Hedgehog Boy statement and purpose

Hedgehog Boy is a story that i created with my friend Damon Mahoney. He took my vision and put it to words.The illustrations now have a home in this story titled “The Legend of Hedgehog Boy” We are currently packing it up and sending it out to publishers.

The drawings that unleashed the story are a mash up of my own drawing style and the graphic boy on boy sex comics from japan, called Yaoi. There is a lovely sense of storytelling and unashamed sexual awareness in them that i was drawn to. The Yaoi genre depicts graphic sexual situations, but with an over the top emotional and theatrical backdrops. I strived to give the characters I created a sense of  the Yaoi touch. I wanted to create a tale that unapologetically queer with the timelessness of classic storytelling. A story unlike any other, one that would give voice to an abused child and give the gay community a unique tale.

This is a story of an boy who runs away from abuse and cruelty into the insanity of an imaginary world of his own design. A place where boys live in the park, wear animals on top of their heads, and talk to unicorns. This becomes his reality. By creating these characters i found a certain freedom and although they are not real, I feel they tell more about the truth of life than any fact based image. I've always been an artist in search of truth and meaning. It's funny that i would find that truth wrapped up a big Lie. One of my art teachers once had told me that "Art is a lie that will tell you the truth"

All the images here are the development and creation of the two Characters "Kitty" and "Hedgehog Boy". I did the whole thing backwards, i made the drawings before the story had been written. Using the loose outline in my head i drew out what i saw as a bizarre love story. A love story where one kidnaps the another in an attempt to rescue him. From that developed a whole story and group or characters that live in his universe. A simple universe, but one full of metaphor and drama.

Kitty is the quiet and shy boy who more or less represents rational thinking and active conscious.The exact opposite of that is Hedgehog boy who suffers from impulse control issues due to years of childhood abuse. Hedgehog boys sense of right and wrong are intact despite his background, but his sense of punishment for what deems as wrong is very twisted. He is obsessed with reading and telling time, both things he has no knowledge of how to do, but with help of Kitty he learns.

Possum and Raccoon Boy the arch enemy’s of hedgehog boy. They are awful creature’s with bad internal workings that make them sinister looking. The story escalates with the two villains kidnapping of Kitty to write ransom letters for abducted stuffed animals. What follows then is a rescue mission guided by the unicorn where Hedgehog Boy leans to use his bag of swords, his burden. It’s one big metaphor for harnessing the knowledge and power of the past to tackle the future.

René Capone 2008

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