15 « September « 2006

15Sep/062

Eric Draven sends his regards

Like you, I was horrified and disgusted by the shooting spree that took place in Montreal on Wednesday.

And let me also state for the record that I'm irritated and bored by the boilerplate efforts to pin the killer's actions on some cultural phenomenon: Goth made him do it, or video games, or the media, or blogs, or websites, or gun control, or the lack of gun control, or poor gun control.

No, don't blame politics or pop culture. I'm inclined to agree with Rosie DiManno: Kimveer Gill was just a jerk.

That said, I was a little freaked to flip channels last night and see A-Channel airing The Crow - the most iconic Goth movie I know, about a creepy guy dressed in black who goes around killing people. No knock on the film itself - but the timing was unfortunate and insensitive.

But it wasn't unusual, either. Here's a snapshot of last night's TV schedule:

I'm the last one to blame the media, and I'm not saying the items circled in red are any worse than "Survivor: Race Wars" or "My Name is Trash" (aww heck, I'll admit I watched both those shows.)

But the theme is certainly pervasive, no?

Filed under: Television 2 Comments

15Sep/061

The Mighty Gorbulon!

That's me, as a spaceman.

A friend of mine, mulling over my last name, once told me that if I was an evil supervillain I would be called GORBULON.

(He was drunk, and rather impressed with himself for only replacing one letter; he then went into gleeful elaborations on what my superpowers might be, and then I hit him.)

I've used Gorbulon for a few logins and such, but I've always wished I had a cartoonist friend to actually draw "Gorbulon" - it'd make a killer avatar. (Maybe I should have gone to the Doug Wright Awards last night to see if I could make a friend?)

But then I stumbled across this drawing while I was cleaning out a drawer, and I remembered that I do in fact have a talented illustrator colleague. It's just that she'd never admit it. She's now a manager at CBC, and so busy with grown-up managerial stuff that I fear she doesn't draw much any more. In fact, I'm not going to use her name here without checking first. I think that was part of the Manifesto.

Anyhow, she did this illustration in 2000, when I was working for CBC4Kids. We had just published a book called Write 2000: Stories by Canadian Children. It was a Y2K project that asked children to write stories about life in the future, pick the event of the millennium, and tell us what they would put in a time capsule to be opened in the year 3000. There were prizes, and the best entries were put into the book.

The book was illustrated by CBC Radio's Kevin Sylvester, and my colleague did the cover. She also did a version of it just for me, for which I'm eternally grateful (and eternally young.)

Per Ardua ad Astra! To infinity and beyond! Make it so!