My Own Private Central Valley

Photo: “Windmills through the Passenger Side Window”. Photo taken by me. (June 2022).

“When June came
The grasses headed out
And turned brown,
And the hills turned brown
Which was not a brown
But a gold and saffron
And red—
An indescribable color.
And from then on until the next rains the earth dried and the streams stopped.”

-John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Setting. Location.

I have heard stories of train companies (later confirmed to be true) that gave a discounted travel rate to aspiring writers who would benefit from a long-distance train ride. A story comes to life on a page when the details are so vivid that there is little doubt that it is based on a real place that the author has actually been.

Last Summer, I went on a road trip up California’s Central Valley, a route I have frequently explored alone through various long-distance bus rides. Three months later in September, I was reading the first chapter of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden and the first image that came to mind is the photograph I snapped while wearing a white dress with black polka dots while staring out the window enjoying the windmills (pictured above). I could picture the perfectly lined up fruit orchards; the honey sticks sold at a wooden stand; the tilled soil; the large mountains of almond shells covered with tarp; and a large stretches of cattle steer that smelled as pleasant as it sounds. It is quite majestic when a book has the ability to sweep me off to an actual place that I have been before—during a fifteen minute break between passing periods.

Attempting to recreate a real world setting one-hundred percent accurately can be difficult to maintain. Any references to now defunct businesses would date a story in the past, however it would make for an excellent tool if incorporating time travel into a story. Nothing sounds more like the Aughts than, “Tonight started out as a typical night out…but instead of walking down the normal street to Hollywood Video, we took a detour.”

Real world location settings can be quite tricky, especially in large cities with ever changing skylines and skyscraper development. If I were to write a story that took place at a hotdog restaurant from my childhood, the story would have to take place before nineteen-ninety six, the year the hotdog restaurant went out of business, in order to remain accurate.

Sometimes I go through old journals and many locations I mentioned no longer exist today. They are reminders of impermanence in this ever changing setting. Incorporating real locations into comics is one way to give them a permanent location long after they have been torn down and disappeared completely.


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