{"id":680,"date":"2025-06-25T03:26:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T03:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/?p=680"},"modified":"2025-06-26T04:15:41","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T04:15:41","slug":"proteus-prototype","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/25\/proteus-prototype\/","title":{"rendered":"Proteus Prototype"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Tonight I did a few quick sketches for the prologue to my webcomic, based on Aeschylus\u2019s lost comedy, Proteus<\/span>*. I drew these from memory, so they don\u2019t exactly match the performers I\u2019m basing them on, but I mainly just wanted to see if I could capture the spirit of the characters, first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting at the upper left is Menelaus, based on Bruce Campbell. I drew just enough to convince myself I could get the basic elements of his appearance. He has the biggest role, and despite the broad comedy, his actions are fairly nuanced, so I\u2019ll have to work on those in context. To his left is the satyr character from Disney\u2019s Hercules<\/span>, sort of based on Danny Devito.
Below at left is Helen of Troy, and it took me a number of tries to capture the effect I wanted: a comedic blend of hautiness, indignity, & sorrow. You can also see she\u2019s sprouted wings, as she is the daughter of Zeus as a swan. She\u2019s based on one of my favorite Hercules: the Legendary Journeys<\/span> guest-stars, Lisa Chappell, who appears in a lot of the show\u2019s screwball comedies. To her left is the title character, Proteus, half man half fish, the Greek god of change. He\u2019s based on Michael Hurst, who also played a half man half fish on Hercules<\/span> (among many other roles). At his left is his mischievous daughter, Dorothea, based on Xena<\/span> guest star Sheeri Rappaport, who played Otere of the Northern Amazons. Sheeri had mentioned during her Xena<\/span> convention appearance that she wished her schedule had permitted her to appear on Bruce\u2019s show, Jack of All Trades<\/span>. I think that could\u2019ve been awesome to see her play opposite Bruce, and since my version of Proteus<\/span> is very similar to that show, I thought I\u2019d do some wishcasting and include her here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This short webcomic is maybe five pages long, so a good chance to practice before I get started on the main event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*In case you’re wondering: even though Aeschylus’s comedy is lost (except for a single line of dialogue), scholars can get a fair idea of the plot if they combine the story from Homer’s Iliad with known comedic tropes used by ancient Greek playwrights. I Xena-fied those tropes to adapt them to this show, and added a few more elements to help this story foreshadow the main webcomic. Key moments of my webcomic drew from this story for inspiration, just as Xena<\/span>‘s episodes often borrowed from Greek myths, plays, and epics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tonight I did a few quick sketches for the prologue to my webcomic, based on Aeschylus\u2019s lost comedy, Proteus*. I drew these from memory, so they don\u2019t exactly match the performers I\u2019m basing them on, but I mainly just wanted to see if I could capture the spirit of the characters, first. Starting at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comics","category-xena"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":689,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680\/revisions\/689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}