“Mamma, la gatta mi guarda.” by Ryan
This skinny girl from uptown clung to her mother’s skirt as they walked each morning down to the fish market. Her mother, a tall woman once an athlete, took long strides and her daughter would be at full stretch, almost running, not to let go. The girl herself held a rag doll by the arm. An arm that one day came off. Her mother chose only the freshest fish and had them cleaned. The girl watched as the heads and innards were tossed into a bucket, but hid her eyes in her mother’s skirt as the dock cats came closer.
Notes
As usual the best part of illustrating these stories is getting to add something of your own imagination to it. What is the girl thinking? Why is she afraid of the cats? I guess Ryan had something completely different in mind when writing this story…
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.
Ciucci is an Italian blog (by Marta aka Larsoniana) that features infantile works by famous Italian comic artists (like Ponticelli, just to name one). Funny to see how all this great artists have started their career! Today my first comic ever, that I made when I was about 6 or 7, has been featured on this blog, head over here to see it: ciucci.blogspot.com
