Then said the young man: "Nevertheless, I do not fear to try; I shall win through and see the lovely Rosamond." The good old man tried to dissuade him, but he would not listen to his words. For now the hundred years were at an end, and the day had come when Rosamond should be awakened.

Hi! I'm Levi Nunnink cartoonist and author of this new webcomic. I'm a husband and dad from California who currently lives in Tennessee.

Open Your Eyes is a fairy story for young adults pulling inspiration from C.S. Lewis, Hayao Miyazaki, and Gene Wolfe. Aesthetically and artistically I'm in debt to the indie zines from the 90s where I discovered the works of fantastic artists like Paul Pope and Jeff Smith. I also owe a great debt to the masters who appeared in newsprint every day: Captain Easy & Wash Tubbs by Roy Crane, Terry and the Pirates by Milt Caniff, and Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson.

This story is a loose retelling of The Sleeping Beauty. It's a fairy tale that's been kicking around for almost one thousand years but I recently became fascinated with it.

In the original fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty, as retold by the Brothers Grimm, after a century, the prince appears to wake the princess.

Viewing the story through the eyes of this prince became more compelling the more I thought about it. I imagined what it would be like to stumble into a fairy tale, media res, without context. How would I rationalize a kingdom under a curse? Would I try to reform it? Would I propose scientific remedies, pumping the sleepers full of stimulants? Would I give up the whole endavour as lost and leave in frustration? Certainly it would not appear that a sleeping girl was at the root of the crisis that she had to wake up if anything were to change.

Either way, it seemed that inevitably I would have to make a decision to accept the curse as status quo, "just the way the world works", or I would have to start the difficult job of looking for beauty and waking her up.

When I was fourteen years old (Able’s age) I lived in The Hotel Europa for one month, a labyrinthine building with endless halls, rooms, and doorways that followed no logical pattern. I remember one room that was decorated in nautical theme, with paintings of ships and harbors on the wall. The windows were even round with borders like a compass. We quickly discovered that you could pull out panels in the hallways to make walls appear where once a hall had been. We employed these panels to great effect. The halls were so narrow that you could brace your back against one wall and plant your feet on the opposite and shimmy up so that your head touched the roof. I remember entering a hallway and looking up to see a friend staring down at me between his legs. The Hotel Europa is now gone but it seemed a perfect setting for this story.

A few random notes:

The story is written with about 1/3 thumbnailed. I expect it should be finished in about one year.
This is a comic for young adults. The content should be about a PG-13 rating. I’ll post one or two pages each week (Tuesday and Thursdays) until the story is done.
In the introduction the narrator sings lines from The Future, by Leonard Cohen.

I hope you’ll follow along with Able’s adventure in the Hotel Europa.

Levi Nunnink

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Tue Aug 13 2024