Frank Sinatra for Aklasu Magazine

Posted on December 9, 2015 by julian peters comics

An illustration to accompany an article by Q. V. Hough on the essential loneliness of Frank Sinatra, published in Aklasu Online Magazine. You can read the article here: https://aklasu.co/mag/deep-dream-sinatra-100/SadSinatra

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6 Responses to Frank Sinatra for Aklasu Magazine

  1. alice says:
    January 3, 2016 at 8:31 pm

    à vrai dire, cette aquarelle me rappelle tes autoportraits, il est donc vrai qu’il y a toujours un peu de soi-même dans les portraits qu’on tente? ce n’était pourtant pas le cas pour rmbo. à moins que…

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  2. Marco Vins Della Motta says:
    December 12, 2015 at 12:32 pm

    Wonderful watercolour of Ol’ Blue Eyes, Jools! I would proudly hang a framed copy of this in my private nook of the apartment. The way you depict his eyes is brilliant: a combination of distantness, introversion, introspectiveness, and isolation, all conflating into a core of loneliness, as the article states. (I liked and identified the writer’s penchant for solo moviegoing–a favourite activity of mine which I’ve never considered to be a sign of loneliness despite its plausible perception as such.) Growing up listening to him and other crooners thanks to my dad, his music and persona captured my imagination. His broody and mercurial temperament made a fine counterpoint to Dean Martin’s convivial and debonair aura whose songs were also often played in my household. Though he could be an asshole at times, he could also be an exemplar. This little article and podcast from NPR illustrate the latter: http://www.npr.org/2015/12/12/459414244/one-more-for-sinatra-who-took-a-stand-in-gary-indiana?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=2039

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    • julian peters comics says:
      December 15, 2015 at 8:46 pm

      Grazie Marco! It’s true that it’s his brooding and mercurial qualities that make Sinatra’s interpretations so great. There almost seems to have been an intentional implied discrepancy between the projected character of Frank (and Dean too, in a different way) and the wholesome, even syrupy sentimentality of much of their material. I had never heard “The House I Live In”, but judging from the snippet they played here it sounds pretty cornball! One of my personal favourites is “Last Night When We Were Young”, where Frank’s melancholy is really given free rein.

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