Tuesday, December 22, 2009

...on this winter's night with you



She and I never knew what we were supposed to be to one another.  We were friends from the first- meeting  through a common friend, finding each other in a common class, finding ourselves spending more and more time together.  We were easy friends- easy to talk with one another, easy to be quiet with one another. But it always felt like there was something else between us- deeper currents, maybe.  I never knew how I felt- when I finally did ask her out, she told me no- she didn't want to jeopardize our friendship.  Later, when she told me she felt something for me, she was half a world away.  Our relationship ebbed and flowed, sometimes one thing, sometimes another.  When she told me she was leaving, I found myself torn even more- I was by then in love with someone who loved me back- but she still held hold of part of me.  I said goodbye, for once with no other words to give her.  I remember listening to a tape she'd give to me, over and over.  We kept in touch through the mail, off and on, and I remember thinking, as I listened to that tape, that I knew how she truly felt.  I wrote her this long letter explaining how I felt, and how I knew how she felt.  Well, I was wrong.  I haven't heard from her since that last letter.  I think about her every so often- I wonder where she is, if she's happy, if she ever thinks of me... but I always think about her when I hear one particular song...

It was the middle of winter in State College.  We had made plans to go out that night, for dinner or something, and we found ourselves walking across campus.  It was later in the evening, and the snow was coming down- big fat flakes, drifting lazily down onto the walkways and grounds.  There was no wind, just the falling snow.  The whole campus was hushed, as though everyone had decided it was better to stay indoors. 

We walked across campus, just the two of us, and we talked.   We stopped to make snow angels- it was cold then, but we laughed so much it still felt warm.  We walked through campus, onto the streets of the homes near the university.  We walked under the streetlamps,the lights making halos of the falling snow.  Sometimes we walked arm in arm, sometimes we roamed back and forth across the streets, drifting in and out of each other's orbit.  We talked about things we'd never discussed before- some of it, I don't know if we'd ever talked about with anyone else.  I don't know if I'd ever felt closer to anyone before than I did that night.

I walked her back to her apartment.  We stood outside the door and kissed in the falling snow.  It wasn't a kiss of passion, or a kiss of love, or even just a kiss goodnight.  It felt like an unspoken acknowledgement that come what may, just this once, we both knew who we were to each other.  For a few short hours, we could be two people who had the whole world to themselves, and could just be with each other, on that winter's night.

The lamp is burnin' low upon my table top
The snow is softly fallin'
The air is still within the silence of my room
I hear your voice softly callin'


If I could only have you near
To breathe a sigh or two
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
On this winter night with you


The smoke is rising in the shadows overhead
My glass is almost empty
I read again between the lines upon the page
The words of love you sent me


If I could know within my heart
That you were lonely too
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
On this winter night with you


The fire is dying now, my lamp is growing dim
The shades of night are liftin'
The mornin' light steals across my windowpane
Where webs of snow are driftin'


If I could only have you near
To breathe a sigh or two
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
And to be once again with with you

To be once again with with you

--"Song for a Winter's Night", Sarah McLachlan

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

From the Crypt v.2, Item 12: Somebody Called About the Cable?


8/21/93.


Nothing terribly clever to say this time around. Too tired. More of the typical work of the time, though it looks as though I was moving away from the super-detailed muscles and towards less overrendering... which I guess would just be rendering. Biggest thing I notice about this pic is that I had the patience and creativity to make up all the crap on Cable's body- none of that's really original to the character, I just thought it would make for a fun picture. Might've been some kind of backstory to it, but I can't remember anything.


Later.

...oh.  Before I go, I direct you to Library Card of the Damned, my new blog.  It's hopefully going to be me reviewing books, movies, and god knows what else.  Check it out if you want to know what I think about what I read, watch, listen to, and otherwise occupy my days with when I'm not thinking about how to get out of posting anything new here ;)


Music- "Powerpuff Girls Theme" (cause it's STUCK in my head...)

Friday, December 4, 2009

My New T-Shirt Idea



I thought this would make for a fun T-Shirt, or a Christmas Card.  Clever?  Or just silly?  YOU DECIDE!

Thursday, December 3, 2009


Undated; probably around November 1993.

Well, it's The Crow again.  This is hardly unfamiliar territory for the blog, right?  This time (or that time, when I drew it), I decided to approach the character slightly differently from past attempts.  This time around, I decided I'd focus on what was really the heart of the story, Eric and Shelly.  As you may or may not know, Eric comes back (or is brought back) from the dead to avenge his and Shelly's murders.  The effectiveness of the comic book comes from the numerous flashbacks to their relationship interspersed throughout the book.  So, while it's an all kinds of crazy revenge story, the book does a pretty fantastic job of highlighting just what they both lost. 

Also, when you're 19 years old, this kind of story just kills.

Anyway, the picture is something I'm actually quite pleased with.  Something a little different for me back then, I think the set up and layout of it works at least reasonably well.  I'd probably approach it differently now, but I like how it works.  Who knew?

Music: "I Am Stretched On Your Grave" - Dead Can Dance

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

From the Crypt v.2, Item 10: The Hell(raiser) You Say


11/7/93.

Let me get this out of the way now: I didn't draw this on black paper- I drew it just like every other drawing I did back then, and I just now reversed it. If black-and-white photos look better than color, white-on-black drawings look much cooler than black-on-white. At least, drawings of Cenobites do.

I was a big fan of Hellraiser back in the day. Mostly because of the stylized look of them- if Freddy and Jason were cool icons, here was a whole Manson family of characters to choose from. It was gory, it was sexy, it was clever- all the things guaranteed to appeal to young people of a certain age. And of course, if it appeals to a girl the young person likes, then so much the better excuse to draw. Not that I ever gave her the drawing- somehow a little far afield from the gift of flowers, right? But, you had to know her to appreciate that she was as likely to enjoy the drawing as she was the flowers. Ah, the good old days. (I didn't realize until sometime later that Hellraiser was essentially a treatise on sadomasochism. But really, is that the kind of thing you want a 19-year-old to know much about?)

Nothing fancy about the drawing itself- mostly adapted from pics I most likely found in Fango (Fangoria magazine to you not in the know), with what I believe are some adapted lines from the movie.

Music: "Christian Woman" - Type O Negative

P.S. Ask Joey sometime about the true Leviathan (the 'big bad' of Hellraiser II)