WRASSLIN' LOVE!!

This is an image designed to accompany the short story "Charlotte" by Tony Earley. The story takes place in Charlotte, NC, and centers around a failing love relationship paralleled with the shift in popularity and loyalty from "professional" wrestling to the new Charlotte Hornets basketball team in the early 90's. The story is found in a collection of Earley's short stories titled, "Here We Are In Paradise."

It's quite a good short story and features several colorful wrestling characters -- initially, I was going to stick true to my nature and go completely gonzo-overboard with cartoony charicatures of these wrestlers in a free-for all explosion of wrasslin' madness! Perhaps mix in some fight poster elements. I may still go with this idea for a later project, but I decided to pull way back and focus instead on the doomed relationship, turning the lovers into opposing wrestlers, as their bed becomes the ring, complete with ropes and turnbuckles. Clearly, a great struggle has taken place, although no one seems to have emerged "victorious.

Setting up all the reference and deciding on a color scheme was quite a struggle, but I'm pretty happy with the end result. Pen and ink with photoshop colors.