Erin Go Bragh
The show has closed, with a surprisingly high total attendance of 52 people, who paid 10 Euro each, and one of whom purchased a T-shirt, priced €6. Fifty-two isn't that bad, considering that we don't actually know anyone in Ireland. And now, all that I have left to do in Ireland is relax a bit. I've got a good week left here, and I intend to spend a good deal of it drawing character and location sketches for a serial comic I'm considering doing. If any of you remember that adventuring comic I drew a while back where a portly little man grew a number of levels and killed a wizard, this longer comic uses that same character, named Phillip K. Doop.
Time for a Review: Pictures for Sad Children
http://picturesforsadchildren.com/
In some respects this comic is similar to White Ninja, in that the characters are very simply drawn and the humor is very absurd. But PfSC is much, much darker, and the art manages to be wonderfully bleak and flat. Other little details make the comic that much darker, such as the fact that the only capital letters in the dialog come in when people scream. Little stubby people with stick arms move about in a dreary box shaped world, and I love it. Artist/writer John Campbell had another project you might have heard of in the past; an hourly comic drawn about his stay in Mexico. It's a fine example of how neurotic and poor you can get if you really put your mind to it.
PfSC is one of my favorite comics, with nice little elements of magical realism mixed into black humor and satire. Most of them end up seeming like some kind of fucked up experimental art film. At one point, Campbell faked a sponsorship from Long John Silver's and drew a comic where an LJS employee menaces a young girl by repeatedly thrusting his hands into a deep fat frier. Until his twisted stick arms spell "Long John" in cursive, and the little girl throws up her arms and cries "Silver's!" I love this comic.
