[From the Drawing Board of Leland Purvis]

A visual trope in comics graphics is the ‘glow, or ‘halo’.
Some artists I know simply like the effect. Many aspiring comics artists seem
to use it, and over-use it, simply because they never thought not to.

This thoughtlessness, however, has caused a great deal of
trouble and distress to the nefarious historical figure Bill Rattlecane. This
is Bill.

Bill had been a playwright and actor in 17th century London until a scandal
forced him to change his name to Rattlecane and flee to the high seas for the
more respectable life of a pirate.

For a better look at Bill, obviously he should be inked.
(Actually, Bill is not blind in his left eye, the patch is simply part of his
disguise, and part of this illustration, as you will see.)

Following Bill onto the deck of the pirate ship Desdemona,
we come upon the scene of his first night watch. We realize the background would be black.

As you see, the thick-to-thin lines that gave Bill’s head
such definition and weight are gone. Also, with his black scarf and eyepatch,
he seems to have been carved into floating pieces. To avoid this, artists often
use what is called the glow, or more affectionately, the halo.

The problem for Rattlecane was that both the readers and the
pirates may become either confused or fearful. In the fantastical worlds of
heroes and magic, among auras, spells, pipesmoke, and crimson bands of
sikoryak, it’s not always easy for the uninitiated to recognize the halo as
simply a studio solution. The pirates may be fearful that Bill has magical
powers, or worse, that he is cursed. They may knife him in his sleep and throw
him overboard. 

To avoid this evenuality it behooves the artist, for the
sake of the readers and Bill’s own lifeblood, to devise a different solution.
If we return now to the initial drawing, one possibility is that as Bill comes
on deck for the late shift, we ink the night sky first. Only when darkness has
fully embraced him do we apply inks to the figure without crossing into the
night . . .

With this solution we find that nefarious Bill Rattlecane,
who was far from deservng a halo in any case, has neither been decapitated by
thoughtless brush and ink, nor fenestrated by his fellow scallywags.

In fact, it was the glow than had given him away one night
while leaving a certain courtier’s apartments and initiated the scandal which
forced him into a life of piracy. If a cartoonist had helped Bill early enough,
the course of English history and the high seas might have been changed
forever.