Derek the Steam Engine #5: "Edmund, Gary, and David" Talkback

https://www.doorjamcreations.com/derek-story/005-edmund-gary-and-david

Hey, remember that time when David the Red Engine decided to follow in Henry's footsteps and got sealed in a tunnel so he wouldn't have to ruin his paint? You know, from late 2018? Well now, it's finally going to get resolved. I had to introduce the Gordon character, Gary, first so that this story would follow similarly to the original Thomas story.

After doing some research about the chronological order of the Thomas stories, since I never paid much attention to that as a kid, I discovered Edward's first appearance/focus episode was "Edward Helps Out," where he helps Gordon up the hill (I remember it as the first story on one of my favorite Thomas collection tapes, Thomas and His Friends Help Out). I decided to combine that story and the one where Henry finally gets out of the tunnel mainly because it was bugging me that my story with David was yet to be concluded and I felt needed to be resolved ASAP.

The bit where the porter calls Edmund a slur is a reference to a Thomas the Tank Engine YouTube Poop from 2017 that I made (as seen below) called "Tom-S and Friends Go to Hell," using my digitized copy of the original Help Out tape. I barely mentioned the slur in the story for the reasons stated.

Also, this drawing of Edmund (the Edward character here, in case you couldn't figure it out) is the first Derek drawing I inked using Illustrator. I later colored it in with Photoshop.