Market day was the best time to be at it. His victims were fellows with twirling canes and straw hats, beside dames with parasols, strolling about, haggling for rugs, munching from a bag of the Chinaman’s persimmons. He’d bide his time in the narrow streets, to where they were carried beneath him by the push of the crowd. Then, on the hour, as the church bells rang, the inexplicable would occur: a choreographed dance of dandies removing their watches from their pockets. And that’s when he struck, with the quick rip of fabric, the flutter of wings, up, and away.
Notes:
When I first read this story I didn’t know what a Magpie was, but I immediately had to think about a strange looking fellow, dressed in black with big wings on his back. Then I looked the word up in the dictionary, and it all made sense…
Sons of Sorrow by Ryan Licata
They rode into town at sundown, wild boys on black horses. Sorrow galloped a head of them on a white horse with no saddle. She wore her hair like a squaw. It wasn’t enough that they called her a witch, some dared say that her sons were her lovers too, fathered by the devil all. They drank spirits at the bar and sang their songs. The women locked-up their daughters, who couldn’t help feeling hot with the windows shut-up so. And the men stayed in the bar all night long until Sorrow and her sons rode back east at dawn.
Il ragazzo con lo zaino a razzo (di Andrea Campanella), parte 2/2
In lontananza si vedono i primi manifestanti. “Andiamo” dice Simone a Francy. Lei è titubante, lui la guarda interrogativo. “Ho paura” dice Francy, “Non ho mai volato con quei così”. Simone le prende le mani e dice: “tesoro dobbiamo andare per molti motivi. Il primo è che qui tra poco ci sarà l’inferno, lo sai meglio di me. Secondo è che devi imparare a volare ed è meglio che lo fai con me. Il terzo è che a mio padre hanno già spaccato la testa ed io voglio volare lontano da qui, molto lontano e voglio farlo con te”. Francy ha le lacrime agli occhi, abbraccia il suo eroe e schizzano verso il blu.
Notes
Sons of sorrow is a particularly intense story to me, this would make a great start for a full length comic or novel. When working on the illustration for this, I first started with a classic western picture with horses and all. Later I resorted to this one, where you don’t know exactly where they are. They might be just about to enter the saloon, or riding through the desert on the back of a horse. For the second story I took a bit of inspiration from the characters in Tekkonkinkreet, a great movie you should see if you haven’t done so alredy.
