NORWAY - A LITTLE MORE MARTIN SKAUEN

If you liked Norwegian artist Martin Skauen’s morbid photorealistic drawings in our No Photos issue, you’ll be pleased to hear that he recently finished a new nine-piece series of fictional comic covers called Times. He initially wanted to do a comic book but had too many dark ideas in his somber mind to narrow them down to that. If you can’t “just pop down” to Internasjonalen in Oslo to see them all nicely hung and framed, here’s a little sneak peek to ease your curiosity along with Martin’s thoughts on his work.

This piece is called Bloody Times and it balances melancholy and joy, brutality and comedy. I think emptiness, pointlessness, and waiting are interesting themes, which you can see in how the wine runs out of the bottle composing the text: Too many days left.

Surviving Times is probably the greatest magazine title of all time. I would subscribe! I like the play on words--is it possible to survive time? The person on the cover obviously has a disease, but the straps and the way they are hung also give it a bondage feel and a touch of perversity. Butt tattoos are always classy. “Adieu Tristesse” will be my next tattoo for sure.

Divided Times was a work of patience, as it’s extremely difficult to draw two identical characters. I find the idea of Siamese twins joined by the hair funny. How easy wouldn’t it be to separate them, but would a separation leave them half-human? Perhaps they’re only the left and right part of a complete person. But they are growing apart.

MILÈNE LARSSON

Comments

[Biff]

As fucking morbid and depressing as the "Bloody Times" cover is, it's the shit. Best one of the bunch.

[thereitis]

i like the divided times one, pretty hiliarous concept.

[er]

wheres the joy and comedy in "Bloody Times"?

[yardbird]

these covers are great, hope to see a completed comic book.

[Polly]

I think I saw something like the last one in a Phish parking lot once. Dread together.

[Badace]

I fucking love it.

[D]

BLOODY TIMES ISNT WORKING

[Jono]

The illustrations here as well as the ones in the No Photo issue are awesome. Photo realism coupled with brutality and humor has produced some fantastic work for this guy.

[Vagina Sangrante]

The Surviving Times one looks like a scary spider body/head.