Robert Fripp: Agent of KRIMSON - page 3 of 7 Print

Pen and ink, with Pro White, on bristol board, black and white, 2009. Page 3 of 7. The third page of a 7 page short story based on the premise that musician Robert Fripp is also a secret agent fighting crime in the music industry. The story was first published digitally on the DGMLive website in February 2012 in three parts, and later appeared in my 2013 collection, Antisocial Lawnmower. The story also appeared in my 2016 book We All Travel Time, with digital colors by my brother Rick Arthur. The story has its origins in 1996. King Crimson played the HORDE festival that summer and were looking for volunteers to hand out flyers. I called the number and spoke to the man who ran Possible Productions, the US merchandising for King Crimson at the time, since I was planning on going to the Darien Lake stop. We wound up chatting about 30 minutes, during which he told me that, believe it or not, Robert was a huge fan of action movies featuring the likes of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Segal. This sparked an idea. Most people dream of being rock stars, but what do rock stars dream about? This quickly coalesced into a napkin sketch for a comic strip idea...which I immediately set aside. As much fun as I thought it was, I didn't think more than a handful of my comic strip audience would get it. Fripp was not a household name to most folks. Jump forward to 2005. Robert Fripp was in town to play a soundscapes gig. I was working at the Apple Store at the time. As I was leaving for the day, I almost walked into him as he looked at some software on our shelves. I exchanged some polite, but professional words with him since I knew he had a reputation for wanting to keep his privacy and not attract attention...but the encounter had sparked some creative juices. By chance, as I was cleaning my studio, I discovered my napkin sketch from almost 10 years prior and decided to finally create the illustration. It took me the better part of a year to complete since I had a toddler in the house at the time. I got a mailing address from the webmaster of DGMLive, and sent off a xerox copy. About 3 weeks later I got an email from Robert Fripp himself! He loved the illustration I had done and wanted the original art! This lead to getting to meet him backstage after a 2007 League of Crafty Guitarists concert. I had been toying with extrapolating the illustration out to a short story, and I told him this. He was quite enthusiastic! So I set about sketching and writing, and commenced work in late 2009, finishing in January 2012. The original 5 page idea growing to 7 pages in the process. I kept Robert updated with sketches and scans along the way and his enthusiasm never waned. I finally submitted the finished story to him in late January 2012 and he had it published in 3 installments on his daily blog on the website! Hardcore King Crimson fans will likely enjoy all the references to lyrics and song titles I liberally sprinkled throughout the pages. If you are lucky enough to purchase the original art, I will include, at no extra cost, a copy of We All Travel Time for you to enjoy!