Monday, May 26, 2014

Introducing Frisettes and the story arc really gets going.


When I was little, my mother ordered two books from a so-called series about paranormal called "Inexpliqué, le monde de l'Étrange, de l'Insolite et du Mystère" (roughly translated, "Unexplained, the world of Strange, Unusual and Mysterious". It was all about stuff like parapsychology, UFOs, the Loch Ness monster, radiesthesy (like Calculus and his pendulum), and some pages on Rennes-le-Chateau (a story of burried treasure in the south of France that you certainly know as the DaVinci code.) It was made in the early 1980s, I was not even able to read back then and yet the stories and images in the book series just stayed in my mind. Years down the road, I found the whole series at the library and decided to use it as base material to send Sooky on a treasure hunt...


That's what the books looked like...hence Frisettes' art...


I'm a bit embarassed to say it but I still absolutely love those books. I'm a fan of science fiction. Works I reccommend are "Flight 714" of the Tintin series "Il Était une Fois l'Espace" (Once Upon a Time, Space and animated tv series by Albert Barillé), Planet of the Apes (1968 version, with Charlton Heston and the statue of Liberty. Let's stay classic here!) and 2001 Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick. All those works contain some elements of Von Daniken's Ancient Astronaut "theory" but they are entertaining and smart allegories of humans and their place in time and space.

BUT does it means I believe them? I'll answer like Leonard Nimoy in a Simpsons episode: "The following story is true, and by true I mean false. They're all lies but they are entertaining lies and in the end, isn't that the real truth? The answer is no."

So long story short, yes, those things are entertaining but are they literally true? I don't think so.

Introducing Frisettes!

My characters are cats and dogs, not people. However, I'd be lying if I said there`s none of my ex behind Taco. I always felt bad for representing him by a cliché little chihuahua. I thought I'd prove I can make fun of my own kind just like I can make fun of others so ze french cartoonist de service, here, drew her little Taco a french poodle girlfriend.

I make some non-cartoon art myself. I did oil painting (a pain in the neck with the (flammable!) turpentine and cleaning), watercolors (much more simple, but you really have to know what you're doing) and I have quite a collection of charcoals, sanguines and pastels. A medium that's no hassle and yet beautiful.

By the way, that blue radiating away from Taco`s head on Frisettes' painting? That was achieved with charcoal instead of ink during the inking stage, and the resulting fade out was turned blue during coloration.