Brian R. Williams \ Digital Art

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A Quarantine Dream
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
The Magpie and the Nightingale
Orick & Argyle

A Quarantine Dream is a comic I created in the spring of 2020, when everyone was living in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was inspired by four quatrains from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Omar Khayyam was an 11th century Persian mathematician, astronomer, historian and poet.

Click here to view and download a PDF of the entire comic.

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LXIV.
Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who
Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through,
Not one returns to tell us of the Road,
Which to discover we must travel too.

LXV.
The Revelations of Devout and Learn'd
Who rose before us, and as Prophets burn'd,
Are all but Stories, which, awoke from Sleep
They told their comrades, and to Sleep return'd.

LXVI.
I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
And answer'd "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell:"

LXVII.
Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire,
And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire,
Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,
So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird is a poem by Wallace Stevens, published in his book, Harmonium, in 1923.

Click here to view and download a PDF of the entire comic.

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

The Magpie and the Nightingale is a comic I'm writing using alphabetical prompts as inspirations for the imagery. I've finished the first page, The Abbey & the Burglar, pictured here.

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The Abbey & The Burglar
The Crime & The Detective
The Escape & The Forest
The Guardian & The Hound
The Inn & The Jewel
The King & The Lance
The Magpie & The Nightingale
The Oracle & The Path
The Quarry & The Riddle
The Specter & The Tower
The Urn & The Veil
The Wyvern & The Xanthos
The Yonder & The Zenith

Orick & Argyle is a comic about a sasquatch named Orick and an extraterrestrial named Argyle. With their human friend Ursula and their frenemy, a mountain lion named Leona, they fight malevolent wood devils and commit acts of civil disobedience in defense of nature.

You can read the comic at orickandargyle.com, and get exclusive content on my Patreon page: Orick & Argyle.

Excerpts from Orick & Argyle Visit a U.S. Senator.

Excerpts from Orick & Argyle are Stalked by a Wood Devil.

Excerpts from Orick & Argyle Make a New Friend.

Excerpts from Will-o'-the-Wisp.