Harry and André are both 15 years old and have been friends since Harry moved schools, two years prior to the when the comics take place. They are both energetic teens who are super passionate about punk music and causing trouble. André, specifically, has the tendency to want to impress older kids who share the same musical interests as him. Harry on the other hand is a shy but bright kid whose social ineptitude is broken only when his best friend pushes him to go out of his comfort zone.
Harry & André was my final project at Vancouver Film School. Originally conceived as a pitch for a slice-of-life animation series featuring two teenage boys as the title characters, it quickly turned into a series of five short comics that would later be compiled into a comic book published by Pé de Cabra, an indie publishing house with whom I have worked many times before.
Harry and André’s stories take place in the sleepy town of Eldorado, the former paper manufacturing capital of the south-midwest. Which midwest? Who knows. When writing and drawing these comics I made the point of keeping the location of the city and its look pretty ambiguous. Eldorado is the kind of name you’d see in Brazil, Mexico, Chile or even the United States, same goes for the neighboring city of Aurora, with which native eldoradians harbor a sort of silly rivalry. The modern, bland architecture of the city suggests a post-war industrial boom: glass buildings, wide avenues, abandoned stores and a massive suburban sprawl designed with cars in mind are some of the elements that define this boring little burg.
