When friends ask me "what is Chain?" I usually just laugh it out because I don't really know how to answer.
It isn't a comic or a novel. It's exactly what it looks like: a bunch of portraits collected in a timeline that aims to tell a story through the written documents these pictures come with, such as letters or diary pages.
The events take place on the East Coast right after the end of WW2, focusing on the O'Clarys, a middle-class family living the American Dream on Long island, New York. All the family pictures and documents are collected for a school project by T. P. O'Clary, the latest "link of the Chain", who is moved by the strong love he feels for his family; affection that grew stronger after an extremely shocking event that completely changed his life when he was a child.
From the end of a war to the beginning of another, "Chain" is the peace in between.
In the second generation, Elizabeth Gabrys and Thomas O'Clary are living their own teenage fairytale between Brooklyn and Manhattan, during the brightest decade in the history of the United States: the 50s. Their first meeting at his mother's diner, the first date at the Victoria Hotel and the first kiss in Central Park, Chain 55 is all about how these lucky ones got to live their incredibly normal lives.
Since this is also a "behind-the-scenes" kind of post, here are two step-by-step GIFs. Their expressions are both represented in the exact moment they see each other for the very first time.
(click to enlarge)
(click to enlarge)
Chain doesn't have any ambition, it's not a work related project but a personal and inspired one. It's my own tribute to peaceful times and admiration for that bygone era, channeled into what I'm able to express through my drawings.
"And now I'm dancin' to his voice
He turns to music every noise
He grabs my waist and makes me spin
Long live the king of the Drive-In "
From the album "Unchained", by Julia Adeler.
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