I was sent an email recently from a fan concerning Clarence. I thought it’d be nice to post it with my reply.

Hi, I’d just like to say first of, I really enjoyed the clarence principle. The story was just something I never read before. How the artwork can project the feeling of the story is beyond effective. I have just been extremely puzzled about its meaning leading me to conclude that it’s intentionally ambiguous, and leaves the reader to decide the ending. I can’t help but think that it involves a deeper meaning in death.

While flipping through the pages I found a background quote in the courtyard scene which I believe in complete text it says: “sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt”. Which is latin for “Tears for things, morality touches the heart”. I don’t know if I’m going anywhere with this but it’s just been really bugging me. I don’t know if it’s just there to fill in space or something like that.

Anything you can say to me that can give me a little insight would be great, I’d be satisfied with even just an answer to the background quote.

Thanks,
Jay

My reply is a bit long. I cut out spoilers, but I hope what I discussed in the email doesn’t ruin things for anyone. I mean, I have so much I want to say and discuss, but I always worry that what I say publicly might spoil things for people who haven’t read the book yet. Read on if you’d like.

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I wouldn’t mind going out for some tea and warm… things.

After just waking up and discussing breakfast with Selina, Dock suggested we go out because he fancied having something warm. This was how my Bank Holiday Monday started while in Cambridge. Overall it was a very chilled weekend. I mainly went down there to work on a small comic project with Selina. She’d asked me to come down that weekend so we can discuss backgrounds and styles, but also to finally get a look at the sketches so far.

It all seems to be coming together quite nicely. The real challenge will lay in the shading later, I think. I’d asked Selina if it’d be possible to do the shading in the entire comic using water colours instead of tones or markers. She agreed.

Oh Selina, what have you got yourself into.

She’s gonna hate me later, I’m sure XD