To be continued…
A marathon is like two half-marathons, one after the other, right?
Well, my legs did not agree with this optimist assessment!
And to think the British brought their cannons up in pieces!
I ran up the Wolfe Trail, 1,5 km of slope, to train for my upcoming marathon, along with my cousin who is an experienced marathoner. It concluded a 16-km run…
We ran from Anse au Foulon, and went through lots of little signs that explain in detail the operation of passing by this trail to attack Quebec defended by Montcalm. Obviously the trail was not paved …
Nevertheless, I thought about the soldiers wearing those heavy loads and equipment, and about the defenders of Quebec who risked (and lost) their lives.
It’s always easy to say in retrospect, long after the lost battle: “Montcalm should have done this or that, he should wait for reinforcements to Bougainville and Levis instead of an exit …”
But without cell phone, while the besieged Quebec residents lacked everything (Wolfe had burned the fields and razed villages up to 100 km downstream of the city), the Marquis de Montcalm could not actually * know * if his allies and volunteers had not themselves been decimated, or whether the British allies Iroquois warriors would not come later join them to form an unassailable mass.
So he ordered a sortie against an enemy superior in number.
(The two leaders were killed in this battle, which was rather short as columnists reported it: about 15 minutes, for the French engagement.)
*
I am really feeling the exhaustion of the training for the upcoming marathon, hence this shortened comic!
It seems that my marathon training is getting in the way of drawing!
The event is in three weeks…
Reactions to the Brussels attacks on social media have devolved into an ugly blame game that solves nothing. And a fierce joy explodes when some assumptions reinforces our established prejudices!
Unfortunately, Facebook is an easy outlet. Compared to what one can express safely in the lounge with friends, the audience is the entire planet.
During my meeting in Oregon with pros writers, an important directive (given along with the earthquake and tsunami warnings) was “Do not talk about politics!” Many of my professional colleagues chose not to intervene on heated Internet debates (and in the USA, they are in elections!) as they have lost too many friends .
I could talk in length about the origins of the scourge, and the mental conditioning that is now called “radicalization”. Mental cages grow everywhere, sects or radicals recruit even the young educated or the rich (Patty Hearst, anyone?)
It only takes a small seed of frustration, fueled by the fertilizer of prejudice. Over time, the mental cage produces its evil flowers, sweet fruits of hatred providing a “hit” of pleasure, inflating the ego with the steroids of a “good” cause.
I could also talk about polluters of sources, spreading seeds of anger in the medias. Those professionnals emits a thinly veiled call to the lynching of a religious community or ethnic group, deemed guilty by association because some of the assassins may have been recruited among them.
I could talk about heavy weapons manufacturers who make fruitful business with the States that need to protect themselves, and covert business with shady groups.
I heard the worst insults this week; several of my Facebook friends have left their reserve to the locker room. Those issues that tear us down concern all authors.
We, the creators of comics, magicians of words, regardless of the size of our audience, have a responsibility not to inflame the debate with simplistic hate calls.
To write is to weave a dream, to offer a glimpse into a future different from a brand of capitalism focused on fear. As a science fiction writer, I want to feed the imagination to build, through education and respect, a more convivial world.
Posted in Art, Event, Science-fiction, Society
Tagged art, blame game, Comics, Facebook, Mental cage, radicalization, Science-fiction, terrorism, Writing
This apple tree was there long before the neighbourhood was built, a remnant of the farmstead that once occupied this strip of land.
It was a small wonder to have trees like this, belonging to no one, and giving away its fruits. It was a small, gnarled tree that had been ill for some years, and his fruits spotted, acid, imperfect. I knew the city would remove it eventually, but never forgot to offer my thanks.
The poem did rhyme in its French form, but I endeavoured to keep the rythm alive.
Posted in Art, BD, Comics, Event, Society
Tagged Apple, apple trees, art, Comics, Gratitude, Mississauga, poem, street apples, urban trees
When I began my first science fiction series, the first novel of the space-opera was a self-contained story, quite straightforward to write. The second felt more difficult, and I thought the third would be the last, but the story arc spilled out and I wrote a fourth (and last!) of the Jules-Verne saga series.
It felt like my training running hills. The first time is easy, but by the fourth time, my legs were almost quitting under me! That fourth and last novel of the series was the most difficult to write, since I had to wrap up the leads to complete the neat story arc.
Posted in Art, BD, Comics, humor, Science-fiction, Society, Writing
Tagged art, Comics, humor, novel, Running hills, Science-fiction, space-opera, Writing, writing a series
Books are like boats.
Readers swim from one reading to the next, and some boats are more easy to access than others.
(I hear it often: How come my genius novel cannot find any readers? ) For my science fiction novels, I often add lexicons! But there are other ways to lower the bar for your readers, by shorter chapters, for instance, or not crowding too many characters in a scene, etc.
Your writer’s task is paradoxically to help your readers to get on board!
Posted in Comics, Event, humor, Science-fiction, Society
Tagged art, books, books as boats, Comics, humor, Science-fiction, Writing
Giving big sums to charity via our own Foundations can be rewarding… and it helps evading taxes. But most of us do it with any recognition.
So this demo tried to follow me as I strive to found my small company offering something, but eventually ending up only speculating. Speculating is needed to render exchanges more efficient, like oil lubrifying the mechanic. But too much wealth in speculator’s hands begets a sea of oil in which float a few services/goods. Hence a relative scarcity of money for most valuable endeavours (education, health, transportation…) and new jobs.
I don’t have a billion in my pockets to create jobs. But I am training myself to put every profit dollar to good use; invested away to make other work for me.
(The French words aura de respectabilité means “appearing respectable”. )
Posted in Art, BD, Comics, humor, Science-fiction, Society
Tagged art, Comics, creation of jobs, Creation of wealth, Game of Thrones, humor, poverty, Science-fiction, Writing
As your business grows, you reach a point where you stop creating wealth, and jobs.
Posted in Art, Comics, humor, Society
Tagged art, business, Comics, Creation of wealth, Economy, Growth, horizontal integration, humor, vertical integration, Webcomic
Echoes of a Sunday artist 