Every child goes through a drawing stage. The ability to
very accurately demonstrate to their parents how awesome their imagined
story lines are holds obvious attraction.
For some reason unknown to me I never really grew out of it.
I remember a point in my early school years when a
class-mate showed me his planner. The planner was an ingenious system given out
to all children to help organize their day, writing down homework, timetables
and so on. Naturally as 10 year olds we neglected to ever, ever see any value
in this.
His planner had been defaced on that days page, scribbled
over with rough drawings of stick men in various stages of fighting and
murdering each other.
Looking back on this now, this was probably a sign that I
should have held concerns over the mental state of this boy... and should
probably be extra nice to him if he were to ever choose a victim to play
'stick-men' with.
However at the time this was nothing but an eye opening
moment. This was a bold act of defiance using my favorite pass time! Never had
I felt such a calling to an act of rebellion or realized the power held in my
simple black Biro... and these were just crude stick figures! Imagine what
monstrosities I could bring upon my planner with my own junior doodling skills.
In an effort to
quickly show I could one up this boy. My own character was created. One which
after careful thought, I dubbed 'The Teddy'. We would swap designs and draw
conflicts between these two.
The rampage of the Teds
destruction of stick-men upon my pages was swift. Fueled by power, the freeing
life of a vandal and Sunny Delight (seriously what was in that stuff?) my pen
blazed through the pages.
I was never one for getting into trouble at school. My
rebellion was channeled through my pen against this tyranny of timetables,
planners and hand-out sheets.
Not one page remained unspoiled. If I could relate it to
anything at the time. It would be like reading an epic tale where I was not a
spectator but a puppet-master.
It was a poorly understood crime.... a crime seemingly
without motive.... but I could not be stopped.
In my 10
year old brain these messy images were imagined as an epic conflict, directed
by Spielberg, or more likely Michael Bay, shot in super wide screen with
surround sound and getting rave reviews. Such things are difficult to convey on
the pages of a planner though.
I lost any competition for the Teds to destroy when the
other boy decided he was not a career doodler. Deciding to move on to more
sinister crimes most likely.
This was a crushing blow for me.
I was not a sporty child, and drawing this new universe felt like I was winning at something. A powerful feeling had been taken from
me.
I couldn't just keep making my own inferior stick-men to
defeat.... that would just be silly.
I needed a nemesis.
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