The Villains in my Home Town part 11.

(continuing the round up of my courtroom sketches from ten years back)

This was a 28 year old guy who abducted a 14 year old boy and took him across state lines. He got two years which was the maximum, and the real story seemed to be about the difference in maximum sentences among states and the exact meaning of 'abduction of a child'. This was an early outing, my third. The full figure was small on screen and quite out of focus here. Since all these images are lifted from horizontal video tape frames, the full figures are all thus, though in this instance, the camera panned from the hands up to the face and if I'd thought about in advance I could have shown that in three or four descending panels. But it's sunday. Who would see? Who would applaud? Who would care? "Make room for me, Vinnie!"






*******

Readers of my Fate of The The Artist will remember the lines I quoted from O. Henry:
"God help me! Next my fangs were buried deep in the fugitive sayings of my little children. I found a ready sale for this kind of humor..."
Relevant to that is this piece in the Guardian of May 5
They write you up, your mum and dad.
"Lucy Etherington looked on aghast as her teenage tantrums were played out in a primetime sitcom..."
Second Thoughts was a British comedy television programme running from 1991 to 1994 and Etheringtons' mother was the writer.
"And as for my parents and what they did to us? Well, I've got kids - I understand how hard it is to be a working mother, and how when you write, real life is sometimes too much of a gift. All life is potential copy, almost irresistibly so. And there is no richer source of inspiration than your own family."
(link via Ben Smith in comments yesterday)