Jacq and Jill

Now it's time for ME to advertise (in my scraps - that sucks).

This is probably going to be the longest comment I have ever written, so sit tight until I finish talking about *tracyjb . Then you can run away.

After watching the short section about the Prohibition era on the History channel series "America: the Story of Us" (amazing documentary series, in my opinion), I was interested in the whole moonshine business. Then I ran into the Lackadaisy comics, a wonderful twist of serious business and hilarity starring anthropomorphic cats. You guys seriously need to check it out. Even if you hate history, there's still a lot to appreciate about the comic.

READ IT HERE: [link]
And here's the home page to her Lackadaisy website: [link]

Go there ASAP (I know there are some busy people out there. I'm one of them, but I'm less disciplined at times. Ha ha.)

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ANYHOW.

When I saw Tracy's Lackadaisy artwork, I had to try and figure what kind of magic she put into it that made it so... Amazing.
I'm still working on that, guys. I think it's too magical for me.

As you can see, my drawings don't resemble hers. At all.
But that's okay, because she deserves to have a unique flair.
... It's still a lot of fun, though.

If you're still reading, I suggest you run now, because now I'm going to spin a story that's probably historically inaccurate (and annotate Huck Finn at the same time).

I was inspired to make Jacqueline by the Rum Running Queen Willie Carter Sharpe.
And Jillian is a boy name (for my sake, por favor).
Their designs are based off my friend's beautiful cat, Mystic: [link]

Jacqueline and Jillian Buckner are twins born in New York, New York in 1901, to middle-class parents. Mr. and Mrs. Buckner owns a little restaurant that had been in the family business for five generations. The children are raised in comfortably for a while, and help out in the restaurant. But customers lose interest in the restaurant gradually, and bills and taxes become harder and harder to pay for. Meanwhile, Jillian, like many adolescent boys today, becomes very interested in cars. Ma and Pa are annoyed because he doesn't aspire to work in the restaurant when he grows up.

Eventually, the Buckners are forced to give up the restaurant and find new jobs. In the meanwhile, because they lived in the restaurant and essentially gave up their house as well, the Buckners went to live in the eastern New York slums. Of course, for the former middle-class family, it was quite a shock. (Slums weren't pretty back then. It's dark, it's dangerous, it's dirty, there's sewage and feces everywhere, there's disease, there's the crowded tenements, there's even dead animals in the street.)
I believe the twins would be about twelve.

Mr. Buckner never gives up the idea of getting the restaurant back, and obsesses over it. He and Jillian constantly argues over the subject of the restaurant's future and Jillian's obsession with cars. Mr. Buckner also has to protect Jacqueline from... Interested men during the night, and Jacqueline runs to the richer, west side during the day. She doesn't get a job due to the Triangle Coat Factory fire in 1911, and is truthfully not even skilled enough to operate a sewing machine. She is nearly caught for vagrancy many times. However, she knows a thing or two about automobiles thanks to her bro.

Tensions reach a breaking point when the twins turn sixteen. Jillian, much to his sister's disbelief, runs away from New York. He runs away to Minnesota and lives as a farmer/mechanic. He tinkers with engines.

Due to the crammed and filthy conditions, heartbreak over the restaurant and the disappearance of her son, Mrs. Buckner becomes desperately ill. She dies, and Jacqueline's father goes nuts. He is sent to an asylum, much to Jacqueline's horror. Alone, Jacqueline leaves New York to try and find her brother. She is nineteen.

Jacqueline steals a car, and begins her new life as a criminal. After a short crash course, Jacqueline masters the automobile and becomes the best damn driver ever (har har). She nearly crashes into a bootlegger, but being a damn good driver, she deftly avoids him. Her potential as a runner or decoy is realized, and twenty-one year-old Jacqueline finally finds a job.

She finds Jillian and eventually he soups up her car's engine so that it could run at a whopping 75 miles per hour. The twins then work together to run alcohol from Canada down to Chicago, and sometimes St. Louis.
In the bootlegging business, the twins are referred to as Jacq (pronounced "Jack") and Jill. Jacq drives, because she is good at it, and she can't shoot. Jill can drive as well, but since he's the only one out of the two who can use a firearm, is the triggerman of the two.

... If I even dare to indulge the thought of these two of somehow interacting with the Lackadaisy characters, at best, Jacq and Jill would probably be killed off by the Savoy siblings.