A Drawing--fragment

“THE STAR“

This two-page cartoon is a free interpretation inspired by a once-read story by Arthur C. Clarke, titled "The star". The story is originally told by a priest traveling with a space expedition that discovered a destroyed post-supernova world. After performing the calculations it comes out that the explosion took place just when Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem and the supernova was supposed to guide the three wise men traveling from the East.

I am pretty sure that Clarke could not be right about the circumstances and the coordinates described—I just liked the simple idea of the story he told.

What I wanted to do was to take a look from the position of the people waiting for their end. I never wondered how the situation could eventually look like—if I were to draw this comic again I'd be more careful about my description of the last seconds. I do not hesitate to say that my picture is wrong. I was drawing this in a rush and tried only to pass on the silence of the people waiting.

Oh… why did I draw this all? It was a rather strange Christmas gift (the Bethlehem Star) sent to two people I felt emotionally bound to—my close friend and her father, whose hobby is astronomy, as I was later told. Each of them was given a separate page of the original drawing.

And one more thing—the scans shown here are from a photocopy that didn't quite match up with the quality of the original. I'll try to change this in the future.

Themes: No-name'95 :|: The Star :|: Others