This is the final confrontation between the optimistic and rejuvenated architect and the worn out, depressed developer. They are having a meeting in the the developer's office. The developer tells the architect that he has won, and that he will receive full credit for his architectural masterpiece. Apparently, much legal scuffling has gone on through the movie- the main crux being who will receive credit for the archetectural masterpiece- the architect (an artist in a true sense, apparently) or the beauracratic development company (to put it simplistically). The developer says to the architect that this building will be the final great accomplishment of mankind, and from here on out it is all downhill. The architect says something to the effect of "I'm sorry you feel that way, but I believe mankind is just getting started and will always accomplish great feats." They then cordially depart.

The next shot is a camera angle-shot of the gun firing at the camera/developer. The final shot, as contrast, is of the architect atop a glorious building, meeting with his beuatiful wife standing proudly in the sunset.

I can't say if this is a happy ending or a sad ending. I mean- a guy committed suicide and the only thing we see afterward is the architect standing next to his wife proudly atop his masterful creation, having gotten to the top of the building by a glass elevator btw. It's all very confusing.

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From my brother, comes this:

The architect is a passive observer. He has a bookcase full of journals that he keeps notes in. The journals aren't organized chronologically. He selects a different one every day & begins writing on whatever page he'd left off on the last time he'd used the book. He quit his full time architect job a year ago, but picks up a freelance gig occasionally.

He has a sidekick, the postman. The postman looks just like Joseph Roulin, the Arles postman who's the subject of a famous Van Gogh portrait. He plays second fiddle in the architect/mailman partnership, though outside this relationship he usually has an aggressive, passionate personality. He has a weakness that makes him shut everything else out, playing chess. He sits in a coffee shop for hours playing, though he's not very good.

sooo... it's "high-concept."

Formal constraints on the comic form can be used to create a strip, but no single set of constraints will be enforced. Potential constraints include: Struat, 32 page color pamphlets, 24 page black & white pamphlets, McCloudian Carl strips, and prose.

Points of reference (to serve as inspiration):

* David Byrne's True Stories

* Miguel De Cervante's Don Quixote

> * Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study In Scarlet (Doyle's other Sherlock Holmes work was quite a departure from the first novel. Consider: Halfway through the book Doyle abandons Holmes, Watson's first-person narrative, & the Victorian London setting in favor of a third-person narrative about the Mormons & frontier Utah. Watson's first-person narrative doesn't pick up again until the three page epilogue.)

* Peter Kuper's Eye of the Beholder

* Roy Lichtenstein's versions of Monet's cathedral paintings

* Georges Perec's Species of Spaces

* Daniel Pinkwater's Young Adults

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copyright 2002 jhowards

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