Embedded Files
I've been developing this story since 2010, wanting to turn it into a comic book series. A while ago I decided I have not the skill to make a comic book story by my own. Can't do it continuosly and everytime I stop because of work I end up starting all over again or just giving up. I'm thinking about continuing working on this in some sort of collaborative Creative Commons project, like having Illustrator/Writer groups working on different stories and illustration styles but set on the same universe and characters.
This is a collection of character cards. A tool I came out with that helps me with the storytelling. It consists of a 15X21 cm Bristol cardboard with the character's visual reference, and an area on the back where I point out all the specs, like personality notes, habits, and his relationships with other characters, etc... I had the chance to do an exhibit of these 30 characters a couple of years ago and sold half of the collection pretty cheap :) but I think I could take all of this to the next level and make some stuff people could actually read and enjoy.
Nuno Maldonado Tuna ©, May 17, 2017
In a forgotten town in Northern England, a British family struggles to survive in the harsh social turmoil of the eighties.
In a forgotten town in Northern England, a British family struggles to survive in the harsh social turmoil of the eighties.
"To understand the Hucktards and what lead to this particular point in time you need to go back more than a century.
It all started in the mid-19th century in northern England... Credence Clover suffered from a mental illness that made her slower than other women in the area, but not enough to considered her mentally ill.
She was the only daughter of Protestant Reformers and she widowed at about the same time as she married. Bartholomew — her husband — shared with her the conjugal bed until two months later when a fatal fever finally ended his life. Fate dictated that was long enough to impregnate her womb with what would become the first Hucktard in History.
For her sustenance and her offspring’s, he left thirty-three acres of arable land, livestock and fruit trees and a huge family house built by Fannypharts, Dorksett most considerate craftsmen.
Time passed by and, generation after generation, the Hucktard family built up their fortune, becoming widely known as hardworking and fair Christian businessmen.
Credence Clover died of very old age at the outset of WW2 and never saw what would become of the once flourishing Hucktard Manor.
Flash forward I
It was the 1960s and the world embraced the Age of Aquarius while Dorksett was only now turning into industrialisation. The lands didn’t spit a peanut since the War and the Hucktard’s fortune started vanishing at the speed of light. The situation could not be more dramatic and a practical solution became urgent.
To maintain some financial health, the family started selling land cheap as chips.
For two decades, Dorksett — and especially Fannypharts — produced components for analogic telephone switchboards (PBX) later sold nationwide and abroad. Yet, the rapid democratisation of modern electronics and the advent of integrated circuitry have rendered the industry obsolete.
In the following years, many companies closed doors and their factories left abandoned. Fannypharts transformed into a thirty-three-acre warehouse cemetery.
The Hucktards and their sumptuous Manor remained as a living testimony of more abundant days.
Flash forward II
The 80s. Thaddeus, Edwina and their two teenage offspring are the last Hucktards on the planet. Together they’ve worked on an ingenious plan to survive demographic desolation and financial drift.
By the mid-1980s, artists and tech-savvy businesses were looking for cheap properties to rent and buy, and both loved the patina of decadent industrial architectural archaeology.
In the run-up to the family economic recovery, Thaddeus decides to sell the family’s silverware to finance a complete remodelling of the Manor’s interiors. From now on it would accommodate seven small flats for rent and a catering unit.
The family home, transformed into a condominium, begins to receive the first tenants.
It’s on 12 of January of 1985 that this history begins ..."
NOTE: The character's backstories will be translated to English soon
010117 Thaddeus Hucktard
Thaddeus is the patriarch of the Hucktard family. He never worked a day in is life and after he sold the family's silverware - their last sellable item -, Felix, his son convinced him to dedicate his time growing "aromatic herbs" to sell them in Fannypharts local market.
Felix gave supplyed his father with the starting seeds and the business grew successfuly along with Thaddeus fame as the biggest "unknowingly dealer" of cannabis in the region.
He's married to Edwina and father, along with Felix, to Elspeth Hucktard.
020117 Edwina Hucktard (sold)
Edwina spends her day watching soap operas and morning shows while sipping earl grey and chocolate chip cookies. She always replays with unrelated TV facts every time she's questioned about something.
She gave birth to Felix and Elspeth after her forties and seems to be as useless as her husband, but she wakes up every day secretly, in the middle of the night to dedicate herself to the household management.
She also works as an X-files researcher for a British secret services division called MI-X.
030117 Felix Hucktard
Felix is the official Hucktard stories narrator.
He's 16, plays the bass in an Urban-depressive band and smokes joints everywhere, regardless of where or whom.
When he's not in a jam-session, performing at Café José or with his mate Jeff, he spends time with his "way out of his league" girlfriend Virginia.
040117 Elspeth Hucktard
Elspeth (Pet) is Hucktard's eldest offspring. She's a Gynecology student and has a high scholl dropout called Ron as a boyfriend.
Her room is decorated like if she was ten, she always carries a canteen with a Miffi design loaded with gin and everything depresses her, making her an extremely uninteresting woman.
Her biggest dream is for a prince charming to kidnap her and take her to live in a beautiful place with a ferris wheel and carousels, like Blackpool.
050117 Virginia Valle (sold)
Virginia dates Felix.
Daughter of a Dorksett's single father, she was raised to ascend socially no matter what.
She drives a Bristol 407 Zagato and wears the same fur coat all year, winter or summer. Just for show off.
She dates Felix in the hope of one day having access to the Hucktard fortune, which does not exist and no source of income is known to her.
060117 Ron Moore (sold)
Ronnie is the American boyfriend of Elspeth Hucktard.
He defected from the U.S. before the government started to enroll people for the Vietnam war and is now saving money to move to Scotland. Someone told him one can walk in skirts without being bullied, but he will wear anything weird, anyway.
He consumes every narcotic he puts a hand on but has a heart of gold.
Because of a police raid to Dorksett's Burger Shack® Ronnie crashed into a traffic light and lost one of his front teeth.
070117 Tess Bannanamon (sold)
It´s Fannypharts' newspaper.
She is the housemaid and janitor for the Hucktards since she became a widow. Her husband died on the last day of World War II, run over by the same train he jumped off of.
She lives in the basement of the Hucktard Mansion and she's usually seen talking to herself. Everyone avoids contact with her except for Edwina Hucktard.
080117 Bubu Blickensderfer
He lives with his "friend" Vigsai Singh in one of the apartments at Hucktard Manor and works as an interior decorator for a large architectural studio in London. It took him three years to decorate his boyfriend's "gourmet" grocery store.
He never removes his silver thread with the Swiss cross from around his neck and only wears turtlenecks and has them in all available colours, thin and thick.
090117 Vigsai Singh (sold)
321/5000
Vigsai owns a gourmet grocery store in the Dorksett shopping center.
"Usi" - as he's known for - is Sikh but everyone mistakes it for a Muslim because of the turban. He served in the military as special forces in the Sikh division of the Pakistani army.
He met Bubu on a trip to India, in a search for his place in the Universe.
100117 John Smith
How suspicious can this name be... He works as a cashier in Fannypharts' only bank branch.
Born in Memphis, Tennessee, John soon became a worldwide musical star, because of his sexy pelvic movements.
In a well known coastal area of the U.S., while showing off a triple jump into the water, he faked his death and hired a Chinese smuggler to get him out of the country.
While he was hiding in a shipping container, the smuggler got himself arrested and John ended up one month later at Workington port, England where he hitchhiked from a fruit van towards Fannypharts.
He's one of the tenants at Hucktard Manor.
110117 Nigel St. Paul
He's a greedy sales rep at a Morris' car dealership in Dorksett.
He steals new car parts and exchanges them for used ones to make an extra penny.
He's married to his wife Barbra but has a secret family which he visits every year in Denmark, with the excuse of having to go to the Morris international conventions.
120117 Barbra St. Paul
Barbra is married to Nigel and is pursuing a master's degree in psychology. She's been writing a thesis for the last ten years, under the theme "Procrastination".
She spends half of her time at Café José giving free consultations to the restaurant's customers.
130117 Lt. Col. Soffmore-Young
Is a S.A.S. retired officer whose life was turned into shambles by a damned bullet that shredded his femur and threw him "definitely" into a wheelchair much smaller than it should be.
He has PST (allegedly) and wakes up with nightmares about "Boches". He says that half of the "Polskies" and Frenchies" were damn sell outs.
He lives with Nurse, to whom he recounts endlessly about his heroic deeds.
Peeks his nose and stick the boogers under his chair seat. He is a tenant.
140117 Nurse
She treats Lt. Col. Soffmore-Young and has a love affair with José, the café owner.
She comes and goes silently always with an empty expression, like if she was permanently hypnotized.
The only clothes she wears are a white coat and a stethoscope around her neck.
She can lift weights three or four times heavier than herself.
150117 The Monk (sold)
He lives in the farthest apartment from Hucktard Manor's exit and is its first tenant. He's been living there for so long that everyone barely remembers him or his lease agreement.
He never leaves the apartment, everything is delivered to his house and the only glimpse of him is his hand lit by a lantern as it comes out of the door to get stuff.
He has a tattoo with a weird and mysterious symbol.
160117 The Triplets (sold)
The Triplets hid in Hucktard Manor's basement to run away from the London V2 bombings. Somehow they've kept unnoticed until Thaddeus found them 15 years later.
They always carry plastic supermarket bags with unknown stuff and complete each other sentences in verse.
One smokes a pipe, other cigars and the last one cigarillos.
They all date Tess Bannanamon.
170117 The 1st King (sold)
It is the ghost of Henry the first of Portugal but in dwarf version.
Because it manifests itself in a backward village in England in the eighties, historical innacuracy is .
It appears in the most varied situations, but always after the Mayan-night, as the rules say and shouts imperceptible phrases for giving that straw.
He palpates every agent on the tail as he screams and runs away. Its base of operations is Hucktard's only unfinished apartment.
180117 Anwen (sold)
It is the apparition of an empty looking motionless girl child, with a knife hidden behind her back.
When tenants cross with her on the corner of the corridor or on a dark landing on the stairs, they always get a scare but think she's the daughter of the St Johns and tell her that knives should not be played with.
She's basically a prop but might become useful for the sake of the story.
190117 Hi (sold)
One day, a flying saucer crashed in Hucktard Manor's backyard and "Hi" was the only survivor. He was immediately adopted by the Hucktards who immediately fell into his irresistible look.
It is assumed that it is a pet, due to habits similar to that of a domestic dog. It segregates a stinky green goo through the hair of the ventral area and has two eyes - one at the front and one at the back.
It is absolutely useless because it doesn't have X-ray vision.
200117 Burning Bush (sold)
No one knows when or who moved him to the front door of the Hucktard Manor, but it's always on fire without being consumed and threatens with biblical punishments and moral advice all those who pass by with a deep and very theatrical voice.
210117 Jose Silva (sold)
He owns Café José, the small restaurant located in the only storefront of the Hucktard Manor.
Back in Portugal, José was set up by his wife's lover of being a communist so he had to run away. He repeatedly reminisces the time he fled to Spain to escape the violence of the dictatorship and ended up fighting in the Spanish civil war.
He still hasn't figured out whether he's dating the Lt. Col.'s Nurse or not because she never said yes. Probably because she doesn't speak.
He's always making marks on whiskey bottles because everyone might be stealing him.
220117 Amelia
She moved to the UK with her parents but soon became emancipated.
She's the only Cafe Jose's employee who keeps the place in order.
She doubles as a waiter and barista. We've been told she makes a hell of a chicken peri-peri.
Everyone thinks she's a lesbian because of her “tom-boy” attitude but she's been shagging Ashley, her "coffee" buddy, for a year.
She drinks like an Irishman and drives a Piaggio like an Italian.
230117 Atik Rah
Born in Kenya, Atik moved to London still a toddler with his single mom, but the city life was not ideal and so they ended up in Dorksett.
He is a musician by heart and works as a delivery boy at Café José to help him pay for the Conservatory.
He rides his skateboard making deliveries and paints idyllic graffiti landscapes along the way.
He's secretly in love with Barbra St John, so he never charges her for coffee.
240117 Michiko
After a long Interrail, Michiko decided to settle in the last train stop she was able to go.
Teaches Aikido at a dojo in Dorksett and shares the first floor of an abandoned warehouse in Fannypharts with Ashley and Edie.
She jumps anything that moves and walk on two legs. She often scores Ashley and Edie because they're right there.
She learned Aikido from an early age, to control her anger issues but that only made her "more effective" in "resolving conflicts".
250117 Rob
He is the handy-man of the block and does all kinds of repairs, especially at Café José.
He's Welsh, so he always sleeps and showers with his cap on (because nobody knows when one might need it). His Cap smells like a horse's butt, but his nose became senseless to it.
He drives a Piaggio Ape, a small lorry or something ridiculously small.
260117 Ashley (sold)
She shares the first floor of an abandoned warehouse in Fannypharts with Michiko and Edie.
From time to time he gets involved with Michiko or Amelia.
He works at a sausage factory in Fannypharts. Probably the last industry still in operation.
He always carries three or four sausages falling out of the back pockets of his pants. He says someone might feel a bit peckish.
270117 Edie Wong (sold)
Shares the first floor of an abandoned warehouse in Fannypharts with Michiko and Ashley. Once in a while, she gets involved with Michiko.
She earns her living by palm reading to the inhabitants of Fannypharts but no one ever gets to know their future because Edie only speaks Chinese.
280117 Bobby (sold)
No Story is complete without a stereotyped policeman and this is the only reason we also have one.
British Police's shortest bobby, wanders Fannypharts' streets 24 hours a day, swinging his baton and helmet tucked up to your nose.
When anyone tries to speak with him, he always grunts his replies but always with the appropriate tone to the situation.
Because there's no constabulary in Fannypharts, he goes door to door charging people for his service.
He has no notion of the value of money, everyone gives him a pound exchanged in pennies, inside a bag of burlap. Just for the kicks.
290117 Cricket (sold)
He's an insect, but it is neither a fly nor a mosquito. He's the size of a walnut, hairy and has a snout that he uses to insert in people's ears and whisper perverse thoughts to the unaware.
The Manor was built in the middle of the 19th century by Bartholomew Thard, Thaddeus' ancestor to house his future family, but died before seeing his son born.
Hucktard Manor was part of a vast estate owned by the family and guaranteed the survival of many Hucktard generations and it was squandered by Thaddeus during the 1940s.
Only in the 1980s, the original building was remodelled to accommodate the Hucktards, a janitor, five tenents and a restaurant.
There's a sixth unfinished apartment inhabited by the ghost of Henry the first of Portugal.
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