No. 297: The Fishing Winos

Dear Reader,

Everyone knows that making dumb pictures is the only way to respond to a brutally bad world, but did you know that the only people who really know how to cope with their fears are the winos at Island Park? Every day they fish there, often without shirts, and usually while wearing large boots and actually standing in the water. It might be juvenile of me to assume they are winos but I am pretty sure they are. They have to be. If they are not winos the whole dreamy image is ruined for me. You see, readers, I would like more than anything to capture this and things like it, but the "drawing style" I've somehow constructed for myself could never allow for it to happen. It's a trap to be in! It's soothing and nice to be able to draw in a specific way, to construct a reality of your own, and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, but sometimes I wish I could take a piece of charcoal and make elegant folds in the pants of a fishing wino. Like a Norman Rockwell type picture, with a nice crayon-shaded sunset. Maybe it would be a 32-page book, FISHING WINOS BY DANE MARTIN, with a nice bronze cover and a picture of my great grandfather drawing horses at the end. This is a thing that could only exist in an ideal world. Maybe another book would be PIZZA HUT EMPLOYEES BY DANE MARTIN, or MEAN LIBRARIANS BY DANE MARTIN, or RACCOONS I SEE IN THE STREET BY DANE MARTIN. Somehow capturing reality is becoming really appealing to me all of a sudden. Maybe it's because such a thing is the opposite of what I am, or what I pretend to be. I'm sure I'll get over this very soon. I'll never really get tired of drawing that sweating dog snout and those potruding sexual noses.

Your pal,

Dane