Doc the Revelator's "I Can't Kill Me" 2/19/10

I got my first art show in a year coming up this Friday in Lexington. Being more concerned with graphic narrative and publishing books/serializing comics in progress, the only real reason I'm doing this show was that I was asked by artist Bruce New to join him in a local two-man show. I accepted. Here we are.

When I put out In Tongues Illustrated, I fixated on promoting the book as a book, with a a back to back weekend release locally at Morris Book Shop and then took it on to SPX. Maybe if I'd had a staff behind me to orchestrate everything, I woulda had the wherewithall to have a showing of the original art in conjunction with the book release. But two years later, here we are again, and this exhibition includes all of the original pages from the book along with extra stuff, both old and new.

I'm not hiding at all the fact that artist Raymond Pettibon is really the totem of influence on hanging the show. I'm not so much hanging pages from my comics as an art show, as I'm installing pages from my comix onto a gallery wall, taking the various narratives out of the original context of the book form and placing those narratives into the context of a couple of walls. It may not be pretty.

Titled "I Can't Kill Me," I'm subverting the old comedic Bugs Bunny-ish quip, "I kill me." While I often laugh at myself, my need to produce comix narratives keeps the wolves at bay. With this work to be done, I quite literally cannot kill me. Thus, the organic mess of a presentation of an organic mess of graphic narratives is an affirmation of life. At least, an affirmation of my own life.

Included here are snapshots of the sketchbook page as poster for the show as well as snapshots of a temporary table/studio space from November and a preview of one of the walls for this show. Also, the portrait of me was taken by artist Louis Bickett at the start of the week. This art show will bring you up to date. Or, more appropriately, it brings me up to date. Go into the future with me, if you will.

--JTD