CHARACTER SPOTLIGHT: THE PIPER BOY

 

In an earlier post, I described where the designs of many of the characters in Visitations came from. One that was left out was a young boy with a flute. The story of his creation is an interesting one.

The design of the character came from a monument in Graceland Cemetery in Chicago. Unlike most of the sculptured monuments in the graveyard, this one was fairly recent- created in 2007. The idea of a boy playing a flute seemed too iconic to pass up.

After issue one, I decided that each individual character would get a single issue to his or her self, with the leader, Clayton Blackwood being in all of them. Because this monument was one of two with single children inhabiting Graceland Cemetery, I thought it would be an interesting idea to make the Piper Boy's antagonist be the other child - a monument of a little girl. Her story will be told in a later post.

I also wanted to put the young hero in a place where he wouldn't necessarily be at home. The logical choice in this case was to have him in a place where no child  should ever be. Although I had no stories written yet, I did have titles. I knew one issue would be focusing on Chicago's notorious red-light district known as the Levee and decided that would be the Piper Boy's story. I also wanted to cover his origin, part of which was suggested by Len Strazewski. Thus he became integrated into Chicago's most famous historical event The Great Fire of 1871.

What does the future hold for the Piper Boy? All I can say is this: not every character comes out of the first series, which takes place at the Turn Of The Century. The Piper Boy has not been seen in any of the flash forwards that have occurred from issue 3 on. Does he survive Visitations issue 12? Only time will tell...

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