This is actually the old Cook County Hospital. The John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital was built in the late nineties to replace it, but I stuck with the old building because I prefer the classic architecture. There was a debate whether to tear down the old structure before the city decided to renovate it.
I just think the old building has a ton of character, so I decided to use it instead.
This is the north end of Lincoln Park, which stretches for miles along the shore of Lake Michigan all the way from North Avenue to the end of Lake Shore drive at Hollywood Avenue.
As with many American cities, Chicago still has a housing problem. There tend to be a lot of homeless people who sleep in the park, especially near Uptown between Lawrence and Wilson.
The story the witness tells on the final page actually happened to me one night. It was too weird an experience to not put into the comic.
“Aren’t there some witnesses we need to interview?”
Most police work isn’t glamourous. It’s taking statements, finding evidence, and filing unending reports. And sometimes it means telling people the news that someone close to them is dead.
There really was a Dunkin’ Donuts across the street from this building at the time I drew this in 2002. My friends lived upstairs from me at the time, and we’d meet for breakfast there a few times week to chat about life and work before we got started to our work day.
Kate and Mike arrive on the scene of a fresh murder, but are they prepared for what they’ll find?
Drawing the crime scenes in Paradigm Shift has always been a challenge, both technically and emotionally. When I first started to draw the story, I found a book called Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective’s Scrapbook which compiled crime scene photos from the 1920’s to the 1950’s from LA police detective Jack Huddleston. The photos are gristly, yet somehow sterile. Thankfully, they are all black and white, which lends an air of disconnection to everything. I leaned heavily on this resource to make the murder scenes in this story as plausible as possible.
The blood splatter over the body was originally created for the end of the first scene of Agitation. Instead of trying to do the splatter effect on the page itself, I covered the floor in newsprint and spattered watered-down ink on sheets of bristol board, Jackson Pollack-style. After the ink dried, I scanned everything and pulled the best splats and drips together to form the final image, here.
Awakened by an early morning phone call, Kate gets ready to investigate a second murder…
This scene is set in the Chicago neighborhood of Wrigleyville, just north of the friendly confines of Wrigley Field on the narrow, alley-like Dayton Street, just off of Belmont Ave. For those in the know, this is also the home of Ragstock, a go-to thrift shop for the young hipsters looking for street chic clothes at a rock-bottom price in the late 90’s and early 2000’s.
I love the moody urban feel of this part of town and decided it would be the perfect spot to set Kate’s apartment. Later on, those fire escapes will prove useful, too…
