Today's JSVB post is with respect to the recent movie theatre shooting in Colorado. The content is violent and depressing. If you are new to JSVB, there are as of this writing 623 posts that are a better place to start than this one. The art and opinion in today's post is intended for mature readers only. Please do not scroll down if violent images or text disturb you.
I am unhappy with this picture, my art. The shooting in the movie theatre in Colorado has left me terribly shaken. I don't know anybody personally that was in there at the time, but I can imagine maybe just a bit of that terror. Right away, I felt that I had to work out this event, this horrifying stain on us all. So I drew this... thing. Quick, there's a disaster Jeff, better go find your pencils and inks and draw something about it!
I'm most unhappy with this drawing. I wanted something very much different, but this is what came out, and I don't have much enthusiasm to begin a new draft. I wanted to show a confluence between comic book shoot'em-ups and real-world violence. The Christopher Nolan Batman movies do a better job of this that I ever want to. I suppose that was the point of lining up at midnight to go see "The Dark Knight Rises" (2012). Anyone who knows me knows that I don't follow comic book culture very much. Maybe if I did, I'd understand my own picture.
What was it like in the theatre? Not like my dysfunctional drawing. I can't watch the TV news, it's too sordid. I've heard that quite a few people were shot trying to protect the others. Nobody would be able to race through automatic rifle fire. Maybe some would be dressed in Batman outfits, logo shirts for certain, maybe a homemade cape or plastic cowl and utility belt. I'd do that, if I wanted to see Batman that much.
As I was drawing, I found it easier to think of the characters as Batman and Robin. They would wear body armour. They could leap from walls and clobber the bad guy. They might get hurt, sometimes pretty bad, but they would make it to the end of the story and win.
That night, the shooter was wearing body armour. There was no Batman, really, but I heard that there were heroes.
I'm most unhappy with this drawing. I wanted something very much different, but this is what came out, and I don't have much enthusiasm to begin a new draft. I wanted to show a confluence between comic book shoot'em-ups and real-world violence. The Christopher Nolan Batman movies do a better job of this that I ever want to. I suppose that was the point of lining up at midnight to go see "The Dark Knight Rises" (2012). Anyone who knows me knows that I don't follow comic book culture very much. Maybe if I did, I'd understand my own picture.
What was it like in the theatre? Not like my dysfunctional drawing. I can't watch the TV news, it's too sordid. I've heard that quite a few people were shot trying to protect the others. Nobody would be able to race through automatic rifle fire. Maybe some would be dressed in Batman outfits, logo shirts for certain, maybe a homemade cape or plastic cowl and utility belt. I'd do that, if I wanted to see Batman that much.
As I was drawing, I found it easier to think of the characters as Batman and Robin. They would wear body armour. They could leap from walls and clobber the bad guy. They might get hurt, sometimes pretty bad, but they would make it to the end of the story and win.
That night, the shooter was wearing body armour. There was no Batman, really, but I heard that there were heroes.
Looking at this piece, I see it glorify the violence. It's a comic-book frame. I don't want to have my artwork exploit that shooting. However, in a grain of make-believe brutality lies the nature of the art form. Film, comic book, all illusions larger than life, very seductive if you let it be. The fans want it to be. The whole comic-economic culture demands it to be. Will there be a superhero comic in the near future where the caped good guy saves the theatre?
What a weird drawing. It's so much easier to see the figures as cartoon characters. But I know that they were real people, too. Any one of my friends could have easily been in that theatre or one just like it. I just can't draw the people like that. This is too close to black madness. I want to draw the art that the people I love would like to see. No way am I signing this thing.
Words fail to express how I feel about this darkest tragic night. I tried to draw a picture, but it's not any better.
Posts
