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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.

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?

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.

Io ho ucciso Pier Paolo Pasolini di Scoiattolazzo

Non che ne vada fiero, ma qualcuno doveva pur farlo.
Il suo intellettualismo ostentato, la sua lotta di classe, la mente usata come arma, sono cose che tuttora mi restano insopportabili.
In fondo non era che un emarginato, un estremista, meritevole solo di essere tra i primi.
E cosa può restare di un borghese che rifugge la borghesia?
Parole su parole:
“Tutto e’ amorfo..senza vento…quante cose ricordiamo in vita? La morte non e’ che un grande montaggio cinematografico dove restano solo le cose importanti, i momenti che tutti hanno bisogno di ricordare…”

Pier Paolo Pasolini doveva morire…
ed io l’ho ucciso…

Notes

Who killed Pier Paolo Pasolini? They say that it was Pino Pelosi, but the story isn’t really working. There’s still a lot of discussion going on about the possible scenario and the real killer still remains a vague shadow…