Love and Marriage

The routine has become embarrassingly common: woman approaches 30, woman becomes desperate to "become a mother", woman grabs by the balls the first man who will say the big "Yes" thinking that someone else will cook and clean him instead of his mother,woman drags him to the church,woman "becomes a mother".Do they all live miserably ever after out of sight? Hell, no!
Couple of years later, woman confronts the reality that was painfully apparent to anyone, (though anyone verbally expressing it would be instantly labeled "jealous","cynical"-and worse).
That marriages that do not spring from the mutual decision of an already beloved couple to "go to the next level" have an extremely short life span-regardless if a divorce follows or not.
"Hubby" starts chasing skirt, and "Happy, proud Mom" starts wondering when exactly her life took a wrong turn and starts to feel trapped.
She then starts desperately to dial the number of old male acquaintances who faded out of the picture because someone who once grabbed your ass in a party does not belong to the new status the woman had envisioned for herself.
The typical conversation goes somewhat like this:
"Oh, hi Peter, it's me! Long time no see,huh? -TIM, GET AWAY FROM THAT!-so, how are you doing? Anything new in your life? Me, I'm-PUT THAT DOWN RIGHT THIS INSTANT.DON'T MAKE ME COME THERE!-oh, that kid will be the death of me!Well, me, I'm a mother now, did you know that? -PUT YOUR CLOTHES BACK ON, IF YOU CATCH A COLD I'LL KILL YOU WITH MY OWN TWO HANDS!-yeah, I'm happy, I'm happy, it's good, it's good. So, there I was sitting, all happy and stuff, and thinking "hey, I haven't heard from Peter for ages, we used to be so close! So..."
At that point in the conversation, anyone who has not hang up, changed phone number and moved to undisclosed location, deserves everything that will come his way afterwards.Or, to be more precise, they deserve each other.

A six-year old gift for a thirty six year old guy :)))

When you have loving friends who understand you, you get gifts like this:

Τhe "I'm-drooling-just-looking-at-it" complete hardbound collection of "Calvin & Hobbes", perhaps the best comic strip to ever grace the art of comic strips.(Trudeau & Adams will forgive me, I 'm sure ;)).
Once you read it in chronological order,you can see the evolution of the artist as he grows more comfortable with the heroes, day by day, and...oh, who am I kidding? Remarks like that are allowed only after the second or third reading.Now it's the "oh, boy! oh,boy!oh,boy!" phase.
Thanks, Alice!

Let's try an easier one, shall we?(updated)

ok...you know the drill by now: this cartoon needs a caption to be complete.I've already delivered mine, so no "theft" will be involved, so let's see who wants to try his luck:


This time , participations hit rather closer to mark ;) Thanks, girls.
This was my version:

That's it!

Click to enlarge



I 'm keeping the previous post for a couple days so you car read CD's excellent version in the comments section.Afterwards, i 'll merge the three posts into one in order to have an overall view from linework to finished page.Enjoy!

Almost there

Here is the finished artwork-still without word balloons! This is the last chanse to prove you are creative individuals with vivid imagination :p
Τhe style of the finished artwork dictates certain directions and rules out several story possibilities.
Tomorrow (and i mean it this time!) this post will be replaced by the fully finished thing.Anyone not offering his version of the story until then, can continue his life as a coach potato who likes to be spoon-fed his entertainment.The rest will inherit the Earth (at least i hope so, as they are going to win no prize whatsoever!)

Work in progress

I'm fast approaching the deadline for the completion of this 2-page comic.Thought it would be fun to post the "skeleton": just the line artwork,no captions, no dialogue, no colour.
Tomorrow i'll post the finished thing.You have until then to guess what the storyline is,and compare the finished product with the one you made in your head :)))
(no doubt some ideas will be better than mine-the script is already written though, so no need to be afraid i 'll steal any ideas ;)

Here goes:

The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse

Eyes wide shut

He was a very talented artist with a huge and loyal following.Critical acclaim was high,Moebius himself congratulated him, the future seemed prosperous.
Than, one day, he simply quit.Vanished.Disappeared.
Fans felt a huge void where his pages used to be,urban legends grew regarding the "why"s, and the whole thing blew out of proportion.
I bumped upon him yesterday.Casual smalltalk,even some shoptalk as if he was still actively present."So what are you doing now?"-i expected every possible answer instead of the one he actually gave me:
"Ι 'm still drawing comics.The moment i finish them, i throw them in the trash.Then i start all over again".
Fuck.This touched all the wrong buttons.
I can understand many things. The demanding pressure of audience expectations after a huge success.The natural burn-out after reaching your maximum working levels.The annoyance towards a spotlight too bright for one's likings.
One thing i could never understand is the act of art creation without the prospect of sharing it-even with a minimum audience.I always thought art creation is all about communication-your way of connecting to others.Other fellow artists told me that they'd keep on drawing even as castaways on a desert island.The urge to materialise what you have in mind is too strong to ignore.
I wouldn't.What's the point? What for?
Why do i even struggle with the question? What does the answer tell me about them?What does the answer tell me about me?
And why do i have the gut feeling that the moment i 'll finally reach a conclusion will be the moment i'll stop making good comics?
Or stop making comics at all?

Who will make the first move?

"Take her to Sea, mr. Kalaizis"

Οlder readers (whatever that means for a 3 months old blog) of this blog, might remember first mentioning "Galera" here:
http://spiderpoison.blogspot.com/2005/08/perpetual-peace.html
Well, the time has come.
The final product of an almost year long preparation period has begun the make-or-break voyage to the Newsstands.



I'll leave to others to say whether the crew comprises of the best,but i guarantee it comprises of the most pissed.

Giannis Kalaizis, that ol' sea-dog of Greek political cartooning, has served as the Man with the Dream, and also as the glue holding the vessel together.
Full Speed Ah...(oh, enough with the bloody sail metaphors,i don't even know how to swim properly).

Love'em and Leave 'em

Dear American Friend

I know "antiamericanism" is sooo last year, but sometimes you just ask for it.
In the course of several conversations with U.S. citizens in a cartoon forum,
(meaning a forum with people intelligent enough to to understand humour),
the following remarks were made concerning Greece:

-Thanks to the U.S.A. involvement in WWII, we can be free now to speak Italian (!) instead of German.
-The U.S.A. may not be the ideal democracy, but at least it is a democracy, as opposed to our form of
goverment which the poster has yet to specify.
-"And, anyway",the poster continues "we don't see people(s) jumping the borders to join your country".
I can understand that "protected by the oceans" you have neither the time nor the inclination to learn about the existence of every li'l country the size of half a state that isn't even worth invading.
But, dammit, we hosted the Olympics just last year.Did you watch the games in CNN, or RAI tv?

Your dark-skinned friend

Spi_der
(you couldn't pronounce my real name in a million years)

They shoot models, don't they?