Why Bloody Tigers?

Why have I dedicated so much of my life to drawing a gory webcomic with tigers, wolves bears and Russian history? There are lots of stories, worlds and animals that inspire this story. Definitely my love for the spaghetti westerns by Sergio Leone and my admiration of Princess Mononoke (obviously). Novels like Animal Farm and Watership Down also influence and inspire my story. But the actual inspiration for drawing “bloody tigers,” as my family calls it,  started when I was very young. 

It was in first or second grade if I’m remembering correctly. Like many artists I have learning disabilities that I’ve worked very hard to overcome. In my youth my inability to do math or read well was a huge impediment. Fortunately I had incredible parents who worked hard with me to catch up academically and manage my inherent learning difficulties.   

THIs is the only kindergarten sketch my mother kept. There’s no gore but you can see me wearing a tiger shirt surrounded by animals at the zoo.

Every Friday we had vocabulary tests. My mother worked hard all week helping me learn the words. By the end of the week I had memorized all the words perfectly. I was ready for the test. The teacher would very slowly say the word and we were supposed to write it down with the correct spelling. She was so slow, I remember her saying one word several times. Who has time for that?  I certainly didn’t, so I wrote down all the words in my own order as fast as I could. This made it possible for me to draw the one thing I was obsessed with; Tigers. Not just tigers, bloody tigers. I made sure to draw them with fangs dripping with blood over dead prey. Every blank space on the margins of the test were illustrated the life and death stories of tigers and their prey.

I thought I was pretty smart. I spelled all the words correctly. Who cares if they were in the wrong order and that I covered all the blank spaces with blood, gore and death? Unfortunately my teacher did care and saw my test completely different. My parents were brought into the school. My teacher , having all the best intentions,  thought that my detailed drawings of gore and tigers with test answers all in the wrong order was an outward expression of turmoil and maybe even violence in my home. After what I imagine was an awkward conversation my parents were able to convince my teacher of the truth that I just really like drawing bloody tigers.

My first year film at CalARTS was inspired by learning difficulties and my long running desire to draw tigers.  I was persuaded by my animation teacher at the time to avoid drawing the tedious stripes and turn my tiger into a lion. The short gives an early creative window into my desire to create dramatic, even gory stories, with a tiger as the hero. Ghost of the Gulag has many influences, but the greatest one is truly the raw creative desire to draw “bloody tigers” that I’ve had since I was a little kid.