A poem by John Turner
October 10th, 1884;
Leominster, MA

Boys, two brothers, men of young time sitting on beaches by the edge,
A quake of heart, songs of dial and hemlock,
brilliance and great falling.

Three weapons in lime,
six lions engaged,
a kingdom wrought.

Limbs in rays, the pray'd course high by the burnt.
One to the other, a prayer in the blood of it,
the brothers look to water.

For at least a few weeks, their neighbors on Wilde Terrace considered the absence of the couple's Toyota curious. None, however, were as brave as Sheldon Skinner, 13, who one day took it upon himself to investigate the vacant property's eastern series of windows. Inside, he spied couches and tables in otherwise empty rooms sat relieved of their owners, seats and appliances unused for close to a month. The TV sat big on the wall, its remotes collected neatly on the coffee table. The kitchen, bright with the late-day sun pouring in from the back of the house, seemed clean and pleasant. Magnets on the fridge gleamed in a dazzling array of squares, rectangles, and cartoony shapes of clouds and birds, pinning shopping lists and baking instructions in piles that really tested the strength of the magnets' pull. Bored, Sheldon Skinner dropped from the window and mounted his bike. It would be another week and a day before anyone would check the house again, and it would be another three days past that that anyone would find the envelope on the back door's mat.

***

"The two of you really need to experience how quiet life can be by the soda machines; that's all I'm saying. You're freaking me out with all this lobby talk. Lobby this, lobby that - jesus. Go to sleep already."

-Ted Lueras

***

But I was wrong - crazy
It's gotta be strong
It's gotta be right

Only wanted to stay a while
Only wanted to play a while
Then you taught me to fly like a bird

Baby - thought I'd died and gone to heaven
Such a night I never had before
Thought I'd died and gone to heaven
Cause what I got there ain't no cure for

Ooo it's so easy
What you do to me all night angel
I never loved - I swear to God
Never needed no one, 'til you came along

Here I come baby
It's gotta be strong - it's gotta be right
Only wanted to stay awhile
Only wanted to play awhile
Then you taught me to fly like a bird

Baby - thought I'd died and gone to heaven
Such a night I never had before
Thought I'd died and gone to heaven
Cause what I got there ain't no cure for

I feel fast asleep - I feel drunk
I dream the sweetest dreams
Never wanna wake up

Never thought it could be this way
No doubt about it - can't live without it
Never thought it could be this good
You made love to me - like it oughta be

"Don, this isn't you - would you listen t'me? Jesus. Get up. Everyone is waiting for us on the roof! Get up!!"
-Lucy Framing

"Magus"

It happened at a time following a bad winter; his tax work had fallen to pieces, his car burped bluish smoke, and his house needed work. Everything about his house and his life and his car bothered him in the cold. He needed to wait for things longer than he had to in the Springtime. Lines were longer. Dreams were longer and less clear, less satisfying or memorable. Joy came at shorter lengths coinciding with abrupt shifts to absurd, unfortunate circumstances he couldn't comprehend or accept as fair. In the year 1994, everything for John S. Sylvester seemed bleak and grey.

It was March when it visited.

***

As it's fair to say that I receive numerous in the way of questions about what is seen on the internet in the mysterious and, perhaps, somewhat vaunted ways I have it displayed (maybe "vaunted" is replaceable), it is also fair to say that some kind of thorough explanation of RIFT is needed. Or maybe I just want to talk.

"What is Rift?"

"What are these drawings for?"

"Is this a comic?"

"Is this a video game - what is this?"

etc.

If you've been paying attention to my work over the last few years - and I assume that you have been as you're here. And I also assume, I guess, that the work has been easy to spot as it is out of place from my norm (" "?) and is, most notably, the most consistent thing I do that isn't just some weirdo, shrimpy figure on a landscape. If you have been paying attention, you've noticed my updates of this mystery shit and you've, perhaps, wondered about it. I put out very little when it comes to explaining some of my loopier work - the paintings on wood, the strange MBTA sketches, the vague and crappy metaphors. This is different. So, I'll explain a bit, give some flavored history, etc. I'll give you the guts of the thing.

The year is 2008, and I'm in a basement in Middleboro, MA. It's practically winter or close to. I want to say that it was November - whenever Lich King came out. When was that? Just keep in mind that it's winter and I'm existing, primarily, in front of a computer. Or just keep in mind that it's winter. Actually, let's just keep it basic. It's 2008. I'm also back living with my dad. It's 2008.

Bryan Basset, my great friend (recently married this past October, by the way! Beside the point.) and fellow science fiction fan and I are online and we're talking. We're both recently out of school and wondering about what inspires us - or, more specifically, we're wondering about what keeps us inspired. A conceptual distinction should be made there, right?

For the record, we're also complaining in our way about not doing the full of what we'd like to be doing and/or had envisioned at the outset of high school and/or college. This is not atypical. Anyway-

We're discussing these things to the backdrop of our normal sets of conversation, conversations revolving old school and contemporary gaming ("Ocarina of Time" this, "Star Control II" that), conversations about movies and heroes, comics, good books we've read, great books we've read. All the while we're connecting the dots in these conversations to potential real world applications. Maybe we can make a game. Maybe we can write a book or a movie, something. Maybe I can string together some storyboards; he can cook up a few chapters of something, whatever.

It started as a video game pitch. This is an important point to make, and I'll explain more about that later, about why it's important to make that clear designation.

It started as a plan to write and illustrate a video game pitch that would and could compete with every video game ever made. We'd put the work together and make a pitch. Anyone who talks about video games as much as he and I do and did understand that great video games are made from great initial ideas that are worth a simple damn. Sounds obvious, but it's still important to point that out: great video games are made by studios and, more specifically, by creators that give a shit. Our assumption was that every great game had some kind of small beginning. I believe this still.

There were obvious, accepted realities we faced from the start.

1. Who the fuck knows how to make a video game?

2. The video game industry is tough, densely competitive, and scarcely populated by accessible art directors. That was my guess. The reality is different, depending on how you look at it, but the challenges are obvious.

3. A solid story that we understand through process is better than a juicy story that we misunderstand as we bend it around limitations.

"You know what," we both thought. "You know what? Let's just make a book. Let's start on the concept - images, ideas, put some writing together, put some storyboards up, see where it goes."

Was it a comic, a book? Were we pitching or self-publishing? Do we bring others in on the project? Do we need someone to work on ideas for sound or animation? Who learns to make wireframes? We didn't focus on those specifics, and what I can offer in conversation for that kind of thing is that, with that, when you deny the initial designation of the thing, the things to the side that deal more with delivery, you're really opening the door to simply fleshing out the idea as it comes. You're not as limited by the medium that you're working in or the goal that you're aiming toward. The resolution of your idea gets better and better as you're able to polish what you do know - basic ideas for plot, ways to conceptualize quickly and visually, ways to document and share what's produced.

We began creating this thing from an idea unbound from our initial, technical plan, and we just have a wealth to draw from. There's a lot of meat to the thing that wouldn't be as full if we had stuck to forcing the technicalities.

Anyway.

What it has become, ultimately, is an illustrated story. For the sake of ease, I would say - or just by our present means and method, it will end up as a book, a comic book, graphic novel, but - and this is where my point comes in about it being important to indicate that this did, indeed, begin as a video game idea - it is also just ending up as this huge, again, wealth of content that can be used for whatever-the-hell, and it certainly derives its soul, in part, from the idea of great video gaming. So, let's just include an asterisk with any talk of it being a comic.

Simply, it will be the sequential result of the work we have so far, and that is also to say that what we have so far, in general terms, is the following: a story in four parts, a prologue, three main, bulk chapters. It will be futuristic, in a sense. It will draw from classic and romantic ideas, trends of epic cycle storytelling, etc. There's war. There's outer space. There's invasion. There's humanity and/or lack thereof, plot twists, characters that you have permission to care about. It is inspired by our time. It's just great.

I'll leave you with this. If you've been paying attention, you'll recognize it.

(More to come)

(This shift in format may be awkward.)

Coming up quick is the theme show for Montserrat's illustration department, and this show is always something I consider to be a benchmark in my and many others' creative year. The entire program is called back. Alum. Faculty. Students. Everyone is invited to contribute to what usually ends up being a very exciting, colorful, and funny opening. Prizes offered for arbitrary (and hilarious) competition. Good work. GREAT work. This is an opportunity to show alongside many walks of illustrated life - faculty work (always impressive), hotshot underclassman pieces, underworked rush jobs, poor presentation, incredible presentation. The works, you know? It's always great. Now, if only Kelly Murphy would get back to making theme-appropriate cakes like those of old. A guy can dream...

Anyway, I always take this show seriously. I take it as seriously as I can, artistically speaking. As I said, the event is what I consider a benchmark for my creative year. I almost want to suggest that I see it as some kind of weird, silly culmination, where my work from the year prior to comes to a front. New techniques learned are pushed, new scales are achieved, and, generally, I try to blow my work out to the point where I feel I have a better scope for the coming year of getting my hands dirty.

Does that make sense? I guess I'm trying to say that I make a point to raise the bar for the expectations I have for my own work. One theme show ends, and a new year of work begins. That kind of thing...

Littleton/495

Cleaning and reforming my studio the other day allowed me to review one of last year's sketchbooks. If you've been paying attention, you'll recognize some of these pages. I went ahead and rescanned this work. I kept the edits limited to cropping. Take a look.

I'm not sure I'll have the kind of opportunity last year's commuting presented. I'd take the 57 from my place in Brighton, the green line up to North Station from Kenmore. From North Station, the Fitchburg line to a tiny stop called Littleton/495 - a shoebox train station nestled between wooded parking and a nondescript industrial warehouse. I guess the station is beside the point. Maybe not...

I'd have time. I had a few hours of broken time, to be clearer about it. I often felt obliged in conversation to mention the commute as a boring pain. It could be boring. That's fair. Most of the time, there was a ritual to it. Get on the train in my shirt and tie, maybe a coffee in hand, always with my green travel bag, a McDonald's snack wrap. Sit and wait for the conductor to either check my monthly pass or skip the step to give me a nod that indicates recognition. Do nothing else up to this point. Starting a sketch only to be interrupted in a way that could've been avoided from the start is the true pain.

Each one is a full ride, I'd bet. Close to that. Full rides in October and November needed the distracting intensity of a sketch that builds on itself. That much I remember about it; and there would be times later where the sketches would just kind of dwindle. I'd start too quickly and finish after a half hour - too much time, then, to look out the window, and not enough time to start something new. There was a process of working on one sketch that prevails today, I guess. I do the same thing in bits on the bus when I have time, when it isn't too crowded.

Funny, too - there was always this strange concentration devoted to a piece as a one-per-day. Keep in mind that these were made around the time that I started dropping off with the intensity and consistency. Let's be clear in saying that one-per-day died in the summer of 2010, shortly after. Still, there was this constant, autumn sense of working a piece around a loose narrative, some vague story or dream that I wanted to share. The irony: the commute afforded me the time to sketch, but eliminated chances to devote that time to scanning, writing, concentrating on posting to facebook.

After a while, the time on the train became a familiar thing. A friend? There was nothing like it, and I don't really have anything like that now, which isn't pointedly good or bad. It's just a thing to talk about, to consider.