Tommy Lin: A Motorcycle Fairytale
Maggie G. Vicknair
PROJECT DETAILS
Thesis Mentor: Dylan Meconis
Format: Comic Book
Gretchen has been on the outs with her best friend Janet ever since Janet started dating the no-good biker Tommy Lin.
When Gretchen discovers she is the only one who can rescue Tommy from the grips of a malevolent supernatural motorcycle gang, the Wild Hunt, she gets in her Plymouth Hemi Cuda and a high-speed chase ensues. Can Gretchen put her selfish hatred of Tommy aside in order to save him for the sake of her friend’s happiness?
An action-packed retelling of the classic fairy tale Tam Lin, Tommy Lin: A Motorcycle Fairy Tale is a comic book coming-of-age story about love, friendship, and jealousy.
When Gretchen discovers she is the only one who can rescue Tommy from the grips of a malevolent supernatural motorcycle gang, the Wild Hunt, she gets in her Plymouth Hemi Cuda and a high-speed chase ensues. Can Gretchen put her selfish hatred of Tommy aside in order to save him for the sake of her friend’s happiness?
An action-packed retelling of the classic fairy tale Tam Lin, Tommy Lin: A Motorcycle Fairy Tale is a comic book coming-of-age story about love, friendship, and jealousy.
Maggie G. Vicknair
Maggie G. Vicknair is a writer and artist based in the northernmost part of Manhattan. She moved there after receiving her bachelor's degree in Studio and Written Arts at Bard College.
For more than a decade, she has been self-publishing her comics both in online and brick-and-mortar shops. Maggie likes telling stories about fairy tales, messy teenagers, and monsters.
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/maggiedreadful/
TWITTER: twitter.com/dreadfulcomics
WEBSITE: MaggieGVicknair.com
For more than a decade, she has been self-publishing her comics both in online and brick-and-mortar shops. Maggie likes telling stories about fairy tales, messy teenagers, and monsters.
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/maggiedreadful/
TWITTER: twitter.com/dreadfulcomics
WEBSITE: MaggieGVicknair.com
WATCH THEIR PROCESS:
Community Project
My thesis is not the first project I’ve made based on a fairytale, it’s not even the second. I’ve asked myself before, why am I so interested in retelling these stories? It is not just my own work, I seek out fairytale retellings and remixes frequently in books, movies, and comics. A part of my interest is in the themes and tropes associated with them - liminal spaces, metaphorical images, and heightened emotions - but I’m also interested in the act of adaptation itself. By examining the changes a storyteller makes to the “source material” the audience can learn a lot about the artist’s intentions and priorities, as well as seeing a reflection of the society they’re from, it’s hopes, biases, and fears.
As an artist, I try to share my curiosity by creating and sharing my own stories, but as a lover of art, I also want to talk about these stories directly. This is how I came to my community project. Weirdly Ever After is a series of essays and a newsletter talking about different offbeat fairytale adaptations. It is inspired by a number of columns and newsletters that I ate up that would share the author’s own obsessive deep dive into a medium or genre. These types of columns expanded my own horizons, and got me to seek out books, comics, and movies I had never heard of before. They created a curated list of B-sides, artifacts, and rare specimens and I want to do that for someone else.
Each essay takes a different piece of fiction that was inspired by a fairytale and examines the work itself, how it translates the ideas of the original story, and my own interpretation in a light hearted, but critical, way, accompanied by loose and often silly drawings. By making the project a newsletter, and sending my ramblings straight into people’s inboxes, I also hope to interact with my audience more directly and provide a line to keep them updated on different projects I’m working on. Below is a link to where to subscribe, if you would like to share in my adventure.
