Wednesday 18 April 2007

The Villains in my Home Town. part 7.
A very sad case

A nswering the customary occasional summons from Channel Ten news, I arrived in court to find my pal Pete Mullins already setting up to sketch the case of the day for Channel Seven. So I sat down next to him and we chuckled to ourselves. It was like we'd just moved the studio down to courthouse. It only happened once. I think Pete was much more comfortable back at the tv station working out the animations for the weather forecast, all those fluffy clouds roiling about behind the guy, or lady, in the suit.

This one was an extremely sad case. A girl aged nineteen was on trial for aiding the suicide of her boyfriend. It was to have been a double suicide. The pair injected themselves with battery acid and heroin and slashed themselves with razor blades. Somehow police were alerted and found them in time to save the girl, who survived and needed 109 stitches to heal her wounds.



As the news programs have different airing times, I was able to tape both.




All I can say is that if our dawings looked that different it's a good job neither of us ever had to identify a villain in a line-up.



Pete and I were impressed with humanity of the court. The girl was given three years probation. The judge said: "Where two disturbed young people enter into a suicide pact, the survivor must be seen as a victim rather than a person guilty of serious misconduct."

******

Bob at Four Realities reviews Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland, and cheerfully invokes my slogan: 'It is a graphic novel, Percy'

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5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link to my SUNDERLAND review. No hard feelings about me pointing to FATE as a less successful use of photos in comics, I hope (and I did like FATE overall). I have to admit that I'd been wanting to use the "Percy" line for months, but could never find the right excuse.

18 April 2007 at 02:08:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sad case indeed, but I love the juxtaposition of your sketch with Pete's, as if two different actresses had played the same role.

18 April 2007 at 12:41:00 GMT-5  
Blogger James Robert Smith said...

Very sad. Indeed, she was in need of care and attention, not punishment.


Good grief. You guys did not illustrate the same human being. Your version of her has her appearing dour and quite depressed. Pete's has hear looking quite chipper and not unattractive.

BATTERY ACID??!!! Great Jove.

18 April 2007 at 20:24:00 GMT-5  
Blogger drjon said...

As for me, I thought the photos in Fate worked really well.

Ah me.

I wonder where that lass's life is now, so far down the road.

Here's hoping she never looked back. Cheers!

19 April 2007 at 07:34:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Regarding the Percy connexion, came across old Rudy Topffer's definition tonight: "The drawings, without their text, would only have a vague meaning; the text, without the drawings, would have no meaning at all. The combination makes up a kind of novel, all the more unique in that it is no more like a novel than it is like anything else."

ah, that's tops...

New book looks great Eddie - can't wait to be reading it. In other local graphic novel news, Percy, have you managed to see a copy of Matt Coyle's 'Worry Dolls'?

Bernard Caleo

23 April 2007 at 08:53:00 GMT-5  

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