Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Vertigo Pop Tokyo 4, page 17


What an image! Maki hits the big time! She has managed to threaten, sweet talk, cajole, and blackmail her way up onto the stage with her hero Hike of the band One-Six-Seven. In Seth's drawing here she even has placed herself right in Hike's lap, in an awkward position where he has to reach around her to gesture to the audience, and she is almost leaning on his knee.

Seth has drawn this picture from a low point of view--about thigh level--directly behind the musicians, and tilted the whole image, all the better to make the reader feel the energy and movement on stage, and Maki's invasion of it. There is nothing calm about this picture, except perhaps for Maki, who has finally gotten what she wanted. With her costume of ladybugs plus the stylized skull on her hat and shoes that Hike wears on his codpiece, she looks sweetly schoolgirlish among the tense, thrusting poses of the musicians.

By the way, about those platform shoes that everyone on stage is wearing: around the year 2000 Seth bought a pair of saddle shoes at a thrift store and had 8-inch soles put on them. He wore them on occasion, including to the wedding of his good friend Todd. After September 11, he could no longer wear them on airplanes, which was a little disappointing because wearing costumes to fly was something he liked to do.

6 comments:

Steven said...

hey!

i just wanted to say that i was looking at this very image while drawing and seeing it here is great. the lines are so crisp.

j_ay said...

8 inches?!
There must be a photo of Seth wearing these somewhere, no?

I like the idea of costumes to fly.

Vicki said...

Jay,
I don't think I have a photo of Seth in those shoes. Maybe I exaggerated--maybe they were only 6 inches, but high enough to be pretty wild. Like Hike's shoes.

Welcome Steven. I am glad to hear of the coincidence. I think Seth makes those things happen. He was like that.

Vicki said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
j_ay said...

Maybe Todd has some photos from his wedding...

Vicki said...

Interesting idea. I was looking for Todd on facebook or some other internet site. I can find him--I'll ask.