"Defusing the Situation" ("The Sum of All Fears")
An ongoing problem we had every summer was a handful of films which absolutely stumped us in regards of how we would draw them. "The Sum of All Fears" was one of those films. Jake knew nothing about the flick aside from Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman were the head lining stars. I read the book but, because of the off-kilter casting, wondered how much of the novel was going to be left intact. All we had to go on was the trailers leaving both of us, again, stumped how the hell we could fit Plight into the Jack Ryan thriller.
At first, we tried a play on the title; trying to capture the sum of Plight's fears. That turned out to be too cerebral and elaborate to illustrate unless we had a few weeks to work on it (which unfortunately we did not). We envisioned Plight standing next to the film's stars but dressed as their characters from other films. Ben Affleck would be Daredevil; Morgan Freeman as Azeem from Robin Hood. But again, we were left with a "how would that fit" feeling regarding the entire thing. Suddenly, a bit of obvious inspiration struck me. The film is essentially about a bomb so what if I had Plight trying to disarm the thing? Simple, forthright, a playful jab at my buddy's inability to see colors himself and fitting the tone of the flick. A "Why did we not think of this earlier?" type of thing.
I chose an odd artistic choice this time around; portraying Erik more abstract and cartoony. It is a style I use from time to time. The method is simple, but I feel adds a bit of fluidity to things. And given how this was done on the spur of the moment, I am proud of the overall 'sum' (insert rimshot). - Tony