The Line

Archive, #23 Puncture, #23 Art & Comics / By
Leonie Brialey
Leonie Brialey is a cartoonist living and working on Wurundjeri country of the Kulin Nation. Her most recent work, Psychic Hotline, is available through Glom Press.
Page One: The underlined title reads: The Line. This page shows a six-stage drawing of a hand being tattooed by another floating hand, holding a tattoo needle rendered as a single line. The floating hand tattoos several dots in a circle area onto the other hand, then wipes it clean. The text around these illustrations reads: This is a drawing of a video work by Anna Dunnill from 2017 called “To Pierce, To Puncture” where she tattoos a deconstructed rainbow stigmata-style on the palm of her hand. The work is at once a wound, a celebration, a tending to.
Page Two: There is a three-part panel at the top of the page. The first box contains text which reads “New Sincerity” Jaakko Pallasvuo. The second box reads “The last time I had a show I got a tattoo to go along with it.” The second panel shows an ascending line and reads “A short hesitant line on my left arm.” Below this, a simple four-part line drawing shows a character with long wavy hair drawing, and then tattooing onto their own hand. The 90 degree angled text around these drawings reads: “In 2020, all I want to do is draw comics. But I’m stuck. I’ve forgotten how or I’m sick of repairing myself. So I start giving myself a million* tattoos *exaggeration.” At the bottom of the page, there is a sketch of a forearm being tattooed with a straight line next to scribbled black. On top of this black area, a text box reads: “That unplanned, destined non-time was worth commemorating.” The 90 degree angled text next to this reads: “From Astraltalk 2011”.
Page Three: This page shows four text boxes, collaged with inverted sketches that show the background as black, and the lines in the drawings as white. They have scratches and scuff marks on them. One sketch shows a hand holding a rose. One shows a character’s arms, and their left arm is holding up a sword. The other three images show swirled patterns. The top left text box reads: “Tattooing and cartooning both involve copying and infinitely repeating yourself. But tattooing a line is a wholly different experience to drawing a line. The top right box reads: “Tattooing a line is pure geometry, pure maths. A line = a connected set of infinitely (infinitely is underlined) many points. What is a point if not a prick, a puncture in time? In space? Roland Barthes talks about... The bottom left text box shows that the original text has been erased with white-out, and the following text added over the top: “The punctum in photography as being this kind of unexpected, uncontrolled thing that pierces us.” There is a small illustration of an arrow. The bottom right text box also has been whited out in some areas, and reads: “That which pierces me is always a line - of a cartoon, drawing, of a poem or song. If a line is a set of infinite points I want to make all of them.”
Page Four: On the left, a text box reads “I love the infinite potential for poetry of the line. Each line is a puncture in space and time. Each line reminds me that I’m going to die one day. That I’m here for a good time, not a long time.” There are eight hand-drawn lines beneath this text. On the right the text continues under eight more lines: “Years before Anna tattooed her own palm or tattooed her own palm or tattooed a radish on my arm or gave me the ink and needles to tattoo myself on my leg a shark I had drawn while I read aloud Amy Hempel short stories.” Below this is an illustration of the character with long wavy hair lying face-down reading aloud from a book, while another character with shorter curly hair and glasses tattoos their leg. A speech bubble emanating from the first character reads: “Memoir: Just once in my life - oh, when have I ever wanted anything just once in my life.” There is a small speech bubble next to the second character which reads “Ha!” In the bottom right, a box of text reads “The End. Leonie B.”
Quotation from ‘Memoir’ written by Amy Hempel and published in The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel by Scribner, An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Copyright (c) 2005 by Amy Hempel. Used with permission. All rights reserved. Quotation from ‘New Sincerity’ written by Jaakko Pallasvuo, published in Astral Talk, ed. Aidan Koch, Publication Studio 2011. Used with permission.

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