This was the brief we had to work on at the same time as the reportage. Dr Syn is a book, and the story happens in the marshes on the south coast of England, in the 1800. It is the story of old pirates who, back in the rainy marsh, away from the south seas have had to turn to smuggling. The man who runs the operation is the vicar, who was also once the most violent pirate of the sea. This little village then, turns very violent when the 'police' (a 19th century version of it) appear. Many of the first drawings come from the trip we made to those marshes. I found that really interesting- being in the landscape where the story took place.
I chose to concentrate on the character Jerk- he is a little boy who has had to toughen up and behave like a much older boy because of growing up in this village. But sometimes he becomes the little boy again- frightened and vulnerable. Jerk is fascinated by the marsh, and when he is alone, he lies down in the grass and watches it's inhabitants: tribes of mosquitoes, a great rat, dragonflies....
Though I had ideas about making him out of eggshell- a very fragile material, I finally made him out of cloth, so he became a rag doll, which can also work.
I was also interested in the spices and materials pirates would have found in their 'travels'. Part of me really wanted to illustrate those sunny islands, those seas full of mermaids and dragons and pirates.
Instead I chose to attach those materials to Jerk- so he became some sort of medicine man like in The english patient- the man who carries all those tiny multi-coloured bottles.
I watched Kaspar Hauser, because I became interested in wild children- enfant sauvage, who are at once tougher than other humans because of the way they have grown up, and more innocent (they have grown up away from other humans, and they are children). I thought there were parallels with Jerk.
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