The Prince in the Basement after-talk (minor spoilers)

The Prince in the Basement is a fairy tale that’s been a long time coming. I had the visual idea of the Princess finding the Prince in crystal ages ago, but it chafed against the kinds of comics I was trying to draw at the time, so I tucked it away for years. Once I finally pulled it back out, the story kept getting bigger. The end product combines a lot of themes I’ve explored: love and resentment, self-perception and being perceived, spiritual and literal death. A lot of character types could look familiar to someone who’s read my other comics too: the androgynous debutant, the secretive mentor, the self-hating tsundere. I thought it’d be nice to finally have a story that felt like a solid and up-to-date “entry point” for newcomers but would hopefully have some surprises for those kind enough to have followed my work this far. I tried to be conscientious of all this as I moved forward.

My main influence was Sleeping Beauty. Or at least my memory of it…which was basically just the Disney movie. The graphic art direction and sparse storytelling of its time gives it a specific uncanny feeling that I have a hard time coming by in animated features nowadays. I pulled together an outline with a prince and princess, a sleeping curse, and a fairy godmother-like figure disguised as a witch, but it was still lacking. In the interest of being an artist who does “research”, I consumed a few more Sleeping Beauty tellings and re-tellings (musicals, ballets, those horny anne rice books…) None of these sparked me as much as the cartoon. Kind of funny, but not that surprising. I did look at a bunch of other stuff that I found interesting in one way or another, though— maybe I’ll put together a proper influence list sometime…

Ultimately, it was the addition of the two “love interests” (in quotes, because One-Heart isn’t really…but the character functions like one) that pulled everything together. The final script gave me the impression that the book was going to be longer than my previous works— it was. I still wanted to draw it in a relatively short time frame, though. I made a couple rules to regiment my workflow: no bleed, one tone, lots of sparse black and white space, no “fun” devices like chibis and superimposed characters and stuff like that. This meant there was way less to think about when it came to drawing. (Ironically, it might have resulted in a comic that comes off more artsy and considered.) I was stuck in bed a couple times throughout the year, so I’m grateful that I locked in these restrictions early. During the times I was recovering I thought a lot about the ways I used to work and live and the struggle of leaving those behind.

On a similar note, this is ultimately a story about discarding things in order to move forward. All the characters are clinging to some sort of hope or dream or promise. No matter how flexible or unyielding their personalities, they all have to relinquish these attachments in the end. I’ve heard a few theories about what the magic and characters and other things could be allegories for and I think they’re all cool. Seeing folks come to their own unique conclusions is really gratifying. I’m glad I was able to make the comic in a way that encouraged that. And I’m so grateful that people were willing to take a chance on it. Thank you for reading, as always!