Tag: World Economic forum

Schlaab

Here’s a sketch of Schlaab, the 16th-century evil supervillain who heads up the Consortium, a cabal of fabulously wealthy financiers. Of course he owns a fluffy white cat. Schlaab intends to control the kingdoms that make up Europe by overthrowing their kings and putting himself in charge. Instead of military warfare, the Consortium will collapse each kingdom’s barter economy. He’ll buy up food at harvest-time and pay in cash, which will undermine the feudal system. Too little food, too much worthless money—pretty soon everybody will have to eat bugs. The Consortium then sells the food back at an inflated price—which includes land and power. Could his diabolical plan work?

England is the holdout. Their Magna Carta has made English people somewhat free of feudalism. Schlaab needs to assign an ambitious Consortium member—Doctor Johanne Faustus—to manage the downfall of England’s royal family.

Consortium boardroom sketch

As I mentioned earlier, I added to GLORIANA’s story: an evil cabal of wealthy financiers who want to take over the kingdoms of 16th -century Europe. Most of the architecture in Elizabeth’s world is Tudor-style. To differentiate the world of these bad guys, their architecture will be mediaeval Gothic. This is a sketch I did to help me visualize their world. Gothic looks heavier and more imposing than other styles.

If, like me, you’d been a student of art teacher Rolly Ivers at Cicero High School back in the 1970s, you’d have been given an introduction to architectural history. It was one of his passions. We all had 3-ring binders full of the mimeographed handouts he painstakingly assembled. I’ll always be grateful Rolly shared that with us. Because I have that foundation, I can whip out a sketch like this even before doing a bunch of research. Of course, I’ll look up Gothic interiors to amplify and fine-tune what I started here. But having a well of images in my head helps me to work efficiently.