Murder in the Maze Part V: The Legend of The Maze Part I

I'm going to ask for a final indulgence from you for this last of bit of maze history.  I thought initially that the following would be one post,  but I forgot that the Legend was so long...four parts in fact.  What follows is a good bit of text and I apologize for it's quality, but I intentionally did not edit it as I wanted it to appear as it did on the maze website.  Please forgive my poor writing, but I do hope you enjoy the story.

At the time I wrote this it seemed like Christmas got a new story attached to it every year, but Halloween was greatly neglected.  I was always fond of the legend of Sleepy Hollow growing up and I will be the first to admit the many elements stolen from that classic tale.  Our goal for throwing all of the Halloween parties in the first place and building the maze was to celebrate the holiday we'd loved so dearly as children, that night of magic and pageantry, the wall thinned world of spirits and legends: All Hallow's Eve.  I wanted the legend to have strange rural legend quality and that creepy edge of dark magic.  Of course it is set on Halloween, of course there is a murder, it is after all...

THE LEGEND OF THE MAZE

PART ONE: THE FESTIVAL AND THE STRANGER

Many Seasons past...

 

In a distant valley, there was a quiet village known as Valleydown.

Each year the townsfolk held a Harvest celebration.

Rivaled by none, all of the people from the neighboring towns attended.

The bonfire they raised each night could be seen from miles away,

and their revelry could be heard echoing off the mountainsides

late into the night.

 

One year, a stranger came to Valleydown.

He observed the festivities tentatively,

But refrained from participating in the merrymaking.

His furtive glances and moody air inspired suspicion in the Townsfolk,

but as the day progressed, a young maiden, Jessica, took a fancy to the stranger.

She decided then that he would be her partner in the evenings dance,

And set about a plan to coax him into obliging.

 

She came to him with a sparkling ale and offered to sit with him...

He was reluctant at first, but her insistent entreaties

and her fiery hair soon got the better of him.

"My name is Jack," he said shyly.

"This is your first time at the festival?" she smiled and sat closer to him.

"Yes, Its all very...Lively."

He took a drink of the Ale and looked away nervously.

"It's almost sunset.  There'll be a dance at the bonfire soon.

That's where I'm going, would you like to join me?"

The drink was very heady and made his face feel warm.

"Perhaps."  He turned towards her,

caught suddenly by the green of her large eyes.

"I hope I can find a partner for the revels.

Perhaps some handsome gentleman will ask me to dance..."

She smiled and looked away coyly.

"Perhaps..." He smiled, and took another drink.

By the time his glass was finished,

he was following her to the Bonfire.

 

Jessica, however, was not without a suitor.

Thom, the stout young farmer to whom she was betrothed,

did not take kindly to Jack's unknowing intrusion.

To Be Continued...

The two pieces of art presented here are some more headers from the previously mentioned Maze website: nexuscentral.net.

{created in Photoshop}

More Maze History and Art:

Murder in the Maze Part I: The Maze

The next few posts  are going to require a little more explanation than normal.  The artwork itself isn't much different from the regular stuff, but the cause for it is.

In 1998-2002 my group of friends threw a series of Halloween parties that were HUGE.  They started out small with just our regular group of friends involved, but by 2001 they had exploded into an uncontrolled tornado of people.  The parties continued well beyond 2002, but that was the end of my involvement with them.

For each party we built a black plastic maze in my friends backyard.  We used black gardening plastic, PVC piping, staples, string, duct tape, nails, 4x4 posts, and anything else we use to keep the construction together.  The Maze was entirely enclosed so that once you stepped inside it was utterly completely dark.  You literally could not see your hand in front of your face once night fell.  You had to move slowly through it lest you slam into anyone else inside or some of the post supports.  It made us all feel like we were young again, playing hide-and-seek in the dark.

The amusing part was that the reason for all this darkness and construction was so that we could play a party game: Murder in the Dark.  We changed the name to Murder in the Maze, because that is where we played it.  It was like Hide and seek and Freeze tag all rolled into one.  We had a great time running around in the darkness.  I'll go into the mechanics of Murder in the Maze in my next post.

These two pieces of art were going to be part of a deck of cards I was creating for Murder in the Maze.  These were two of the victim cards.  My plan was to do a portrait of each of our friends as the murdered victims in the game.  These two are of myself and my friend Don.  My goal was to take flip the images and combine them in Photoshop to create something similar to the face cards of a regular deck of cards.  This deck never happened, but I got several good drawings out of the effort.

{Graphite on paper - scanned and manipulated in Photoshop}

More Maze History and Art:

From the Archives: Three Character Sketches

These three sketches were from a short comic book story I was working on with a guy in California whose name escapes me.  Things didn't really work out, but the drawings had been done.  Figured I would share these.  Set in LA, the story was a Noir type slasher flick involving a serial killer.  Looking at these now, I just realized some strange parallels involving a story I am currently working on with another writer.  Two of the characters look very similar.  Didn't notice that until just now.  hmph.  The stories, however, are very different.  I will post some of that when I am further along.

{Sharpie}

Entryway

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."


ENTRYWAY.
{Digital photo manipulated in Adobe Photoshop.}

Death in the Mountains: Color

The Color version of the previous piece. 

{Created from several digital files manipulated in Photoshop}

Death in the Mountains: Black and White

Something about Ice and Death...mmmmm....

{Created from several digital images manipulated in Photoshop}