Out of the Inkwell

Can YOU draw this man?



No, not the gentle looking guy on the left, but the rather belligerent toothless looking geezer on the right.

Why that's no stand-in for Gabby Hays – it's acclaimed artist, writer, teacher and lover of bizarre stuff Stephen R. Bissette!

The guy with the baseball hat is our mutual friend Joseph Citro – a great author of books such as "The Vermont Ghost Guide," "Weird New England" and a new book out later this year on the monsters of Vermont.

Now Joe needs a drawing of Steve for the book jacket and while we were discussing this I chimed in that I would do one.

You see, if you scratch a writer there is a yearning arteest beneath the surface. The difference between the visual arts and the written ones is the immediacy of reaction – and acceptance – from audiences.

So writers crave for the day somehow people will instantly appreciate their collection of words just as artists have experienced since the first caveman drew a mastodon on a stone wall.

Now here are the things you need to know about Bissette:

1. He does have teeth
2. His favorite shirt color is plaid.
3. This is a rare photo of him without a hat. NO BASEBALL CAPS! Steve wouldn't be caught dead in one.

I'm working on my drawing, which will be awful because I am a writer not an artist. Steve once had me draw a dino cartoon in a sketchbook of his, among the same pages with real artists. I dutifully submitted for what I knew would be ultimately humiliating and crafted a joke about an enormous dino turd.

But I'm prepared to risk embarrassment again.

So send me a jpeg of a sketch to mdobbs at crocker dot com and I'll post them here.

© 2009 by Gordon Michael Dobbs