sketchbook: the sign of the four 3
A few upcoming appearances!
If you’re in Los Angeles, Nate and I will be tabling at this mini convention on July 30. I’ll have all my books as well as my minicomic HOW THE BEST HUNTER MET HER DEATH (rare!):
And TOMORROW, I’m on a virtual panel with Books of Wonder about queer YA graphic novels:
And here’s more from the SIGN OF THE FOUR…
None of the above comic is canon, of course; just my own attempt to find a story in the canon about being a working-class lesbian, a gay man whose adoration has placed his lover in danger, and a lavender marriage between two people who need it.
Next week’s update is the last in this arc!
These sketches with your visions/interpretations of the Holmes canon has prompted me to pick up the stories again. (I last read them back when the 19th century was still the previous century.) The racism, sexism, classism, and unexamined imperialism running through Doyle's work is far more jarring to me now than in my 20s, and your awareness of these issues in your presentation makes the stories much more enjoyable to me.
The collection I have presents them in order of publication, so it's surprising that The Sign of Four is only the second Holmes narrative, while the Milverton story comes much later, but Watson's unreliability as a narrator (a result, as you pointed out, of Doyle's carelessness as a writer) means that we can't rely on publication order to tell us anything definite about chronology. I had, for example, remembered that Watson's war wound shifted from shoulder to leg, but I hadn't realized that the shoulder injury was established right at the start of the very first story, only to contradicted right at the start of the second one published. :)
Do you think Doyle truly was sloppy, or was he deliberately contradicting himself for some reason?
Anyway, I continue to greatly enjoy these sketches and would definitely be willing to throw some money at you to make it easier to make more, should you desire it.
I love your version much better than the canon! Thank you for sharing it!