I skipped the title over the page, because it’s not really necessary the way the pages are presented here on ComicPress …<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
I recently discovered that the Google Maps street view is available for the UK, which means that I can do even better research about Willie’s home grounds in Newcastle.<\/p>\n
The neighbourhood where she lives was initially based on Hj\u00e4llbo<\/a> and Hammarkullen<\/a>, two northern suburbs of Gothenburg (estimated by some to be the 4th and 3rd “worst” neighbourhoods in Sweden – of course that’s not very bad at all on a global scale), where I lived for a while and where my aunt and my cousins lived up until just a short time ago. There are a few similar neighbourhoods in Newcastle and Gateshead.<\/p>\n Here is how I’ve drawn it in the comic so far: chapter 4<\/a>, chapter 6<\/a> and chapter 6<\/a> again. The way I’ve drawn the buildings isn’t very consistent, so I am quite free to draw it a bit differently again next time …<\/p>\n While I probably won’t base the area slavishly on an existing neighbourhood, it’s still nice to have a specific area in mind that I can then pervert however I like to make it fit the story.<\/p>\n At first I thought that Walker<\/a>, Newcastle, could be a suitable area. But if I should succumb to the urge to feature prominent landmarks of Newcastle and Gateshead, Walker is kind of far away from everything …<\/p>\n Across the river, in Gateshead, there are some nice social housing blocks too. There was once the lovely St Cuthbert’s Village<\/a> (two<\/a> historical photos<\/a>) in Bensham, Gateshead, featured in the film Get Carter<\/a> (1971). However, the lower flats were demolished<\/a> in 1994, which is a couple of years before 1998 when Driftwood takes place. Only the taller blocks remain since then, and I have always imagined Willie’s neighbourhood to consist of both lower and higher blocks of flats.<\/p>\n But … there are also the Chandless Flats<\/a> in Gateshead (historical photo 1<\/a>, photo 2<\/a>). They are located next to the Gateshead Highway, convenient for access to both the Tyne Bridge<\/a> and the Angel of the North<\/a>, which I might use in the comic …<\/p>\n I like the sound of “Gateshead” more than “Newcastle”, anyway, so maybe from now on Willie is from Gateshead. (Just have to remember to change it everywhere next time I print anything …)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I skipped the title over the page, because it’s not really necessary the way the pages are presented here on ComicPress … * * * I recently discovered that the Google Maps street view is available for the UK, which means that I can do even better research about Willie’s home grounds in Newcastle. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-driftwood-chapter-7","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.black-pig-comics.com\/driftwood\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.black-pig-comics.com\/driftwood\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.black-pig-comics.com\/driftwood\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.black-pig-comics.com\/driftwood\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.black-pig-comics.com\/driftwood\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.black-pig-comics.com\/driftwood\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2089,"href":"https:\/\/www.black-pig-comics.com\/driftwood\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794\/revisions\/2089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.black-pig-comics.com\/driftwood\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.black-pig-comics.com\/driftwood\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.black-pig-comics.com\/driftwood\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}