1905: Count Sergei Iulievich Witte sails for Portmouth, NH to negotiate with the Japanese delegation for an end the Russo-Japanese War.  But he plans to fight, in his own way, for his beloved Russian Empire…

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This piece presents a bit of a departure for Live Free And Draw; you can see some perspectives, spacing, and page-edge bleeds that don’t usually happen on this site!  That’s because I’m drawing it during our February Vacation Week Manga Camp at the Currier Art Center, where we’re studying techniques of Manga (Japanese comics) alongside an amazing exhibit of finely crafted Japanese weapons & armor from the past 8 centuries…

Several resources provide thorough documentation of the 1905 Portsmouth Peace Treaty process, including:

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  The headlines in p. 6 come from PortsmouthPeaceTreaty.org‘s blow-by-blow account of the negotiations.
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  Note especially Count Witte’s expression in the above photo… He was not pleased to be at the negotiating table, and his efforts to “win the sympathy of the Americans” were  taking quite a strain on him.
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  MIT.edu provides many amazing images from the Russo-Japanese War…
• The title panel takes inspiration from Hokusai‘s iconic “Great Wave off Kanagawa”: