractical hobble dress. Though Agnes Dreary is supposed to be a little Gothy girl, she and her fellow products remind me less of Gothy dudes and more of people in Victorian photographs when they had to sit very still for long periods of time to be rendered in black-and-white. It's an attractive aesthetic.