papernoise blackbook

I’ve recently been invited to take part in a very special project, organized by Iranian-German Musician Amos and his lable Sounds of Subterrania. The project consisted in about 400 whitelable LPs handed out to artists, illustrators and designers from all over the world. Each of us could customize the cover to our likes. These objects now are beingn exibited in different galleries in Germany and Switzerland and online (on the Showtime website)

I really enjoyed to participate, especially because having to create a unique, orginal piece of art, I had to work completely by hand, without resorting to computer aided stuff. The more time passes, the less I like using a computer. Maybe I’m getting old, or maybe it’s just that I miss the direct contact with the paper, the colours, the real world…

Anyway, back to the cover design, here’s the official description I provided for it:

A surreal parade of creatures, memories and objects entwined in an energetic flow. It’s showtime, and everybody acts in sync, their minds linked together by invisible bonds, as if they were one giant organism. The idea was more to represent the (retro) mood and the drive of the album, than to be an illustration to it’s verbal content.

The album (which you can stream for free on the Amos Soundcloud page) is a fun mix of rock ‘n roll, 80’s vibes, Brian May guitars and the good ol’Amos style. Which made me think about when I was young and how I experienced the 80s. So basically the cover is a collage of my memories and images that popped up in my mind while listening to the tracks.

Should you want to buy it (and thus look very smart and hip with your friends, who will secretly plan on stealing it from you), you can find it on the online store here:
http://www.amos-showtime.com/… hannes-pasqualini/

Lapin

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…

Lazy Saturday Sketches is back as well, and it’s also changing a bit. I might change it’s name into Lazy Saturday Monsters, because that’s what you will be seeing in the next weeks!

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.

The Black Hole by Hannes Pasqualini

In the beginnig it was just a medium sized black hole in the ground, some kind of well, they thought. Farmer Rossert and his younger son Eldebun had been looking at it for most of the afternoon trying to get a clue on its origins. At one point it started to become more two-dimensional, like a flat black disk sitting on the grass and spinning nervously on itself. Farmer Rossert picked up a small stone and threw it into the hole. He never should have done that.

notes

It’s been some time since I last posted one of my own stories, actually I only did it once inepisode #1. Well, today I wasn’t in the mood to work on anybody else’s stories, so you’ll get this one.

Nocciola by Alessandro Bonino

I coniugi Mario e Laura Piovano, di Serravalle Scrivia, in provincia di Alessandria, avevano cercato per molto tempo di avere un bambino senza, purtroppo, ottenere alcun risultato. Su consiglio del Dottor Alberto Miniati, primario della clinica San Michele Arcangelo di Cadelbosco di Sopra, provincia di Reggio Emilia, grande luminare che aveva seguito tutti i loro infruttuosi tentativi, decisero di intraprendere l’estenuante percorso dell’adozione. Dopo dieci lunghi mesi, ricevettero finalmente la comunicazione che un bambino era stato loro assegnato. Grande fu la loro sorpresa quando scoprirono che non si trattava affatto di un bambino, ma di una strega di nome Nocciola.

Notes

I’m finally back with some hundred word stories! I was really starting to miss them. The author of this first story of 2010, is yet another new entry in the project (I get quite some requests lately, and that’s great!). I’ve been drawing people in suites for so much time now (Gietz has something to do with is, in case you wondered), that it becomes quite automatic for me to draw a tie on a male character…