December 24th, 2009
This is perfect timing: today is Thursday, and tomorrow is Christmas… so I couldn’t resist to the tentation of publishing a properly Christmas-themed story. I hope that this little tale, written especially for this occasion by Ryan Licata, may help you evade, if only for a second, from the claws of Christmas madness…
And of course… Merry Christmas to all of you people and thanks very much for having devoted a bit of your time to read this blog, in the past year.
Nobody Writes to the Fat Man by Ryan Licata
Albtraum stood outside the fat man’s room with a pair of darned socks and a hot water bottle. The elf nudged open the door and peeked inside. By candle light he saw his old friend over by the window, the four glass panes frosted over, sitting in nothing but his y-fronts. “Leave everything over on the bed, Albtraum.” He placed the things down with deliberate slowness, then, light of foot, stepped just outside the door to watch as Santa began to trace upon each of the frosted panes the names of all the children whom no longer sent him letters.
December 20th, 2009
December 17th, 2009
Detective Noir et La Chatte by Ryan Licata
He had dimmed the lamps, lowered the Venetian blinds, closed for business, but she’d come up the fire escape and in through the window; the way his cat did. Seeing her there, standing over him, wearing a slender, black dress, a white patch, an orchard pinned, upon her breast, he saw that she was like his cat in other ways too. He tried to stand up from his swivel chair, but she pushed him down. The chair held them both, pawing and purring, as she curled up on his lap. Yes, curiously, she was like his cat in many ways.
Notes
There’s a couple of interesting stories around this illustration. The first one is about the story. At one point Ryan told me he had this image in his mind of a noir detective and that noir detective had my face. So I tried to draw myself as that character. I see this as a first try, probably other versions will follow. The other thing is, that when I started drawing this, the ink cartridge of my Pentel Pocket Brush ran dry and the strokes became rough and dirty. Usually I would have stopped and replaced the cartridge, but I liked the effect so I just kept on drawing. And somehow the image turned to to be someting really unusual for me, but also something I really like. I will have to work on this style some more…
And since I really liked the original drawing here it is, unplugged and unphotoshopped.
December 12th, 2009
December 11th, 2009
Elisabeth (Sbrizz) has this great design up for voting at threadless.com
Go check it out and vote for it here:
www.threadless.com/submission/245275/Join_the_Koalition
(you might have to register)
December 10th, 2009
Cipro. Pigmalione. Alcune migliaia di anni fa. by Aitan
Maledetta Afrodite! Maledetto il giorno che ascoltasti il mio pianto e facesti di lei una donna vera. Maledetto il movimento lento della sua gamba destra sul busto eburneo ancora immobile di statuaria bellezza; e maledetto ancor di più il momento in cui la sua bocca mi parlò d’amore. Maledetta e maledetto me che cerco ancora di farle assumere la stessa statica posizione dell’avorio che plasmai.
La statua che mi innamorò ora non sta ferma per più di due minuti. Afrodite, la mia vita non vale quei due minuti. Maledetta! perché non senti ora che piango e piango ancor di più?
Notes
It’s very difficult to illustrate Aitan’s stories, they are very rich in detail, so there is not much one can add with the drawings. Still this is a great challenge for me and I love it this way! In this case I tried to represent the imperfection deriving from motion which Pygmalion complains about in this story. In fact the story is about how the sculptor misses the times when his statue (which was brought to life by Artemis) would still be standing still and not be walking around all the time.
December 5th, 2009
December 3rd, 2009
Rodney spent had many months in a funk. His wife had left him, his daughter barely spoke to him, and he’d impregnated his 20 year old secretary. He woke up to thoughts of suicide and went to sleep drunk. It was on a drizzly Tuesday morning, however, that a sudden wake-up call finally shook him out of the fog he’d been living in. Unfortunately, his change in perspective came at the hands of renowned psychic Rowan Darkmoon. The two met on the freeway. Rowan was driving her Prius at 90MPH, throwing flaming tarot cards and live grenades out her window.
Notes
Daniel, aka slug-life, is a great writer. His stories have great sense of humour and an interesting style. I found him, thanks to somebody’s tip, on deviantart.com, where he sometimes posts new stories following the 100 themes challenge (each story revolves around a theme, picked out in sequence from a predefined list). If you liked this story, go and read some more by him on these links:
Indifferent Mechanics
Slug-life on deviantart.com
For those who don’t know about Tarot cards, the grim reaper usually stands for change and not for death.
December 1st, 2009
