christmas comic

Happy Christmas everyone!

Click on the drawing for the finer details (like the text!).

animatedly animating

I look as though I am trapped in a Hitchcockian nightmare of my own making, which is not really what I was going for. (Am I being chased?)

Right after I drew this I saw a music promo from Joann Sfar's Serge Gainsbourg biopic: Mr. Sfar is in the background of a lot of the shots animatedly animating. I watched with a lot of envy for the flowing freedom that he draws with and wondered how I can liven up my own drawings and get them off the page a wee bit. For me (and this ties back to the surprise and the delight that my drawing tries to anticipate) this is a question of practicing resurrection in everything. Amen and amen and amen. Drawing has to be at least a part of that practice, alongside my questions along the lines of, how then should we live?

'you're very self-absorbed, jack'

I have been reading and loving Palestine by Joe Sacco. (I am not trying in any way to compare our drawing here - the way that I draw and think does not have any relation to Sacco's work - oh that it would.) Sacco is a necessary character within his journalism, who constantly reveals his own reactions (high and low minded) as part of the broader story. This is a great strength in his work. Looking at my own drawings here, I was embarrassed that I had moved from reflecting on activists in (at best) very difficult circumstances, to my own winter look in the space of just two panels. But I thought it would be a bit dishonest not to post this. And, continuing in the me vein, I like the way it looks and feels, in spite of any unhappiness about the overall effect.

'to look the world back to grace'

the people have the power

The pictures are available on Facebook here. Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan, who also posted this great clip:

the people have the power

My thoughts on this are a wee bit half-baked. But, in the interests of getting something out there, here goes:

After looking at Platon's Portraits of Power in the recent New Yorker I decided to try drawing all of the featured leaders. I have been itching for some sort of larger drawing exercise than the individual drawings that I usually do. I am not sure this scratches the itch but I enjoyed it, even though there are several drawings I am really unhappy with (all posted).

When I first saw the portfolio in the magazine, I had an immediate reaction. Seasonal magazine features like this (see also the 'Person of the Year' stories, which proliferate between now and Christmas) make me uncomfortable and immediately set me to thinking about the deserving billions who are never going to make the list. Drawing the group here, almost exclusively male, also seemed to be a good opportunity to humanize the politicians a wee bit and (given my somewhat idiosyncratic drawing style) put them on the same level as the rest of us, which is where they belong anyway. The captions were part of this attempt to humanize but I quickly ran out of ideas and hope that the drawings mostly speak for themselves.

There were two other things that came to mind throughout the process. David Dark (in at least one talk I heard and maybe in print) speaks about his realization, during the 2004 US presidential election, that George W. Bush and John Kerry were the two least free men in America, bound by the expectations of the American electorate (and the election process) to hold positions which would be completely unreasonable (and which they would not believe) in most other contexts. (Mr. Dark discusses the candidates statements on 'winning the war on terror' in this regard.) In a lot of ways I am sure that many of these leaders are not the free agents they might believe themselves to be. I think this is borne out to some degree in the second thing that came to mind, which was Michael Leunig's cartoon, available here.

A couple of quick thoughts came along after I finished these and was wondering what to write: How many of these politicians live up to the charge given in Psalm 72.4?; Do I agree with those who argue that in Romans 13: 1-7 Paul is being satirical?

Without further ado, the drawings:

me, me, me, me, me

Throughout this period without paid employment (now five months) I have often been disheartened by the fact that there have been no great flights of imagination or grand projects. But my drawing has definitely moved forward and I have learned to relax more. I see the world a little differently. I had hoped for more coherence in my reading, the further development of views, to build thoughts more, to pray more, to find new things to do, for things to make more sense. These have happened only very haphazardly. I am sometimes unhappy with myself w/r/t the lack of activity and other times forgiving and understanding. Being without work is hard for anyone. Me no less than any one else.

I wonder if the blog, which is nearing its first anniversary, is an accurate reflection of what has been on my mind and heart. I have deliberately shied away from sharing most day to day activities and autobiography. But I do happily hope that the personal stuff comes across in the posts anyway, even when there are no or few words (which is most of the time). I have not taken the time to go back and reflect on the whole (as I recommended for The Insatiable Moon blog in my last post) but I am glad that there is something to go back to. And that it tells a story. Maybe not the story that I would have chosen to tell but definitely my story - the threads that continue to get woven in to the whole and the ones that have been dropped. I find grace in all of this. Receive it happily.

The one consistent drawing theme that I have managed to keep up since switching notebooks at the beginning of this month is that I frequently draw myself. Only one picture made it on to the blog so far (those first notebook pages). I decided to run some of these images together - the drawing here. I don't look like all these guys but they are all me. In this, and in the Echo Chamber post, which was also a more personal drawing, I can feel some new direction. This is slight but makes me very happy indeed.

for the backstory and the ongoing drama

I have been following the wonderful Mike Riddell as he blogs the (very high) highs and (very low) lows of putting together the film of his book The Insatiable Moon. Filming has begun. Worth reading the blog from the beginning - or at least looking over the journey of the last few months. Mr. Riddell and his supporters are overcoming the seemingly insurmountable odds against them in real time.

Mr. Riddell has played with the novel form several times over the past few years. I have not been able to get a hold of The Insatiable Moon but did find Deep Stuff to be wonderfully thought provoking. Must be read slowly.

my happiness bears no relation to happiness

This poem is an movingly powerful statement, I think.
I read about Taha Muhammad Ali here.

'echoes on bare walls'

Music sounds better in here than anywhere else in the apartment.