Contributor: Uzodinma Okehi
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The lanceolate rush of ruled lines, of sunsets, of inked suns setting in pencil, of minutes, hours and days, right to this point. The something of something, get it? The butyrate fuse. The eclectic substrate of this and that, of childhood, your little tragedies, and you’ve got nothing but mean-time consider it. The tension, as always is also music, a kind of bad poetry, while the drawing itself is still pure science, like numbers, hard to crunch . . .
And Sakura, if nothing else, I’ll take comics by titration drip, drip by drip, or that clack, clack of the wall-clock hands, in my ears and climbing like the roar of a hurricane. Sakura, what’s left but those comics I said I’d draw, those legends, and how legendary does it seem to imagine me here sitting in my long-john underwear, still drawing, but you’d know better than I do if I’ll ever make good on that promise. Not just the clock but the sound of my neighbors downstairs fucking, the tump, tump of the headboard, reminding me just how little things change. That headboard, the bare white walls doming in on me, the cold wind racing up against the bricks outside. What remains Sakura, is the same game of patience. Start with blue pencil, rule out the page, then, new sheet, break down the panels in ballpoint pen. Meanwhile, wars are being fought, empires are crumbling, people are out there falling in love and dying, dust to dust. Now back to the ruled board, rough out the figures. New sheet, work out the faces, the positions of fingers, details on draperies and guns, plan out the lighting—in fact expand this step to encompass life and death because of how long it takes, because of the agony in the countless sheets I draw all over then crumple up and toss to the floor. In fact Sakura, this is the only step, and my only night alive, night after night, and if you do ever think about me, this struggle is what I’d like you to remember . . .
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Uzodinma’s favorite color is Aqua—no, Lapis. Or maybe Sky Blue. He still doesn’t own a cellphone...
(okehi@hotmail.com)
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The lanceolate rush of ruled lines, of sunsets, of inked suns setting in pencil, of minutes, hours and days, right to this point. The something of something, get it? The butyrate fuse. The eclectic substrate of this and that, of childhood, your little tragedies, and you’ve got nothing but mean-time consider it. The tension, as always is also music, a kind of bad poetry, while the drawing itself is still pure science, like numbers, hard to crunch . . .
And Sakura, if nothing else, I’ll take comics by titration drip, drip by drip, or that clack, clack of the wall-clock hands, in my ears and climbing like the roar of a hurricane. Sakura, what’s left but those comics I said I’d draw, those legends, and how legendary does it seem to imagine me here sitting in my long-john underwear, still drawing, but you’d know better than I do if I’ll ever make good on that promise. Not just the clock but the sound of my neighbors downstairs fucking, the tump, tump of the headboard, reminding me just how little things change. That headboard, the bare white walls doming in on me, the cold wind racing up against the bricks outside. What remains Sakura, is the same game of patience. Start with blue pencil, rule out the page, then, new sheet, break down the panels in ballpoint pen. Meanwhile, wars are being fought, empires are crumbling, people are out there falling in love and dying, dust to dust. Now back to the ruled board, rough out the figures. New sheet, work out the faces, the positions of fingers, details on draperies and guns, plan out the lighting—in fact expand this step to encompass life and death because of how long it takes, because of the agony in the countless sheets I draw all over then crumple up and toss to the floor. In fact Sakura, this is the only step, and my only night alive, night after night, and if you do ever think about me, this struggle is what I’d like you to remember . . .
- - -
Uzodinma’s favorite color is Aqua—no, Lapis. Or maybe Sky Blue. He still doesn’t own a cellphone...
(okehi@hotmail.com)
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Uzodinma Okehi
