art

Mourning David Bowie

Inspiration

David Bowie was a man of class, grace and exceptional talent. The last few months of his public life were focused on the release of his final album Blackstar, and the opening of the off-Broadway show Lazarus, rather than the cancer he fought privately.

He lived his separate lives, as ever-changing performer David Bowie, and in private as David Jones. I mourn the man who was shared with us, the artist. The beautiful thing about Bowie is that his music will remain. We have fifty years of music to savor and enjoy. Above all, we must remember that we are not his loved ones. A light has gone out in our world, but in theirs it is one that burned more brightly.

Bowie’s legacy shows a true artist, a chameleon who worked and created until the very end. Blackstar is a remarkable album, combining Bowie’s love of jazz and his unique vocals with a profound meditation on mortality. It’s a harsh yet elegant end to his brilliant career.

David Jones may have passed from this world. David Bowie has ascended to the stars, to live on as a legend.

“Oh, I’ll be free, just like that bluebird”

  • David Bowie, “Lazarus”

Beginning Samizdat

Comics, Samizdat

In the beginning, there was a joke. A ‘literary vigilante’ who is a Batman for the written word. Stopping bad poetry in its tracks, correcting split infinitives and terrifying those who dared submit to a literary magazine without a cover letter. As the editor and art director for literary magazine Far Off Places, Annie Rutherford and I had seen it all and longed for a force to at least make sure prospective writers included a cover letter.

But from that joke came the inkling of an idea, of a female driven comic book adventure we have titled Samizdat, after the Russian underground newspapers. Written and illustrated by women, starring women as the heroes and villains, this endeavor would give us the stories we wanted to see. Intelligent women using their brains to solve problems, with a literary bent. Drawing inspiration from the Kindle deleting 1984, from the ‘death’ of print media, and the closure of mom and pop bookstores, we developed the basic premise for Samizdat. Such is our love letter to stories, to adventures, to Edinburgh.