Bailin Studio

In 1982 Warren Criswell started drawing in a hardback sketchbook.

Just exercises at first, pencil sketches, mostly of stuff on TV. He would let the VCR record whatever was on and then play it back afterwards, and whenever Warren saw something that he thought would make a good drawing, sometimes just at random, he would hit the pause button and start drawing. Back then VCR’s paused for only about 5 minutes. He made a rule that he would look at the screen image only that long.

Warren drew everything—frames from the news, movies, PBS live concerts, even commercials. Images of the Black Riders, from the first film version of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, began showing up among the ruins of Beirut, and it was then that Warren decided to give the book a name: Lenny and the Black Riders and a structure inspired from Bernstein’s Verdi concert and patterned after the Catholic Requiem–Kyrie, Dies Irae, Lux Aeterna.

But in 2001, after 9/11 happened, Warren felt the need for some kind of artistic response. The only appropriate source he thought of was the sketchbook begun in 1982. He found two blank pages near the end and the sketchbook you are now viewing was completed.