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.
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.
