My friend Manny Vega, artist, former co-worker, and one of the Beta Readers read an earlier draft of the book and was inspired to draw Heden. Mostly in his own style, which is heavily influenced by Don Bluth-Rescuers-Secret of NIMH, but knowing the tone of this book is not well-suited for that style, he also did a few darker takes on the character.
As I mentioned in one of the Glosses, I don’t really have a clear picture in my mind of what Heden looks like. Manny did a few different takes and I liked them all. He said he saw Heden as being like Hugh Laurie from House. I pictured Heden as looking more like a special forces dude. The real-life spec-ops dudes I’ve met all looked like Bear Grylls; short, compact, lots of muscle. The big, corn-fed dudes tend not to make it through the extreme training those guys go through, purely because they have a harder time keeping their body temperature regulated in extreme cold.
But thinking about it some more, I could see the House take on things. House has a very Heden face; gaunt, older, but with clear blue eyes that transmit compassion and honesty. And House is wry and world-weary. I just have a hard time with Hugh Laurie as Heden because I keep expecting him to say “PS! Woof, Woof!”
I failed to inform my TiVo to the fact that I’d cooled on Flashfoward, so it kept taping it and I checked it out to see if it’d gotten any better. Watching Joe Fiennes, I thought he could be Heden, though mostly because he’s got the look, and I know he can act. The character in FF bears little resemblance to Heden.
I like the guy in the upper left, but really I like all of them and just love that someone was inspired enough to create based on something I’d written. Of course, he’d read the whole thing!
Another friend, another co-worker, another Beta Reader (actually, an Alpha Reader), Aaron Contreras said he thought this kind of discussion, wherein a vision of a character is presented, could undermine the reader’s appreciation of the work and I’ve written about this subject elsewhere. I tend to think if you’ve gotten this far, you’ve already got a picture of Heden in your mind, and this shouldn’t damage it. But again, this is the web, and for you, web-reader, you get the behind the scenes, extra-features stuff!
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