“The Cleaver” Cordelia Wu
With her trademark LumaLux Qipao displaying animated peonies, blooming in fractal patterns & custom ornately engraved, gold plated prosthetics, “The Cleaver” is the unassuming president & unofficial chief enforcer of the Fushe Ying Tong in Little Shanghai.
After a firebomb blast set by the rival Panrao Hu Tong, the Fushe Ying’s lost most of its leadership. Among the victims were Cordelia’s father, “Bald Eddie” Wu Weiyuan, the tong’s former president. The ensuing power vacuum was almost as devastating as betrayal & infighting nearly ripped the remaining organization apart. But that’s when Cordelia decided to step up.
Having been injured in the blast herself, she lost most of her left arm & leg as well as severely burning her right hand. Starting off with the kind of no frills replacement parts one’s able to score from a vending machine, she took on a more active role in her late father’s organization. While some mocked her for being a woman, or her initial hesitancy to break certain laws, others caught glimpses of a truly sadistic violent streak & shocked them to their core. Over time, as her clout as a legitimate member of the tong grew, she upgraded from plastic to chrome. From chrome to gold plated carbon fiber as she became the tong’s first female president.
Members of the rival tong often find it difficult to take her role as president seriously, often a fatal mistake. It’s said that she customized her precision engineered left arm to conceal a small automatic shotgun, & when the situation calls for it, she doesn’t seem like the type to hesitate in using it. But blades are Cordelia’s weapon of choice. Preferably ones laser sharpened to within a single molecular edge. They make things much more up close & personal. Known to stash a range of small knives in various compartments hidden in her prostheses, she acquired her nickname after burying a solid carbon blade in the skull of the leader of a rival tong.
Having massacred every last member of the Panrao Hu’s in retaliation, The Cleaver & the Fushe Ying’s are now setting their sights higher. Perhaps outside of Little Shanghai, & running the entire city.
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So twofer this week, with this one now & another one to follow shortly after. I’m falling a little further behind only because I only have so much free time & I’ve been putting more of it into comics than this. But I’m not giving up on this yet. I started following this Character Design Challenge thing on Facebook. They do themes for a month & artists submit towards it. March’s theme happened to be Gangster, which yeah cool, but I dunno, I wasn’t entirely feeling. And it seemed like it was mostly a lot of dudes in pinstripes holding tommy guns. And I didn’t want to do that. I almost didn’t do it at all. But then I listened to the Dollop on the Tong Wars a couple days after watching Kung Fu Hustle & so I was thinking more Axe Gang than Capone. And I kind of wanted to make it a woman because I figured a lady’s qipao would be more interesting than just an old suit. The only rule I kind of gave myself was to avoid dragons because it seemed to trope-y. I don’t know why, but I started thinking of Club Obi Wan from Temple of Doom. And how it’s much more of a weird 80′s slightly cyberpunk-y, corporate franchised-sorta reimagining of what a 1930′s nightclub should be than any sort of actual 1930′s nightclub in Shanghai. I mean how much neon & silver? That well lit? The Star Trek: Next Generation typeface of the credits don’t hurt along with the whole Cole Porter being sung in Mandarin. If Gibson ever wrote an elaborate floor show into something of his? Yeah. Club Obi Wan. OH MY GOD LIKE THE CHARACTER IN STAR WARS I JUST GOT THA… kidding.
So anyway, the wheels were turning & I started working on this character, thinking it would be in this swanky, cyberpunk throwback 30′s era anachronistic/futuristic context, I guess. Figured I’d give her an ornate qipao with glowing textures, a cleaver, a poofy shawl, & maybe give her intricate prosthetic arms, like ones Gally/Alita is eventually given in that very first Gunnm/Battle Angel story. I started working on this but I got the deadline mixed up. So even though I had another day or two to spare, I rushed out a straight, traditional version for the facebook challenge without the glowing dress or metal arms as I had intended. Immediately after uploading it, I noticed I was ahead of the game by a couple days & felt like a moron. But whatever. I eventually went back & added the things I wanted to, though I guess I should’ve planned it out better from the get go. I mean, I think the pose & the shawl both detract from the arms. With the shawl, I also tried a few different ways of coloring it in sort of an opalescent way to make it seem synthetic & weirdly futuristic, but I wasn’t happy with any of the outcomes. As for the face, I was trying to design her like the girls I’ve seen from old Chinese posters, accentuating the cheeks, trying to encapsulate that thing Stephen Chow does in the background casting of his movies where the people playing some of the bit parts have distinct & sometimes exaggerated features. Part of me’s a little worried it could come off as offensive. Definitely not the intent, & hugely sorry if it strikes anyone that way.
Overall, in trying to follow a theme I wasn’t totally into, I got really amped about an idea going in but I’m not really all that thrilled with the outcome. I think there’s kernels of good ideas here & there with this & if I ever feel the compulsion, I might retry it but for now, I’m just glad I was able to finish it.
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