I: Lover's Leap
Supper's Ready is divided into seven sections. The first of these begins in medias res with a lover returning home after being "so far from here." This return is mirrored by the return at the end of the song, giving the entire piece a cyclical feeling of déjà vu, drawing a parallel between a physical and spiritual journey home. For convenience I'll refer to the lovers as the Point of View (POV), as they stand in for the audience and ground us throughout the song's surreal arc.
The opening lines reference a television being turned off, clearly setting the song's story in the present day. Though the song occupies modern times, a temporal fluidity grows throughout, germinating in here as odd juxtapositions that don't "feel quite right." I chose to capture this uncertainty with a color palette reminiscent of noir, drenched in blue and violet.
The first of these is the apparent change in his partner's appearance, which gets dismissed as an illusion of the scene's lighting.
In having the POV turn on a light, the hues of blue and purple that dominate the night are washed away in the black, grays, and white of reality, or at least our perception of it. It's meant to be a calming gesture, but it just serves to further perplex the POV as the song continues and strange events continue to happen despite the light.
The look of the POV is influenced by a variety of sources. The male is mainly based off the appearance of Peter Gabriel, which serves a purpose as the comic progresses. He is dressed in black akin to what Gabriel would wear during live performances when he wasn't in costume, though the POV's hair is styled after how Gabriel would wear it during his solo career (as the shaved scalp with long hair thing he had during the early 70s would just be too distracting).
The female is not based on anyone in particular, but is more an amalgamation of various women I've known. Even though I'm trying to tell a faithful narrative through my illustrations, this project is still a very personally driven piece, and as such certain elements are drawn from my life and experiences.
Color is to play an important role in the comic, and for the rest of this section a contrast emerges between the grayscale world of the POV and the colored world outside. The seven figures on the lawn are surrounded by color, yet themselves are gray-toned. Their presence is based on an event that Gabriel claims happened to him in real life, so I chose to illustrate it as described. The POV's confusion and inability (or desire) to provide an explanation for the increasingly strange events they witness creates a surreal mood, as if on the cusp of falling asleep. Reality and imagination slip past each other, occasionally clashing.
The supper, like the POV's eyes in certain shots, is rendered in color to emphasize its significance within the narrative of the song. Its sudden appearance feels appropriate (as if the male was lost in thought peering out the window), but also bears the same undertone that the end of the night (and the apparent end of his journey) won't bring about the dawn of a new day (at least just yet).
Interlude
Supper's Ready has several transitionary instrumental breaks between its clearly defined sections, which I've marked as "interludes." In the first one, I transport the viewer from the home of the POV to the town in which the second section takes place. The sunrise rendered here is meant to recall the soothing chords of "Horizons," the short instrumental song that precedes Supper's Ready on Side B of Foxtrot. But while it seems the strange episodes are over with the new day, they've only just begun...
With the sunrise, the color of the outside world is lost as we enter into the forest. This change signifies the fact that the dream-like quality of the night has not dispersed, but rather it has extended to encompass the entire visible world. It plays off the old adage that people dream in black and white, and will dominate the next 3 sections.
In this interlude, the narrative shifts its focus to a new cast; 11 hounds and 4 horsemen eventually revealed to be on a fox hunt. This is inspired by the cover of Foxtrot and just as other figures that will be introduced later in the comic, this hunting party will accumulate deeper symbolism as the story progresses. Forming these connections and layers of meaning is meant to recall the protean nature of dreams, in which figures and places constantly gain and shed symbolism, morphing from one identity to the next as conscious thoughts are translated into the subconscious.
The fox seeks shelter by exiting the forest - its natural habitat - and brings us to a town dominated by two personalities. This first image gives evidence of the reach of one of these figures, with a large church that bears an odd emblem above its threshold.
Rather than go towards the looming building, the fox instead finds companionship with the other personality; a benevolent Farmer. I draw a connection between the Farmer and Willow Farm (the song's 5th section), expressing this relationship as a field covered in both budding plants and crumbling tombstones. Life and death are natural parts of the same cycle, and the Farmer has found his place sowing its field and reaping its harvest with love and care. This cycle is precious to him, so much so that he understands that, as a mortal, he too will play his part in all of it.
