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Description
This is perhaps the only drawing where I had a pretty clear impression of what I wanted to do, and simultaneously knew I shouldn't do it...knowing what Kinslayer is about.

What I initially saw was a figure in a trenchcoat featuring quite strongly in the image, but.

I remember Columbine. I was in ninth grade when it happened, and although I don't live anywhere near Colorado, there was a certain sense of kinship with those who went through that tragedy. A sense of, "This could have happened at my school. This could have been us." And that was in 1999. Since then, there have been 31 school shootings in the US. *That's just schools*. That's not counting all the OTHER mass shootings that have happened between then and now. I had to look up a bunch of statistics and news stories to create the article clippings in the image, and MAN, that's depressing.

Because of that, I refuse to create something that in any way glorifies a shooter, no matter how cool and tragic I could make it look. I consider it tragic that more people in this country can recall the names of the two shooters, but not a single victim. (I'm one of those. Normally I dread doing faces in pen, but drawing these fifteen was kind of therapeutic for me.) Luckily, I don't think that's what Kinslayer is about. It creates a dialogue between victim and shooter and points to the fact that up until the moment the guns came out, *they were classmates*. And how crazy and senseless that is.

The song itself is only about Columbine, and that's what all the pictures are from. The bits of text are about shootings that have happened since. I feel like this song could apply to any of them. Because ultimately it hasn't stopped, and next time it could be you. Newtown could have happened at my son's elementary school. Virginia Tech could have been BCC or UCF, where I went to college. Heck, I was afraid to go see The Dark Knight Rises in the theater because of Aurora. I wasn't necessarily trying to make this a political piece (despite my personal feelings), but maybe it is.

What I wanted to do was make a memorial. Because that's really all you can do when a tragedy like this strikes: You honor the dead, and maybe someday we'll be able to predict and prevent people from getting so lost and messed up that they feel the need to do go out and shoot a bunch of people.

Description
This is perhaps the only drawing where I had a pretty clear impression of what I wanted to do, and simultaneously knew I shouldn't do it...knowing what Kinslayer is about.

What I initially saw was a figure in a trenchcoat featuring quite strongly in the image, but.

I remember Columbine. I was in ninth grade when it happened, and although I don't live anywhere near Colorado, there was a certain sense of kinship with those who went through that tragedy. A sense of, "This could have happened at my school. This could have been us." And that was in 1999. Since then, there have been 31 school shootings in the US. *That's just schools*. That's not counting all the OTHER mass shootings that have happened between then and now. I had to look up a bunch of statistics and news stories to create the article clippings in the image, and MAN, that's depressing.

Because of that, I refuse to create something that in any way glorifies a shooter, no matter how cool and tragic I could make it look. I consider it tragic that more people in this country can recall the names of the two shooters, but not a single victim. (I'm one of those. Normally I dread doing faces in pen, but drawing these fifteen was kind of therapeutic for me.) Luckily, I don't think that's what Kinslayer is about. It creates a dialogue between victim and shooter and points to the fact that up until the moment the guns came out, *they were classmates*. And how crazy and senseless that is.

The song itself is only about Columbine, and that's what all the pictures are from. The bits of text are about shootings that have happened since. I feel like this song could apply to any of them. Because ultimately it hasn't stopped, and next time it could be you. Newtown could have happened at my son's elementary school. Virginia Tech could have been BCC or UCF, where I went to college. Heck, I was afraid to go see The Dark Knight Rises in the theater because of Aurora. I wasn't necessarily trying to make this a political piece (despite my personal feelings), but maybe it is.

What I wanted to do was make a memorial. Because that's really all you can do when a tragedy like this strikes: You honor the dead, and maybe someday we'll be able to predict and prevent people from getting so lost and messed up that they feel the need to do go out and shoot a bunch of people.