Latest sketchbook

I finished another sketchbook this morning! I keep these nice little pocket-sized sketchbooks on my desk and devote a couple of minutes to it each day. I allow just a minute or two per page, which is a nice, freeing exercise.

Someday soon I'll get back to finished drawings, but in the meantime here are a few favorite pages from this most recent sketchbook:

The Funny-Book Maker (a poem from the archives)

BAD ENDING # 10: THE FUNNY-BOOK MAKER

By John R. Platt

The comic-book artist

Got lost in his work

Black lines

Inked on white paper

Over and over and over

Two pages of art a day

Then three

Then five

Then ten

He no longer slept

He called his editor:

"Send more scripts!"

He neglected his health

His friends stopped calling

His wife left him

He didn't care

Only the stories mattered

Then, one day,

He ran out of ink

"No time to get supplies,"

He thought,

And reached for his Xacto knife

The found him two weeks later

Drained and dry

Sad and alone

But surrounded

By the best work of his career

It never saw print.

(One of a series of "Bad Endings" poems I have written over the years. This was originally published in January 2006 in BARE BONE 8, Raw Dog Screaming Press. Copyright 2006, 2016 John R. Platt)