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The Killer by Ryan Licata

The jury was out. The chronicle had its front page. Tommy’s parents turned off the television; they’d seen enough. His mother, knitting another sweater for the hard months to come, stared red eyed at the framed photograph at her bedside: little Tommy with his curly locks, stark blue eyes and strange pouting lips, sat, dressed in a sailor suit, sword raised, on a rocking-horse; while his father, the good minister, gently rocked him back and forth with his foot, reading aloud from the book of Revelations: the opening of the second seal, the horse of red, a slayer of men.

Notes

Sometimes there is these really gratifying moments, when you create an illustration and show it to the author of the story (Ryan in this case) and he says: “It’s just the picture I had in mind when I wrote it!”. The wonderful thing about artistic collaboration is that it either works… or it just doesn’t, and there’s little help from science in explaining either outcomes. The more I grow into this life, the more I am thankful for the little things I can’t explain, it brings back a bit of magic.

Buona Digestione by Scoiattolazzo

Come sempre è  il motivetto di  Incontri ravvicinati del terzo tipo a svegliare Hannes. Una rapida
colazione nella bellissima tazza di Guerre stellari ed è già tempo di lavoro. La cartellina al  solito posto,
tra le copie masterizzate di Battlestar Galactica e i Dvd del Pianeta delle scimmie (quelli belli non quelli di Tim Burton).
Mentre esce,  neanche il tempo di sistemare la lucente spilla da membro decennale dello Star Trek Italian Club
sulla maglietta di  E. T., che uno strano raggio bianco lo trasporta in una astronave sigaroforme.
“È stato davvero un bellissimo viaggio ” esclamò.  Venti secondi prima di essere divorato dagli alieni.

Notes

It’s been some time since I last posted one of these hundred word stories… I’ve been busy, but you probably know that. I don’t know if I will be able to keep up with the usual, weekly, rhythm, but I’ll try. I have some ready for the next weeks, coming up are some more stories by Ryan.

Eves by Ryan Licata

He no longer saw them. It was as if they had vanished from the world, and not just his own. The very idea was absurd, after all it was his problem, and the solution offered by the Union, he recalled, had not been quite so final. He supposed that they had altered his vision, removed them from it, transforming them maybe, rendering them unrecognisable. But it wasn’t long before he stopped wondering about them altogether, having become too busy collecting the rib bones he found everywhere on the streets, too preoccupied by his bizarre desire for the meat upon them.

Spine di Lucy

Il bambino con le Spine nacque di sette mesi con un parto cesareo prima che le punte si conficcassero nelle viscere delle madre. A sei mesi pareva un cactus, a due anni un porcospino. Nessuno voleva giocare con lui. Crescendo le spine diventavano sempre più appuntite. Quando incontrò la ragazza Giunco si avvicinò a lei senza preoccuparsi di poterla trafiggere. Lei si insinuò tra le sue Spine senza pungersi. Innamorati rimasero incastrati l’una nell’altro per lungo tempo. Ma lei, stanca di adattare continuamente la sua forma all’andamento delle punte dell’amato, un giorno sparì lasciando solo un biglietto scritto col sangue.

Notes

This story reminded me a lot of the short stories by Tim Burton, so I was really tempted to draw something in that style. In the end I decided to do something just following the inspiration of the moment, without following predefined models (as far as that is possible). So this illustration is more about an idea, a moment, a sensation…

Détective Noir et La Trapèze by Ryan Licata

He awoke tied ten feet off the ground to one of the poles in her act, his head aching, and, the worst of it, his coat missing. A spotlight came on, blinding him. Shielding his eyes he spotted her, in penumbra, a tightrope away, her long, shapely legs glitzy in tights stretching out from under his coat. Then the spotlight took to her completely. And she stepped out, onto the rope, her balance out-of-this-world, loosening a button with every step she made, until, by the middle of her act, she was done with it. He marvelled, as his coat fell.

IL giorno dell oca by Scoiattolazzo

Libellule polacche strozzate dal gas.
Cigni ungheresi morti di inedia.
I forti tori dell est, decimati.

C’e’ puzza, ed un vento abominevole, mentre l oca dagli anfibi neri fa il verso all acquila.
E nell anfratto schifoso e osceno dove medita, anche il diavolo distoglie lo sguardo davanti all orrore.
Anni dopo a  Norimberga, 17 oche vengono giudicate, impiccate,  fatte a pezzi e bruciate nei loro stessi forni.
Vittime… carnefici….specchi distorti.
C’e’ gente che giura che tra una sentenza e l altra si e’ sentito piu’ di un quack, provenire da dei giudici dal becco giallo.

Note

The hundred word stories are back! There have been time when I thought that never again I would find the strength to draw a line. But probably I just needed to focus on something completely different (like synths and making some music) Giètz! has put my mind and body to great fatigue. Drawing a graphic novel is alway hard, but when the product of your efforts feels like something alien, it’s even worse. I still think that in the end I did a decent work, and that Giètz! is an interesting project, worth being made, and that I needed to be working on it. It’s been a great experience. Nonetheless, now more than ever, I know what path I want to be travelling on, so it’s great to see that my lust for drawing is coming back again!

Détective Noir et Crimespassionnels by Ryan Licata

Her heavy goons in the alleyway had left him without a single slug, while she’d be packing that piece, neat and compact, under her skirt. Backstage, her name was emblazoned on a door under a paling gold star. Inside, she sat at her dressing table, looking at him through her mirror, mascara streaking to the corners of her mouth. She stood up, turned and slowly hoisted up her skirt, showing what she had every intention of using against him. “Shows over sweetheart,” he said, but as she entwined her feather bower around his neck, he found it all beginning again.

Notes:

usually I am really rational about my artistic decisions. This time I just followed an impulse. This is the result of it. Somehow it looks like it could have been taken out from a 70s comic mag, which I find somehow fitting… or don’t you?

(Senza titolo) by Cubber

O per esempio il tac tac del bastone di un cieco sul selciato. Tac
tac tac… non vedo il cieco perché è dietro di me, ma il tac tac
corre sul selciato, sale per un buco sotto le mie scarpe, tac tac tac,
come una febbre delle ossa, tac tac tac, un valzer di marionette; mi
sale lungo la nuca come per darmi la morte, tra i capelli come un filo
o un insetto urticante; mi ustiona mentre scende lungo la faccia, tac
tac tac, entra in bocca e apre nei denti una crepa che si fa sempre
più grande.

Notes

I never really worked on this story, though I had it laying around for some time, because I didn’t know how to draw it. The story is told from the inside out, it’s about things you feel, not things you see. So how to visualize this? In the end I decided to try to illustrate the events in the story how they might appear in the protagonist’s mind.

Détective Noir by Ryan Licata

From his ninth storey window the city lights, on and off, created a mosaic against the night. He swigged neat whiskey from a tumbler, staring in at all those well-lit apartments. In rooms and kitchens, against curtains drawn, he could see the cut-out silhouettes of people having their parties. Women, their necks thrown back, mouths agape, laughing their heads off; and men, hanging up their dinner jackets, loosening their neckties, smoking short-cropped cigars. He smoked one himself, raised his drink. Let them have their fun with the lights on, for later, in the dark, he knew it would be murder.

Notes

This is the first Detective Noir story by Ryan Licata, the first one he wrote, (I had published the second one, Detective Noir et la Chatte, already some time ago here). It was his idea that the detective should looks somehow like me. I will do the whole bunch in the next weeks, they make up a nice little series inside his hundred word stories.

A bonsai story by Aitan

Dissi che ero stanco, esausto. Basta, dissi, non andrò a vivere mai né con te né con lei. Basta, dissi, ora seguirò un cammino che è soltanto mio. Adesso, adesso stesso, salirò in terrazza, sceglierò l’albero più nodoso e attaccherò il cappio al ramo più alto. Ma basta ora, ora basta, dissi, e gettai via la cornetta ridendo come un forsennato. Immediatamente, presi la corda dalla stanza delle scope e l’attaccai al ramo più alto dell’albero più nodoso. Mi fermai a guardare e continuai a ridere a crepapelle. Che ne sapeva la poverina che sul mio terrazzo c’erano solo bonsai?

Notes

Lately I have some problems drawing. Something inside of me struggeles against it… I think I need a break.