Kolyma Tales Book Cover

 

Mock up for a book cover, full image below. 

Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Tales was rereleased sometime around the end of last year. New publisher, new book cover. But I liked the old Penguin Books design with the photo of two prisoners working at what looks like a gold mining operation. So, I combined the two designs, used a couple of filters, etc. 

Was kind of bored with just that, so I added an additional layer of art and commentary. Hence the wily prisoner contemplating philosophical about the nature of Gulag, just before he suggests to the viewer that survival comes at any price, to avoid general labor, to get yourself set up with a cushy administrative or storeroom job, to grab whatever scraps of food that you can, and to stay out of the way of both bosses and criminals. You know, like the modern corporate workplace.

Space Girl, plus some story detritus

Some stuff from about a sketchbook ago. Which is to say, several months to almost a year past. Feels like a bit of a cheat, posting one-off sketches and the like rather than anything story related:

Had someone ask me about a month ago how the comics were coming along. I forgot what I said, something like "Ah, work you know, paycheck, etc." But the reality is that most anything from the sketchbooks this past year just haven't been worth posting, much less the (several) abortive starts at comic work. Several things go into it, mostly just general technical drawing issues - consistency from one page to the next being a concern. But ultimately the big bugbear is, well, story. Not interested in wasting folks' time with a supposedly polished story on my part if it's going to be the narrative equivalent of a demo reel. That's fine for portfolio purposes - not for something published. Or more importantly, something that should aspire to be memorable, to the point that it can potentially define a certain place and time for the reader. Milestone - not a millstone - for both the reader and artist; take note...

 (A couple of characters - and a key moment - from Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward. )

That being said, I should start posting some of those aborted attempts at comic pages. There are several floating around the sketchbooks, fairly complete in terms of characters. Almost an entire moment even, with a beginning, middle, and end. Taking the trouble to scan them in may be the thing I need to take another look at the drawings and correct them, in effect doing another pass and pushing the shapes or poses as needed. If anything, it'll be cathartic to get the dirty laundry out of the washer after several months and into the dryer. Just like real life.

(If I remember correctly, had previously illustrated several pages of a retelling of the Nihongi - the Japanese Genesis, so to speak. Seems the main character here is retelling the part about the wild man, Susano-no-wo, near the end of the page. Pretty lady seems content with just enjoying her breakfast.)

~ Novy Mirlag... ~ 

"Someday the Russian stage will yet see this sight! And the Russian cinema screen! The pea jackets one color and their sleeves another. Or so many patches on the pea jacket that its original cloth is totally invisible. Or a flaming pea jacket - with tatters on it like tongues of flame. Or patches on britches made from the wrappings of someone's food parcel from home, and for a long while to come one can still read the address written in the corner with an indelible pencil. And on their feet the tried and true Russian "lapti" - bast sandals - except that they had no decent "onuchi" - footcloths - to go with them. Or else they might have a piece of old automobile tire, tied right on the bare foot with a wire, an electric cord. (Grief has its own inventiveness...)

 "And then, in addition, bronze-gray camp faces will appear on the screen. Eyes oozing with tears, red eyelids. White cracked lips, covered with sores. Skewbald, unshaven bristles on the faces. In winter... a summer cap with earflaps sewn on.

I recognize you! It is you, the inhabitants of my Archipelago!"

-Solzhenitsyn; Gulag Archipelago, Vol 2


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~ Gulag Archipelago book covers... ~

The Gulag Archipelago, volumes 1 and 3. Did these last year after finding a couple of old used paperback versions of the above. Since the covers were coming undone, figured it'd be worthwhile to take a crack at some layout and make my own dust jackets.

Some more dime-store layout:
The Brothers Karamzov. Probably would do the "Dostoyevsky" font differently now. More than halfway through reading at this point.

Used the mysterious Flammarion woodcut and some Photoshop to make the cover of Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica. The fonts were straight from the book binding. Could've finessed them a bit more.

On the shelf. The Chaos Space Marines tend to hang out next to the books (left and right).

~ The Gulag Archipelago ... ~


Next day, we were allowed to move into private lodgings. I found myself a henhouse to suit my pocket, with a single bleary window and such a low roof that even where it was highest, in the middle, I could not stand upright. "Give me a low-roofed cottage," I once wrote in prison, dreaming of exile. It was not very pleasant, all the same, not being able to raise my head. Still, it was a little house of my own! The floor was earthen. I put my padded camp vest on it, and there was my bed! But Zdanyukevich, an exiled engineer, who had formerly taught at the Bauman Institute, quickly lent me a couple of wooden boxes, on which I managed to make myself comfortable....


I had no oil lamp as yet - I had nothing!! an exile must select and buy every single thing he needs, as though he has just landed on this earth - but I did not feel the want of it... I simply lay on my boxes and enjoyed it!

What more could I desire?...

But the morning of March 6 surpassed anything that I could have wished for! Chadova, my elderly landlady, an exile from Novgorod, whispered - because she dared not say it out loud: "Go and listen to the radio. I'm afraid to repeat what I've just heard."


Something told me to do as she said: I went over to the central square. A crowd of perhaps two hundred people - a lot for Kok-Terek - huddled around the post under the loudspeaker and the sullen sky...


... There were many Kazakhs, most of them old men, among the crowd. Their bald heads were bare, and they held their red-brown muskrat-fur hats in their hands. They were grief-stricken. The younger people seemed less concerned. Two or three tractor drivers had not removed their caps. Nor, of course, would I. Before I could make out what the announcer was saying (he spoke with a histrionic catch in his voice), understanding dawned on me.

This was the moment my friends and I had looked forward to even in our student days. The moment for which every zek in Gulag (except the orthodox Communists) had prayed!...


...He's dead, the Asiatic dictator is dead! The villain has curled up and died! What unconcealed rejoicing there would be back home in the Special Camps!...


...But where I was, Russian girls, schoolteachers, stood sobbing their hearts out. "What is to become of us now?" They had lost a beloved parent... I wanted to yell at them across the square: "Nothing will become of you now! Your fathers will not be shot! Your husbands-to-be will not be jailed! And you will never be stigmatized as relatives of prisoners!"


I could have howled with joy there by the loudspeaker; I could even have danced a wild jig! But alas, the rivers of history flow slowly. My face, trained to meet all occasions, assumed a frown of mournful attention. For the present I must pretend, go on pretending as before...


All the same, my exile had begun with magnificent auguries!

.....

-Excerpt from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, Part VI, Chapter 5 ("End of Sentence"), p. 420-422

~ Still Hating Sci-Fi (Part II)... ~


But loving the supermodel inspiration for the female character all the same. Busted out the pen & ink on these.

..........................

...And: Gulag Preview (Part II)


I know, I keep putting this one off. But little revisions and additions keep on rolling. I wanted this little project to be a bit more than just the weekly update, a little more exploratory than just "Here are some sketches", and hopefully do justice to a person and subject I've spent the past several years studying. Probably won't, but we'll see....

~ Win a Trip to Gulag! (Preview) ... ~

...I know it's not much of an update, but the backlog of illustrations and sketches is building up, trust me. Some will hit the scanner soon. In the middle of reading Brothers Karamazov - which is like the book equivalent of running a marathon.