ANGER + DISGUST = outrage
ANGER + SADNESS = betrayal
ANGER + FEAR = caged animal
DISGUST + FEAR = horror
SADNESS + SURPRISE = disappointment
emotional mixtures for drawing facial expressions
formulated by Scott McCloud in Making Comics
Here’s what I know about the man. His heart was in the right place, originally. He wanted good things, and his friends had noble ideas and plans for prosperity. Something happened to change him, though, once he got a taste for power. He developed a terrible skin condition. (He may have had it before; I’m not saying the skin problem was a punishment for turning bad.) No one told me what this skin condition was exactly, but it was painful and disfiguring. This was ages and ages ago, way before steroid creams and allergy testing. So, he took frequent baths to soothe the pain. In fact, he started to conduct business from his bathtub. He placed a board over the edges. This was his desk. And he sat in the bathwater and signed proclamations, declarations, laws and writs. He also wore a head wrapping, a cloth soaked in vinegar. He was in quite a lot of pain and discomfort. No antibiotics, no painkillers, no CVS.
He was sitting in the tub when an angry woman marched in and stabbed him. Then she sat down and waited for the outrage and punishment. A talented artist, one of the dead guy’s best friends, rushed over to paint a rendering of the murder scene. No cameras, no contact sheets. Plenty of blood, though, and mourning and grief.
The murder was politically motivated. She said she took one life to save 100,000. But that’s not how the event was remembered, in the painting and elsewhere. The artist didn’t show all the blood, either. He cleaned it up a little, but maybe not enough. The woman went straight to the guillotine. She knew that would happen.