“Vultures – Station 32 – Page 1 (Full Version)” By C. A. Brown
This is the full and uncensored version of page one of “Vultures – Station 32” where the news reporter’s dialogue in the fourth panel hasn’t been edited.
[Note: This is the full and uncut version of an article which also appears on my main blog too.]
Well, a couple of weeks ago (at the time of writing this article), I wasn’t feeling very artistic. This had been going on for a while and, whatever I did to try to solve this problem didn’t really work.
Yes, I could just about make about one drawing a day if I really tried, but the inspiration was fairly weak and the enthusiasm was barely even there. Making a drawing felt like a dreary and detached exercise.
To use a tired metaphor, squeezing a drawing out of my imagination was like squeezing blood out of a stone. At the time that this article is posted, I hope that this still isn’t the case. Anyway, I was starting to think that this prolonged slump in my artistic enthusiasm was a sign that I should move on to making a comic. But even that idea didn’t really fill me with enthusiasm either – the idea of making a long daily comic just seemed like exhaustingly hard and joyless work to me.
Needless to say, I was feeling kind of miserable and I didn’t even have a solution to my problem which I could use as the basis for another vaguely angst-ridden article like this one. So, I made my one drawing for the day and then just ended up surfing the internet aimlessly, filled with dreary ennui – my soul feeling as heavy, dreary and sluggish as a …Well, I couldn’t even think of good metaphors.
It was a while later that I realised that I had more ideas than I thought that I had. Or rather, I had a few really interesting creative ideas which filled me with energy, enthusiasm and passion – but they were for the kinds of projects which I would never dare to make. Or at least the kinds of projects that I’d never dare to publish or possibly even create. Everything from grotesque blood-spattered horror stories to vivid, quirky and stylised erotica.
In other words, when it comes to my imagination, Eros and Thanatos seem to be the most powerful parts of it. Or, to be less pretentious – sex and death. They’re the parts of my imagination where all of my best ideas seem to come from. In fact, as the old saying goes, virtually every piece of art is about sex and/or death in some way or another.
These days, it seems to be that I like to think of my imagination as being something like this song when, in all reality, it’s actually more like this one (NSFW).
Anyway, the idea that stuck in my mind was an idea for the beginning of a rather bizarre comic which would start with a close-up of a naked man emerging from the sea (like Daniel Craig in “Casino Royale” – but even more handsome and without any swimming trunks) on a rather dreary and gloomy deserted beach somewhere.
Then, a few seconds later, it would zoom out to show two women (who have been camping nearby) lying on a hillside nearby, watching him through a pair of binoculars and arguing over who gets to use the binoculars next.
As for the rest of the story, it’d probably be fairly surreal, eccentric, comedic, slightly kinky and thoroughly bisexual in every possible way.
Well, the idea stuck in my mind even though the idea of devoting a lot of time and effort into a comics project which I probably wouldn’t even think about showing to anyone else, let alone publish on here. So, with no other ideas, I decided to sketch (one of the less explicit, and stranger, parts of) it just for the hell of it…
Fairly soon after I started drawing it, I realised something. I felt like an artist again. I felt all of the enthusiasm, creativity and passion which I thought that I had lost. I remembered how magical creating art should feel like. Rather than sitting back and just drawing something, I was completely immersed in the act of creating art. There’s a big difference between these two things and I’d almost forgotten what the latter felt like.
I don’t know if I’ll ever actually make this comic and I probably won’t. Even if I do, I’ll almost certainly never publish it. But, by even making a symbolic gesture of creating something that I’d never dare to create, I found my creativity and artistic passion again.
So, if you’re feeling uninspired, then it might be worth taking the first tentative steps towards making that project which has always fascinated you, but which you’ve never quite had the courage to even think about making. No, you don’t have to publish it, but it might help you to remember what it feels like to be inspired.
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Anyway, I hope that this article was useful 🙂
First of all, if you’re expecting me to tell you to sign a petition about David Cameron’s wide-ranging and vague internet censorship proposals (if you thought that he was just censoring erotica, then you are very very wrong), then you’re best going here instead.
Call me cynical, but I’m not a huge believer in internet petitions. After all, politicians [on both the right and the left] are driven by ideology and a whole host of things other than the actual wishes of the people or the values (such as free speech) which should be central to any so-called democracy.
I’m hoping that common sense will prevail and David Cameron’s ludicrous and patronising plan to censor the internet will go the way of the Poll Tax, Identity Cards, SOPA, PIPA etc.. But, in the event that it doesn’t, here are two things you can do before it comes into effect to prepare yourself.
I say “before” because, once Cameron’s web filter comes into effect, this page (or even this whole blog) will probably be blocked as soon as I even mention the word “Peacefire”.
This is because “web blocking circumvention” tools are one of the many critera for blocking things, along with “web forums” and, mysteriously, “esoteric material” – whatever that is .
Seriously, even the BBFC look incredibly liberal in comparison to this filter….
Talking of Peacefire, this brings me on to the first point on my list.
1) Sign up to Peacefire’s mailing list: Peacefire are a free speech group who have been campaigning about internet censorship and helping people to get around it for quite a few years.
Anyway, they have this cool feature where they will e-mail you a list of proxy servers and circumvention sites every 3-4 days [since this is as long as it usually apparently takes for the blocking companies to block them].
This is probably a good idea, since I’m guessing that obvious proxy sites like HideMyAss will probably be one of the first things to go when David Cameron blocks out a significant portion of the internet.
2) Download UltraSurf while you still can: UltraSurf is a proxy-based web browser which was originally developed in order to help people in China bypass governmental internet censorship.
It’s a sad state of affairs when people in Britain (one of the first countries to invent parliamentary democracy) may have to use a tool which was originally designed to allow people in China to access Falun Gong, Tibetan Independence, Tiennamen Square-related, foreign news etc.. websites [well, there I go, this blog is almost certainly banned in China now].
Anyway, you don’t even need to install anything on your computer to use Ultrasurf – you just download and unzip the file and click on the “UltraSurf” icon and it’s ready to go. In fact, you can even carry it around on a USB drive and use it anywhere.
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There are probably countless other things you can use too, but it’s probably a good idea to research them sooner rather than later..
PekoeBlaze Uncut 