Henry Stein/novel
"We've not seen one like this before."
The article's subject originates from the Bendy novel series' continuity, which is not deemed as canonically part of the main series' lore. See Bendy Wiki:Canon for more information.
- This article refers to the animator from Joey Drew Studios. For other uses, see Henry (disambiguation).
Henry Stein is a cartoon artist and co-founder of Joey Drew Studios working under his work partner Joey Drew. Being the studio's first former lead animator, he is responsible for the creation of the studio's main cartoon characters, including Bendy, Boris the Wolf, and Alice Angel.
History
Early life
At some point, Henry meets with Abby Lambert through the world of art and the two become friends. Henry would draw comic characters while not understanding how they could be impressionistic, sometimes even joking about it. He and Joey meets during one evening through Abby, Henry needed a job and Joey offers him to work for Mr. Kirkpatrick's bookstore, Henry accepts it and becomes an employee. During his time in the bookstore, He and Joey become friends thanks to Abby having them realize their common interests, such as: art and to matter to the world.
An art gallery was hosting some of Henry's and Abby's art work during the summer of '28. Joey also came to the gallery with Abby and she shows him Henry's work. Then these "uninspiring" cartoon designs inspires Joey to draw cartoons. Henry then arrives at the gallery and thanks Joey for coming, he then asks him about his honest opinions of his work. Joey states that they're interesting and that they inspire him much to Henry's surprise. Joey explains the he might've been accidentally responsible for charting out the rest of his life, Abby claims that is something as Joey states he can tell she didn't believe him. Henry stay's in silence either out of disbelief or emotional overwhelment before getting distracted by a small man. Abby and Joey then left to talk about a possible cartoon character.
Creating Bendy and founding the studio
After their talk with Joey, Abby tells Henry about Joey's idea of the cheeky little devil of a cartoon. Upon hearing this, Henry drew a more cartoony version of Abby's initial drawing. Abby then takes Henry to Joey's apartment to discuss the character, they arrive at the house and Joey welcomes the two in. Abby reveals that she had told Henry about the character and Henry shows Joey his concept, Joey disapproves of it and they take a new approach. Henry draws a too-literal goat-like creature rather then the cartoony boy, Joey and Abby finds it too realistic and Henry draws a more cartoony body and gets rid of the clothes—since an animal wouldn't where those—and adds gloves upon Joey's order. He then draws a round face with short horns and a big toothy grin accompanied by the classic pie-cut eyes. Feeling satisfied, Henry shows it to Joey. Joey lastly has him add a bowtie and after looking at the finished drawing, Joey calls him Bendy as he "bends the rules."
Henry then offers Joey to be his business partner as Joey had the business brains and he had the skill. After some thought, Joey accepts the offer and the two shake hands. Henry and Joey Drew then open the animation studio—"Joey Drew Studios"—in 1929, having great goals in mind. He starts working with Joey at the studio and is tasked with animating the cartoons and leading the other artists and animators. While there, Henry also created Boris the Wolf. and Alice Angel, however they only started showing her after he left.
Retirement
Due to Joey's questionable work ethics, Henry decided to leave the studio in the year 1930. After leaving the studio, Henry moves to Pasadena, California,[1] and spend more time with his wife, Linda,[2] much to Joey's fury. After his resignation, Henry was replaced with Mr. Morris as the new director of the Art Department.
Henry and Abby never ended up working together at the studio as she joined the company a year after his departure from it. Joey thought they still kept in touch, but didn't know as they never discussed it. At some point after he left, Henry sends a letter to Joey, congratulating him for his success, which Joey hangs on the wall of his office inside a picture frame.[3]
Trapped in the Cycle
At some point, Joey writes a letter to Henry, telling him to visit the studio as he had something to show him. Through an unknown event(s), Henry ends up trapped in the Cycle. Presumably trapped there by Joey, likely because of his grudge towards Henry.
Awakening the Ink Machine
Everything begins when Henry receives a letter from Joey Drew, asking him to visit the workshop. Upon entering, he quickly discovers that the power is still running and that references to the studio's creation, Bendy, the little devil, are strewn throughout the environment. It isn't long before he finds the Ink Machine and decides to activate it to see what it does.
During his exploration in the studio to find the six items necessary to turn the Machine on. He restores the ink pressure in the theater, then returns to the break room and pulls a switch to turn the Ink Machine on. He goes back to the area where he previously found the Ink Machine, only to find that the entrance has been oddly blocked off from the outside. As he approaches, a twisted and deformed ink monster known as the Ink Demon suddenly appears and lunges for Henry. Henry runs for the exit door but the floor beneath him breaks and he falls downward, trapping him in the studio's basement. Slowly draining the flood of ink as he ventures deeper, Henry uses an axe to break open a boarded door barring his path. Entering a strange room with a mysterious ritual symbol in the center, Henry then collapses to the floor, unconscious.
Henry regains consciousness in the same room he passed out in. After he retrieves his axe that was propped against Grant Cohen's coffin, he heads down to Utility Shaft 9, remarking his surprise at the studio's size in his absence. He soon discovers more diary cassettes from the former employees that speak about how the Ink Machine affected their daily working lives. While walking down a hall, Henry notices a ink version of Sammy Lawrence, passing by from the hall and whistling while carrying a Bendy cutout. As soon as he approaches where the figure went, Henry finds that the man has walked through the wall. He enters the Music Department's entrance shortly after, the entrance to the audio recording sections of the studios where music and voices were recorded for the Bendy cartoons. Finding that the exit to the department is blocked off by another ink flood, Henry focuses on trying to drain it. He is also attacked by Searchers numerous times, strange creatures made of ink that appear out of the puddles on the ground.
After activating the ink pump from Sammy's office to drain the flood, Henry is suddenly hit on the back of his head and knocked out by Sammy. When he regains consciousness, he finds that he has been tied up by Sammy, the former music director transformed into the same ink-covered figure he saw and driven into a religious devotion to the Ink Demon. Thinking that the Ink Demon will free him from the body he considers to be a prison and abyss, he decides to use Henry as a sacrifice to The Ink Demon. In the commotion, however, the Ink Demon turns on Sammy and attacks him, given Henry the distraction he needs to escape by undoing the ropes that are holding him.
After escaping the ritual room, the Ink Demon himself materializes before Henry can leave and chases him. As the walls once again begin to be corrupted with ink just from the Ink Demon's presence, Henry manages to escape and the door barricades behind him. As he turns away to proceed, Henry finds a living Boris the Wolf.
Henry wakes up from sleep in the safehouse, somewhere that Buddy Boris has apparently been living and hiding from the Ink Demon in. After giving Buddy Boris a bowl of Bacon Soup and retrieving the safehouse door's lever, Henry travels with Buddy Boris into the depths of the studio. Henry discovers the entrance to Heavenly Toys, a merchandising section of the studio, he stumbles into a room dedicated to displaying the shorts and toys of Alice Angel, one of the studio's characters. As Alice's signature theme song begins to play, the lights go out and a half-deformed Alice Angel appears before screaming and escaping the room. After the lights come back on, Henry reunites with Buddy Boris and the two moves through the studio after killing Piper, a disfigured member of the gruesomely mutilated Butcher Gang trio.
Entering Alice's massive room, Henry and Buddy Boris discover numerous corpses of other cartoons all over, many of them being copies of Boris with their hearts removed. Twisted Alice explains that she has been using them to make herself "perfect", and claims that she will help Henry escape if he does favors for her, she sends him out into the complex to find items for her. Along the way, Henry must avoid the Ink Demon, who frequently appears without warning. Henry can only escape him by hiding inside the Little Miracle Stations. He also discovers the fate of Norman Polk, the former projectionist of the studio who has now turned into his job role as an ink monster with a projector for a head.
After doing Alice's bidding and finding her required items, she tells Henry to enter the elevator for his award. However, in white the lift, Alice betrays him and sends the lift falling, accusing Henry of stealing the "most perfect" Boris she has seen and that she needs Buddy Boris in order to make herself perfect. Shortly after the elevator crashes on Level S, mainly the Accounting & Finance location, Buddy Boris starts panicking while Alice arrives and she snatches him.
Henry later wakes up beside the wrecked elevator and begins exploring Level S, discovering the eventual madness and corruption of financial supervisor Grant Cohen. He gets into the nearby archives and finds a way through a door marked "private" by activating certain books on the shelves. After opening the door, Henry's vision distorts for a few seconds, then reverts back. Henry comes to a deep chasm, finds a cable-gondola system to cross it. He repairs the mechanism by using an Ink Maker to turn the scooped ink into a gear and crosses to the other side. He then enters a long hallway, where he has a vision of hundreds of inky arms reaching out of the walls. He arrives in a shaft where the Ink Machine had previously descended and hears Alice speaking to him as he climbs the stairs, realizing that he's trying to save Boris.
At the top of the stairs and entering the lounge & hideout, Henry discovers the Lost Ones, a gathering of the humanized ink creatures. He leaves them to enter a vent, and as he crawls through he encounters the Ink Demon before emerging into a room where he discovers the plans for a Bendy themed amusement park: Bendy Land. Henry opens the door to Storage 9, which he discovers contains various components of Bendy Land, including game booths, various ride parts, freaky costumes, and a haunted house. Henry visits each department off of Bendy Land, finding switches to power up the haunted house and encountering the Butcher Gang, the Projectionist, the Ink Demon, and a monstrous version of Bertrum Piedmont, the park's chief architect. After powering the haunted house, Henry enters and begins to ride, while Alice taunts him. After arriving in the house's ballroom, Henry is confronted by Buddy Boris, who is now a twisted version of himself, and Henry is forced to battle him. Using another Ink Maker, Henry creates Gent Pipes out of Brute Boris' inky blood and uses them to end his former friend. Henry then looks upon the individuals who saved him, who are Allison Angel and Tom.
Henry awakes in Allison Angel and Tom's safehouse, being locked up as they don't trust him. When Henry wakes up, he sees Allison, after that, Tom sits on a chair and threatens him with an axe, silently. In the next scene, Allison gives Henry some Bacon Soup in a bowl, but Tom breaks it after she leaves. After that, Tom leaves to confront the Ink Demon, and then the next scene, Allison scolds Tom for his reckless actions. Shortly after that, he and Allison realize that the Ink Demon is right outside their base. Allison tries to break Henry out, but she fails and she and Tom leaves.
Henry then uses the device that Allison gave to him to find a secret room in the prison and finds a Gent Pipe that he uses to break the plates in the door. Henry then escapes his prison, traversing through as he is attacked by multiple Searchers. Henry then finds massage that reads "There's something in the river." Henry boards the barge, forced to navigate his way through while avoiding the giant hand that emerges from the ink and chases him. Henry arrives at the Lost Ones' Village, where he encounters the now-insane Sammy Lawrence, who escaped the Ink Demon, and was violently attacked. After knocking off Sammy's mask, Henry is thrown to the ground by Sammy and was almost killed. Fortunately, Tom and Allison saves Henry, killing Sammy for good. He then gives Henry his axe. Henry, Tom and Allison then proceed to fight a horde of Searchers and Lost Ones. After an intense battle, Allison will ask Henry to lead the way. Henry falls down again and lands in the administration maze area and realizes he needs to obtain three pipes from the maze of offices and hallways. Within these halls, the Butcher Gang are lurking and searching for Henry. He sneaks past them collecting the Ink and bringing it back to the Ink Maker where he constructs three pipe pieces. After he has fixed the ink circulation, Henry proceeds to the Vault.
As he enters the Vault, Allison and Tom arrive after descending the chasm, using their rope. Henry reveals that he is going to The Ink Demon's lair, which was where the Ink Machine was descending to. Three of them follow to the Ink Machine to a path that resembles the starting location, Old Studio. Henry is forced to enter the Ink Machine alone because of the ink river that surrounds the machine, which would cause Allison and Tom to disappear.
After entering the machine, Henry finds a throne room where Joey Drew's final audio log to him is located. During the log, Joey seemly communicates to Henry, saying that Henry is their last hope in stopping the Ink Demon and saving the lost souls. At the end of this, Joey reveals to Henry that although the Demon saw the beginning of the Bendy show, he never saw how it ended. Henry takes a reel named "The End" and encounters The Ink Demon. He undergoes a gruesome transformation into a beast version of himself that attacks Henry. Henry then runs from this new form of The Ink Demon from all over the Ink Machine, turning on switches and breaking tubes where ink flows by. Henry returns to the throne room, where he places "The End" in a projection that makes all the screens change into the final, lost episode of the Bendy show. Beast Bendy is then caught by the reel and a strange and strong light coming from the projector, killing it.
Henry ends up in Joey Drew's apartment, where he talks to his old friend that says how Henry has a perfect family and he only has a ruined empire, how he ended up doing terrible things to his studio, his workers, and himself, and how Henry's acts finally convinced him to do the right thing. He states that Henry might see how the studio ended after all those years and Henry opens a door, where he reenters the studio, going back to the beginning of the story and getting stuck in a loop of nightmares inside the Cycle.[4]
Characteristics
Physical appearance
Joey Drew stated that he would struggle to remember Henry's face, implying that, at least to Joey, Henry is visually unremarkable.
Personality
Henry is a calm man with a goal of mattering in the world. He is interested in art but—according Joey—lacked imagination and was a workaday person. However, he was shown to be passionate about his work and is willing to complete a job he is given, and even expand upon it without needing someone else to "babysit" him. However, Henry is shown to be willing to let go of things if they get in the way between him and his loved ones.
He does show signs of optimism and a positive attitude, as evidenced in his audio log and him believing Bendy has potential to succeeded, however he becomes very annoyed with Joey's 'all take and no give' attitude and how he's a 'man of ideas and only ideas.' He likes drawing characters whenever he seems to feel stressed or in doubt. Henry is also very creative, as he was the one responsible for the creation of some of the studio's most famous characters, especially Bendy.
He cares deeply for his loved ones, like his wife Linda. This is seen when he remarks that he hasn't seen her for days and leaves the studio to spend more time with her.
Documents
Audio logs
- Log #1 - Found in Part I: Chapter 3 of Joey Drew Studios Employee Handbook.
Behind the scenes
Henry Stein is the recurring protagonist of the Bendy series. Besides the main game series, he also appeared in the novels but was only mentioned in Bendy: Dreams Come to Life and Bendy: Fade to Black, although he does physically appear in Bendy: The Illusion of Living.
Gallery
Notes that were written by Henry.
References
- ↑ Joey Drew Studios Employee Handbook. Written by Cala Spinner and published by Scholastic on July 30, 2019.
- ↑ Bendy: Dreams Come to Life. Chapter 16. Written by Adrienne Kress and published by Scholastic Inc on September 3, 2019.
- ↑ Bendy: Dreams Come to Life. Chapter 1. Written by Adrienne Kress and published by Scholastic Inc on September 3, 2019.
- ↑ Joey Drew Studios Employee Handbook. Part I: Surviving Your First Week. Written by Cala Spinner and published by Scholastic on July 30, 2019.
TBA