Ashling Larkin

Estrela d’Oeste is a reflection on the Brazilian culture and heritage that my mum shared with me, as well as our shared experiences that both fractured and healed our relationship. It is about connecting and reconnecting with family, even beyond their lifespan, and better understanding my mum in my adulthood despite her passing.

Full page count: 40 pages

Gallery transcript

Gallery 1–1: A vertical image of the cover of Ashling’s dissertation comic, “Estrela d’Oeste”. The title is drawn in a handwritten font and is olive green in colour. Surrounding it are 27 small white stars. Below the text, to the right, is a worms-eye view of a tall yellow church with a cluster of palm trees to the left. Behind them is the shape of a mountain. Between the trees, the church, and just above the mountain, is a red Macaw flying.

Gallery 1-2: A two-page spread from “Estrela d’Oeste”. The layouts featuring four panels mirror each other; panel one shows Ashling as a child helping her grandma peel beans, with the caption “I remember sitting with my Grandma, Vovó Ny, at the dining table, peeling feijao for dinner”; panel two shows a turtle being fed a slice of watermelon while a big, joyful eye watches, captioned, “Feeding my cousin’s pet turtle pieces of watermelon, watching it slowly navigate its small indoor jungle”; panel three shows two marmosets on a tree branch, captioned, “Looking up at the palm trees in the garden, seeing marmosets watching back cautiously”; panel four shows a young Ashling happily sipping sugar cane juice, captioned, “Drinking sugar cane juice and eating Pastel at the weekly street markets”; on the next page, panel five shows two brunette kids holding plastic grocery bags in one hand with ice pops in the other, captioned, “Taking long walks through the town in flip flops, while eating grape and melon flavoured ice pops”; panel six shows a family of five Capybara, and panel seven shows a toucan, a parakeet, and a Macaw, with the caption across both panels, “Trips to local parks and reservations to see Capybara, Toucans, Parakeets, sometimes even wild Macaws”; panel eight shows a young Ashling sitting in the back seat of a car gazing out of the window at night, huddled with pillows and jackets for comfort, captioned, “The day-long drives between towns and states to visit family”.

Gallery 1-3: A two-page spread from “Estrela d’Oeste”. The layouts mirror each other, with both pages having a headstone-shaped panel in the centre with long panels by its sides and a rectangular panel at the bottom. The first page shows Ashling with short, bright orange hair, looking dejected; the long panels at the sides contain white lilies, and the rectangular panel below shows screenshots of google translate, translating medical terms from English into Portuguese. The captions read, “After mum passed away, I was at a loss with myself. She was always so good at keeping in touch with people. When she was sick, it was up to me to keep her friends and our family in Brazil updated on how she was doing. It was overwhelming.”; the centre panel in the second page shows Ashling again, in the present, with long brown hair holding a yellow gel pen in one hand and its lid in the other, with a small Brazilian flag sticking out of it. The pen and its lid are also above this panel, separately. The long panels to the side of the centre headstone-shaped panel also contain white lilies, but here they have burst through the confinements of the panels. The bottom panel shows a zoom-in on Ashling’s face, as she is about to put the lid on the gel pen. The captions read, “I was scared that her death meant I could no longer call myself Brazilian. My family is so far away, and communication can be challenging. I would have to try a thousand times harder, and it was already so difficult."

Gallery 1-4: A two-page spread from “Estrela d’Oeste”. The pages are made up of several hand-drawn photos laid out as a collage. The photos feature Ashling’s ancestors and are made up of wedding photos, wedding anniversaries, birthdays and family gatherings. A notable photo is a picture of her mother as a child standing with some of her cousins and her sister, with her grandparents outside of a church in the middle of what looks like a desert. In the centre of the spread is a ball with Ipe-Amarelos bursting out, followed by a gold ring, then a layer of small clovers, separated by another ring, followed by a layer of white lilies, with another gold ring enclosing it. Swirls emerge from the circle, intertwining with the various photos connecting them together. In each corner of the spread are Ashling’s hands, in four total poses, holding some of the photos. The captions read, “Mum took hundreds of photos – Maybe even thousands. When I received one of the boxes of her photo albums, there were collections of pictures I’d never even seen before. In a tattered box, I discovered near-perfectly preserved photos of my great-grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary from 1974. In one of the albums were photos from my Grandparents wedding. Another album held photos of my mum, her siblings, and some of their cousins as children. My great grandparents were there again in two of the photos, a little younger. I even found photos of my great-great grandfather.”

From Old Irish oenarán (masc.), a diminutive of oenar (masc.) (“a single individual, one alone”); synchronically aonar (“one, lone person”) + -án.

Noun

1. single, solitary person
2. hermit, loner, recluse

Full page count: 20 pages

Gallery transcript

Gallery 2-1: A vertical comic page from “Aonarán” with two panels. The first panel shows a lone wanderer walking along a mountain path at sunrise. As the purple skies melt into orange and yellow behind them, in the brushes to their sides are some blue, badly-decomposed zombies. The second panel zooms into the scene; the wanderer is wearing a motorcycle helmet, a bomber jacket slightly too large for them, and gloves on their hands. One hand holds a long stick with a pointy end and the other holds a bouquet of pink flowers. The zombies to their sides appear to be stuck, and appear to have fused together. The caption in the second panel reads, “...I’m tired.”

Gallery 2-2: A vertical comic page from “Aonarán” with five to six panels. The first panel shows the wanderer making their way towards a dilapidated house with a tree growing out of it. Along the path is another zombie, crawling on the ground. As the wanderer comes closer to the house, they nudge the zombies head away using the blunt end of their stick. As they approach the house ruins, they look up at it; a closer look reveals old items of clothing, jewellery, childrens toys, all wrapped up in the trees branches. In the final panel the wanderer continues their journey past the house into another field. The captions, flowing across the page with the wanderer, read, “I’ve been so, so tired. I don’t bother counting the days, any more. It’s just… too… difficult. It’s always the same. How long has it even been?”

Gallery 2-3: A vertical comic page from “Aonarán” with eight panels. Three panels at the top of the page show the sky turning from pink, to yellow, to daytime blue. The wanderer looks out across the abandoned car park of an even more abandoned hospital, which also has trees growing out of its roof. In the second panel the wanderer is inside the hospital walking up a set of stairs; the halls are messy with foliage growing from every direction, but the room is bright, lit by the sun through the huge break in the roof. The wanderer comes across a room where a heavily-decayed blue zombie lays in a hospital bed, almost smothered in once-pink, dead and dying flowers. The wanderer places their bouquet of fresh pink flowers atop of the zombie, which looks up at them.

Gallery 2-4: A vertical comic page from “Aonarán” with scenes of characters collaged together. At the top left of the page is a woman resembling the zombie from the previous page, full of life and joy as she is handed her newborn baby, cradling it and kissing its head. Two hands holding each other separate the page. The series of characters are as follows – a couple kissing on their wedding day; another couple embracing each other and laughing; another couple holding each others faces, although their hands are speckled with blue; An elderly blue hand speckled with a peach tone, being caressed by an adults hand speckled with blue, being caressed by a childs hand, with only specks of blue; Three children huddles together, posing and smiling – however the middle child is clearly unwell with blue speckles all over his face and one eye appearing to be blinded by it. The middle childs hands are touching the back of the other two childrens necks as they all pose together; lastly, a woman whose body is almost completely blue – her hair is white and falling out, and her body is decomposing while she still appears to be alive, missing the end of her pinky finger and her arms exposing parts of bone. The captions, flowing across the page, read, “They never bit anyone. Never hurt anyone. Never violent. That made it easy to let their guards down, I suppose. Made it easy to spread, too.”

A short two-page comic, drawn using a script provided by the Beano using my own stylistic interpretations of the characters and world inspired by manga art styles from “Searching For The Full Moon”, and “Yotsuba&!”.

Gallery transcript

Gallery 3-1: Page one of “Minnie the Minx” as drawn by Ashling, made up of nine panels. Panel one – Minnie and her dad are walking up a hill; Minnie’s dad is excited to stargaze, saying “Here we are, the perfect spot!”, but Minnie is not so enthused, replying “The perfect spot was on a beanbag, in front of the TV, with a big bowl of crisps… Like I had before you dragged me up HERE!”. Panel two zooms into Minnie’s dad’s face, showing his eyes sparkle as he says, “C’mon Minnie! A bit of star gazing will be fun!”. Panel three has an even closer shot of Minnie’s face, taking up the whole space, saying, “Really?”. Panel four: Minnie and her dad look up at the stars. Her dad says, “Tsk! Aren’t you fascinated by the mysteries of space? Don’t you feel small and humbled by all the stars out there?”; Minnie replies, “I dunno, they’re probably looking down here being amazed by this superstar!”. In panel five, Minnie’s dad has set up his telescope and beckons Minnie to stargaze – “Come and have a look through here!” - and Minnie unenthusiastically replies, “Fiiiiiiine…”. She goes to the telescope but claims, “Hmmm, let me see… well, yes… I can see, er… It’s no use! I can’t see a thing!”; however in the next panel she has a cheeky look on her face. Her dad goes to look through the telescope himself, as black liquid appears to squelch out from the viewer unbeknownst to him. He says, “Let me have a look!”, before turning to Minnie with a big inky splotch around his eye, saying “Waht are you talking about? It’s working fine! ...what are you laughing at?”. Minnie, below, is rolling around in laughter as some boot polish falls out of her arms and she laughs “That trick never gets old!”.

Gallery 3-2: Page two of “Minnie the Minx” as drawn by Ashling, made up of eleven panels. The page is captioned, “Later…”. As Minnie’s dad is wiping off the boot polish from his eye, Minnie dances about the telescope yelling, “Hey dad! I can see a whole galaxy, mars, AND the milky way!”. Her dad replies, “Wow!! Let me see!”, before Minnie turns around with chocolate on her face, chocolate wrappers bouncing away from her while she poses with ‘peace’ signs, joking, “I would show you, but I’ve eaten them already!”. Her dad is not amused. Frustrated, her looks through the telescope saying “It’s time to do this properly! Let me have a look…”. The next panel zooms into his shocked face as he reacts to an illuminated other-worldly creature, yelling “Huh? Wh- What is that?!” before tripping up backwards exclaiming “ARRGH! Alien! They’ve arrived! They’ll fry my brain!!”. Minnie hoped out from behind the telescope holding a little spider on its string, saying “Relax, dad, you just spied a spider!”. As her dad rolls away down the hill, Minnie jokes, “Huh, that went downhill fast! - Hey, dad! At least you’re seeing plenty of STARS now!”, as the spider in her hand laughs along with her. The next caption says “So…”, and as time has passed, Minnie’s dad frustratingly puts his telescope away as Minnie stands proudly and absent-mindedly while her dad complains, “Come on, we’re going home! We’re not going to see anything anyway!”. The two turn away, Minnie with her hands behind her back saying “Yeah… You’re probably right!” and her dad looks dejected as he carries the telescope on his back. In the background, you can indeed see the milky way, along with some shooting stars and a UFO.

A short five-page comic, drawn using a script provided by 2000AD using my own stylistic interpretation for the art inspired by Alphonse Mucha and J. C. Leyendecker.

Gallery transcript

Gallery 4-1: Page one of Sorrow Hill. In the 1700s, a wealthy-looking man staring up at a large house being constructed. The captions read, “Where do people go when they die? Damien Sutton knew. He’s made provisions. He wanted to be buried on the hill where he built his great house, in 1768. And he was, in 1770…”. The following panel shows a pair of elevated legs and a chair on the ground, with a circular window visible through the legs, with the caption “...After he’d hanged himself in the attic over Emily”. The next four panels are arranged in the same shape as the window, separated with a cross. The first panel in this layout shows a young child joyfully eating out of a case labelled “Rat poison”; The second shows a woman weeping with grief; the third shows the house’s windows exploding out from within, and the final panel shows the house burnt to a crisp. The captions read, “Emily, who went into the pantry in 1775 and found the rat poison. Her mother finally died in 1789 in the master bedroom, and nobody could ever sleep there after that. The sobbing would keep them awake. On and on, through the centuries, a catalogue of grief that marked all three stories, all forty rooms of that house. When the bombs fell in 1941, it was as though the house took off its mask, and show what it truly was. A little corner of hell. The Sutton line burnt out. What remained of the house was left to an old family friend, who in turn passed the property to his son...”

Gallery 4-2: Page two of Sorrow Hill. In a more nondescript modern age, two men talk while looking up at the rebuilt house. Man one: “And now? The house on sorrow hill belongs to you.” Man two: “God, look at that… I wasn't expecting it to be that… I mean, from what you told me, I thought it'd been bombed flat, but it's…” Man one: “Aye, it is. I'd tear it down myself if I could, mind.” Man two: “Yeah, but – this is just what I need, you know? It'll put me on the map, put parapsychology on the map… ...when does it start, uh, being…”. The first man looks ominous and almost threatening, warning, “All day. All night. The ghosts never stop. Not for a second.” The second man looks blissfully ignorant as he says, “fantastic. my very own haunted house.” The first man gives another final warning, “Aye, lad. your house now. Can I give you a little advice? ...Don’t go in.”

Gallery 4-3: Page three of Sorrow Hill. A collage of moments of the second man’s paranormal experiences with the house – feeling inexplicably sick in the attic; seeing the ghost of a skeletal cat; feeling the hand of a ghost boy on his face at night; Being served beer by a deceased barmaid; all captioned, “but he did. the old man was right. it never stopped. the icy winds, the muted sobbing. the terrifying spasms of vertigo in the attic that nearly made him vomit. he actually did vomit when the cat stroked lovingly against his leg. and again that night, when little James crept into his bed for warmth. he could touch them. they were, or seemed, solid. that alone could make him a millionaire. a paper - a score of papers. scientific acclaim. he could taste it”. The second half of the page is a different collage of moments – the man taking photos, a 1990s TV screen showing the image of a sky, and at the bottom of the page, the man's eyes widened in distress as he is surrounded by blank photographs. The captions read, “...until he saw the films. No blood running down the walls. No walls. Just blue sky. but he had to have evidence. photographic evidence. nobody would believe… ...even with witnesses, nobody would believe. he'd be a laughing stock. He’d be ruined. Unless he sold out.”

Gallery 4-4: Page four of Sorrow Hill. The man looks out despondently in front of the house, surrounded in black. The captions read, “There'd be no great thesis, no nobel prize. But a real haunted house could pay in other ways. he had the story. He just needed the ending… ...so he called Father Quinn”. In the next panel a priest arrives, admiring the houses door handle. He says, “Ha! Have you seen this? Chip it off now and take it to bargain hunt. how have you been keeping?”. In confusion, the man responds, “Bargain what?”. The next panel shows the ghost of a child, whose eyes are gauged out and bottom jaw ripped away. In the following panel, the man and the priest are sitting casually at a dining table as the ghost boy sits in the middle. The man informs Father Quinn, “...So I just need the place exorcised. top to bottom. big finish for the book, nice piece of real estate, lots of money…” the priest responds, “Easier for a camel, my son! still, I won't lie to you - I've seen worse in Calcutta. See, your fellow here, he's not angry - are you boy? He just wants some sleep soon. Trust me, my friend - fish in a barrel. One thing, though; we should really do this in the attic. It's where the first one hung himself and the room needs to be cleansed. it's where the fear's strongest, you see?”. A little while later, the two are up in the attic – the house owner stands in the back, clutching his stomach in pain while the priest begins the exorcism. “The fear. The vertigo. He wondered how Quinn could hold it back - That terrible realisation of just how high up they both were”. A panel zooming into the man’s eyes staring forward maniacally - “...That realisation of all the little things he'd missed.”

One-page comic

Image transcript

A one-page poetry comic titled “Somebody out there loves you!”. The page starts with a girl looking dreamily out of her square-shaped window at a sun-setting sky. The clouds begin to form into hands as she thinks to herself, imagining planets in pastel colours. As her thoughts fade the colours of the planet enter the evening clouds, and the next two panels show planets once again, ending the page with an alien looking dreamily out of their circular-shaped window. The text, floating along with the panels in gentle sway, read, “Do you ever watch the sky, to see what shapes unfold? Imagine people living there – what stories they’ve all told? And as the blue sky fades to black, the stars begin to shine – perhaps a passing thought floats by… a question on your mind? “We cannot be the only ones, is somebody out there?” A sigh lets out, you close your eyes. Why do you even care? ...Well. ...Who knows? Maybe beyond the midnight air, you never even knew… someone looks back, so far away… hoping you exist, too.”

Four-panel comic

Image transcript

A four-panel poetry comic. Panel one shows an abandoned car with moss growing over it. Panel two shows an abandoned house hidden away in a forest. Panel three shows a deer skull in the middle of some grass with sunlight shining on it. The final panel shows the skull being used as a perch for butterflies and birds, a home for a snail and a mouse, and flowers grow around it as bees fly by and a curious rabbit emerges from its burrow. The captions read, “When we caused the earth to rot, we left it there to die. But something, maybe, we forgot… ...The earth’s not so unkind.”