Closer to the Heart
A post-US-election comic from 20 years ago
Hi everyone, and welcome to the new folks! This is where I’ve been sharing old comics that I wrote & drew many years ago, in a collection of sketchbook journals called “the drawing book.” I’ve been trying to do this in roughly chronological order, starting with the first drawing book in 1996.
Since a lot of those old comics were about my adventures following Bob Dylan’s “Neverending Tour,” I put those into a category of their own. If you’ve come looking for Dylan comics, you can see them here! Sad to say, there are not too many of those left to share, but there are still a few, so stay tuned!
For now, I thought it was the right time to share a very short comic I wrote back in November 2004, about the US presidential election.
In case you don’t already know, I lived then (as I do now) in Calgary, Canada. And back then (not anymore) I was a flight attendant with Air Canada. I usually worked on the flight to Frankfurt, but once in a while I ended up working on flights to North American destinations - like Houston. Here’s a picture from the drawing book, showing a route that featured a Houston stop.
But this short comic from 2004 was about what happened as I was setting out on a different trip to Houston, home of George W. Bush, just after the American election.
That’s it! If you’re Canadian, I might not need to say anything else. But just in case you don’t know, the song that blasted my ears that day, was “Closer to the Heart” by the iconic Canadian band Rush.
I saw Rush perform at Toronto’s old Maple Leaf Gardens back in the mid-90s. Here’s a picture I found of that old and great venue, as it looked back then (I found the photo on this site).
I wasn’t really a Rush fan, but condescended to go along with my then-boyfriend, as recorded elsewhere in the drawing book…
Later, I grew to appreciate Rush. (Fun fact: Rush teamed up with American singer Aimee Mann on my favourite Rush song, “Time Stand Still” - a song with a famous and ill-conceived (famously ill-conceived?) video… and, Aimee Mann also opened for Bob Dylan at my very first Bob Dylan show. See, I found a way to get Bob Dylan in here, after all!)
Ok, sorry for the digression!
Anyway, the lyrics of Rush’s tune “Closer to the Heart” rang true for me on that day twenty years ago, and they do now, too. Maybe give it a listen!
A lot has already been written about the recent US election, and there will be a lot more to say about it in the days to come… but for now, as we’re all trying to make sense of what lies ahead, I hope that when you turn on your radio, you find the song you need!