New "Two Generals" Research

Just as I was finally making some headway with Two Generals art, a new bombshell landed.

Though I have no reservations in saying that this is going to be one of the most thoroughly-researched graphic novels ever published anywhere in the world, a big gap in my knowledge was always centred around my grandfather's friend Jack Chrysler. I've never known that much about the man himself, aside from what's written in my grandfather's diary (the starting point for my research, and the genesis of the idea for the book). He's mentioned briefly in some of the books I've read on the battle of Buron, but for the purposes of telling the story I'd simply had to invent a personality for him based on those two meagre resources. Attempts to track down his family or learn anything else about him always proved fruitless.

That is, until about two weeks ago, when I got an email from the daughter of Jack's widow. By complete coincidence, her husband had come across a post I made on a British people-search message board about nine months ago asking if anyone had information about her mother, who wrote my grandmother a very nice letter in 1944, shortly after she and Jack were married in England. As it turns out, the daughter (the friendly and knowledgeable Jan Spiers...hi, Jan!) is in possession of all of her mother's photos and letters from the war years, including almost daily letters from Jack when he was fighting alongside my grandfather in France. It's an amazing discovery, both on a professional and personal level. We've recently begun the process of filling in each other's knowledge of events, which has been hugely rewarding.

Of course, this means further delay for a book that was originally supposed to have been finished in mid-December. But at least it's the good kind of delay. A much more complete picture of one of the book's central characters has emerged, and once I've had time to process all of the new information and figure out how to apply it to the book, the end result is going to be better--and more accurate--for it.