"Teleny and Camille" by Jon Macy

A year ago last December, you may remember my posting about the anonymously published gay erotic novel attributed to Oscar Wilde. My friend, Jon Macy, has now published his graphic novel adaptation and will be presenting it at WonderCon '10. You may obtain a copy of this limited art book edition at his site. Despite its very pornographic, and very-frankly-handled-subject-matter, I can well recommend it to anyone who is not squeamish for such erotic matters.

Shirtless doodle in the style of "Loren and Sylvia"

From 1987-89

Back when I was in college I had a close friend named Kathy Sprague. Kathy was also gay and helped me find my way out-of-the-closet. I will always admire and appreciate what she did for me and despite our lives diverging along sexual lines, I will always consider her a dear friend.

We also collaborated on a comic book, based somewhat on our own lives. Our alter-egos were named "Loren", which is my middle name and "Sylvia" which is a name Kathy always liked. There is also a well known syndicated comic with the title "Sylvia", but we felt safe using the name because we were telling deeply personal stories, which had nothing to do with that syndicated newspaper strip. Someday I may share here the one issue of "Loren and Sylvia" that Kathy managed to print with her own money.

Anyway, I drew "Loren and Sylvia" with a distinctive stylized shorthand for creating characters like I'd seen done with other popular comic strips, namely "Peanuts" and "Doonsbury". This doodle of a shirtless male is an early attempt to draw a character in this style without clothes.  It looks a little like "Loren", but even at this late date I doubt that is who it really is.

Male Crotch

From 1987-89

This next series of images feature men. I tend to think about men a lot and how they appear to me. This includes how I appear to myself. My purpose is not to be crass or rude, but to depict the truth I see, which is perhaps the only way I can do this. I can only hope that you enjoy what I put down on paper.

Thistle design

From 1987-89

I have always been inspired by art nouveau design. This design is an early inspiration which lead to my friend Tod requesting I design a tattoo for him. The sketches that I did subsequently are in another sketchbook and I will link them when I post them. I only have one photograph of Tod right after he got his tattoo, but I can say this sketch was the first inspiration.

New Order Clown - Euclidian Solids

From 1987-89

Back in the late eighties, I remember the English musical group New Order did a video featuring costumes modeled after designs by a surrealist artist. Unfortunately I never paid much attention to who the artist was, but the costumes made the wearers seem to be clownish because they obstructed movement. The video as I remember featured these clowns carrying around and arranging large forms of squares and spheres. It didn't make much sense, but the images persisted in my brain until I had to jot them down. Please if anyone remembers or knows who the designer was, I would appreciate knowing.

Paul Poiret - 1910

From 1987-89

Ah, yes...a coat by Paul Poiret. This sketch of a fashion photograph looks like it is from the height of Poiret's oriental-ism. I've always been a great fan of fashion design from the beginning of the previous century, especially the nineteen-twenties and nineteen-thirties. In college I collected Tom Tierney's books of paper dolls published by Dover for reference. Unfortunately his copies of the Erte collections are no longer available, nor are Dover's reprints of fashion catalogs containing Erte's designs. But Dover has continued to publish other designer's works and Poiret is a favorite.

The shape of the coat which is emphasized by the stylized pose of the mannequin is similar to how a robe or kimono might drape, only Poiret has used fairly modern western forms to achieve this with a wide embroidered lapels and a frog clasp.  I suspect the fabric is silk velvet in either brown or avacado green. The sleeves seem to be gathered, as well as the back which seems to gather below the knees, just above the lower edge, creating a unique form that you only see in coats from this time period.

I did a short series of sketches featuring fashion models and clothing back in my college days, although I mostly shared them with close friends. I named the model in each sketch Theo, after my grandmother and sometimes gave them captions as if they were speaking to someone off page. In this sketch I was thinking of my boss at Waldenbooks at the time, so she looks somewhat different to the original model, who I think had a triangular face. Clearly I didn't want to lose the effect of her pose so I redrew the part that went off the page above her right arm.  Her hat looks as if she's wearing a cleaning woman's scarf, but I assure you the original was worth my recording it here.  Too bad pencil smudges.