I’ve always been kind of fascinated by Guy Fawkes Day. The English like to say that Guy Fawkes was the only person ever to enter Parliament with honest intentions and joke about whether Bonfire Night is a celebration of the failure of the Gunpowder Plot or of the excellent idea behind it. Here in America, Guy Fawkes is known – if at all – as the inspiration behind “V” of V for Vendetta, a figure who is an anarchist, a murderer and not really what I think of when I think “hero,” but was transformed into a Dashing Freedom Fighter in the movie adaptation.
So here I draw him brought low, not the Dashing Hero, but in his last moments*, having been beaten, tortured, forced into selling out his comrades, and moments away from death. I’m trying to convey a real man, perhaps pondering the decisions that brought him to the gallows, rather than a stuffed effigy hanged and tossed into a bonfire between drinks. I’m always fascinated by the way historical people are transformed into legendary figures, and this is an area in which Guy Fawkes looms large.
* Yes, I know that supposedly Fawkes leapt from the gallows to his death rather than be hanged, but drawing him in the noose was more interesting.