"You don't draw any of your girls pretty enough."

"Eh?"

"You draw hair all wrong. It's only supposed to be spiky on the guys. Girls have soft hair. Heath is one of the main characters. She should be like a princess even if she's not. But you draw her with messy hair. You draw her like a peasant."

"She is a peasant."

"That's not the point."

"No. You're just too focused on the manga style. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not a manga artist. I draw my way."

"No. All girls like pretty hair. Keep trying. Draw. Draw. . !"

I pick up the line where I left off. I'm sketching and she's working on a jigsaw puzzle.

"I don't spend a lot of time on drawing hair. It doesn't really interest me that way."

"It should!"

"I like the way I draw their hair! I think Heath's hair fits especially!"

"Heath's? No! Hers is the messiest of all! She's a girl; she'd care, and she wouldn't want to walk around with her hair messy like that!"

"She's a tom-boy!"

"--Plus she's got red hair," my musician friend offers from where he's sitting across the room. "Red hair is usually thicker and more tangled."

"Exactly. Thank you."

"No." She shook her head. "It's still wrong. There isn't a single girl out there with any self respect who wouldn't want her hair to look nice. Look around. Not a singlegirl. But you draw Heath with messy hair."

"Well, I suppose so. . . But she is growing up, and now she's living with Kim who is more cultured in these sorts of matters. One of the things I'm looking forward to doing is seeing how they're going to affect one another. You'll see. I can see scenes where they're talking about exactly this kind of-"

"Kim? Who's Kim?"

"You know. The black haired witch. Rubel's new girlfriend."

"What? His girlfriend?! What?"

"Hm. You haven't read the new issue yet."

"Well, it's not like you brought one over!"

"I'll get you one."

"That witch girl? She's useless! She's pathetic! Why would he like her? His girlfriend?"

"Well, that's just the point. They're not really well suited. She's a simple kind of person. But I don't think she's pathetic! She's smart and she has certain strengths. I really like her. But it'll be interesting, because Heath is getting older. . ."

"And they're all living together now? How did that happen?"

"I'll give you a copy. That's what the whole story is about this time. See-"

"Well, don't tell me! I want to read it."

"Okay."

"She has nice hair, anyway. But you still draw it wrong. See? Look, you've got it all spiky at the top. That's not how a girl's hair looks! You're supposed to draw it soft and beautiful. You should find a girl you think is beautiful and draw her."

Before I can catch myself, I glance up at her hair. This ruffles her a touch.

"Do you know how to draw braids?" She asks, recovering.

"Of course I do."

"No you don't. Hold on. This will look stupid without a mirror, but. . ."

"Braids are just a bit confusing in their pattern, but I can draw them. Wicker baskets are like that too, but easier. . ."

"There. Like that. I look stupid in braids, but this is how it looks."

"Hey. . ! That looks really nice. That's really pretty!"

"Sometimes girls do their braids with a single length of ribbon running through and tied at the end. It looks really pretty."

"Face away from me. There. Hold still."

"I'm just showing you. You're drawing me? I'm not going to hold it like this. . !"

"Yes you are. Move your hand down a bit."

She does and continues to talk; "I practiced drawing braids when I was small. A lot of girls do. And I draw wicker basket weave all the time. I doodle. -Most women spend so much time on their looks not because they're trying to impress anybody, but because they like to fiddle and they can't leave things alone. Most people don't know that. But that's alright because men never notice anyway."

"Hm. Actually, I was thinking of a scene like that. Since Kim is cultured and Heath is beginning to think about these things, I was thinking an interesting scene would have Kim and Heath playing with different hair styles. Heath would ask her one day, and Kim would show her a bunch of stuff she knows. They'd spend the day doing different things with Heath's hair. Then Rubel would come home all tired from working on something, and Kim would be standing with Heath in front of her, both of them watching him with that expectant energy, waiting for him to notice how pretty Heath looks. Except Rubel would be a dunce and not notice a thing. 'Is dinner ready? I'm really hungry!'"

"Ugh! No!" She dropped her hair so that the braid fell out, and she looked at me with horror. "You can't do that! That's terrible! -And have Heath run away all upset? Why would you do that?!"

"What? No. I don't know. I haven't written it yet."

"That's awful! Why do you Canadians always write such miserable stuff? Why can't you write anything happy?"

"I write plenty of happy stuff. I could make a scene like that work. It'd be really good. Anyway, you can't make things work out perfectly right away. There's no story otherwise."

"Hm."

She goes back to work on her puzzle. I do some more sketching. After a while she looks at what I'm doing.

"See? Now, that's really nice. That's the prettiest girl I've ever seen you draw. She's beautiful! Nice bust. Thin waist. And her lips are very soft. -I think that's the thing I have most difficulty with when it comes to your women. The way you draw their mouths. You have to make their lips more full. Women have full lips. Women's lips are beautiful!"

"I don't know. It's something I've never really bothered with. I've never been passionate about lips."

"You should be! For goodness sake! Women's lips! You have to be passionate about them when you draw." She pauses.

"I am passionate when I draw." I pick up a puzzle piece.

"No. My puzzle. Draw, draw. Draw some lips."

"Hm." I sketch some girls with attention to their mouths. Some work out. Some don't. I'm out of practice. Heath looks wrong with full lips and I stop to erase and put back her mouth the way it was.

"Heath isn't old enough for that," she observes.

"Actually, I don't like to focus on this kind of detail in my work at all. Whenever I do, it ends up looking false. -Actually," I admit, "I feel a little guilty whenever I draw a really pretty girl. Even with Soracia I hold back. I've drawn pictures of her which could absolutely melt stone, but I nearly always erase the finished product and draw in something more iconic."

"Why?" She looks at me, mystified.

"It feels somehow manipulative. I don't know how to explain it."

"There are lots of women walking around in the real world more beautiful than the girls you draw."

"I know! I'm completely aware of that. But it just doesn't sit right with me for some reason when I draw a really pretty girl."

"Why wouldn't you want to put beautiful women in your work? Your readers will appreciate it."

"Well. . ." -Why indeed?

I've thought about this question on and off.

People have made whole careers out of drawing beautiful women. That independent comics guy who published, "Shi" a few years ago, I swear, made his career on being able to ink the most amazing hair in the entire cartoon world. It looked great. I never gave his work more than a cursory look, so I don't know about his other skills, but boy, that guy could draw hair!

Every now and again I'll draw with a softer style and really try to capture physical beauty in more than just the basic iconic way I normally do. Though, each time, I find that the gloss and the magazine girl prettiness bugs me. It gets in the way of the person beneath the flesh. I like the little dash mouths that I draw. When I do it right, they convey the content of a character's soul in a way I find most satisfying. I'm not so interested in surfaces, particularly not artificial, made-up magazine girl surfaces. That sort of thing doesn't need me to help it along! There's more than enough out there already, messing with people's heads, making life tough on girls. -Heck, on women of all ages. I sometimes think I draw more than enough 'ideal' body types into my work as it is. But a person's face. . . The center of expression! The reflection of the soul. Window dressing can only confuse the matter; diminish the power behind the eyes. Kim is cultured and soft and Heath is wild and strong, and each reflect this in the way I draw them. Interesting that, despite her complaints, my puzzle working friend was annoyed that Rubel would find himself with Kim of all people.

Interesting. . .

A week or so later, she was going through some of my earlier paintings. She held one up.

"Wow. . ! Heath's hair looks like fire!" she gasped, clearly taken with the image.

"Yes, exactly," I say emphatically. "It is fire. See. . , I finally figured out how to explain it to you. I draw my characters simply. I want to get them down quickly because that's how they are. Fleeting. Flashing through all those slowly aging backgrounds. Backgrounds are like stone and tree. They are solid and full of slow life, and that's why I spend so much time on them; they're the world, while people are always in motion. But hair. . . Hair is fire! I draw hair almost in scribbles because that's the way it seems to me. Hair is the most fleeting thing of all. It's more full of motion than anything else on the paper!"

"Ahhh." She stops and gazes at me, moved by my response. A proper artist's response.

"Or at least," I add to tease her, "that's what I'll tell anybody else who asks me from now on."

She lets out her breath and is irritated with me all over again.

Ha ha! And life is good!
 
 

-Mark Oakley
March 8th, 2002