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At last, we have a new character! It only took 13 pages. In my original draft of the book, this text was the very first page.
The hardest part of producing this page was getting the text situated. I have all these rules about text - actually they are a list of priorities. The first priority is that all text must be legible - if it's not, please tell me. The second priority is never write over a character. As this was an early page, I had to sort out a few other priorities about what goes where and what looks good and how much I would have to "cheat" to get everything to fit. It literally took days - longer than drawing the pictures (and this was before I was being "assisted" by CGI).
By the way, how many of you noticed the mouse in the neat and orderly world of Ignatius HaliFox?
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20 JUNE 2001 Wednesday - 1400
Page 13
The tré auditorium box seat
The Honourable Ignatius HaliFox, mayor of Otterstow, sat in his box in The tré dressed in a fine waistcoat and blazer with his mayoral sash across his breast. He was a mature Dog Fox, just under 40 with barely a few grey hairs showing around his muzzle and neat, slightly longish, black headfur (also slightly greyed), which he kept tidily swept back. He was still fit and lean from his school days and compensated his daily calorific intake (consisting mostly of pub food and cider) with substantial walking for exercise. His was a neat and orderly world.
Many years ago, Otterstow had once been large enough to qualify as a town. Its largesse at the time bestowed upon it certain privileges, such as the office of a mayor and a seat in Parliament. But, over the years, its population had dwindled and now it was quite small, not having reached a gross of citizens within its borders for the past 150 years. Through some oversight or other, it had never actually been demoted, thus it still retained the political rights of a town, as opposed to a village or hamlet. Some of Ignatius' constituents grumbled that his salary was not worth paying and that he certainly didn't deserve the fine house he had use of merely because he was mayor of a very small town that doubled as a rotten borough and whose biggest claim to fame was a rather pungent cheese.
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