image galleriescontactsubscribe

Ropes and Flames

OCTOBER 24, 2012
This one is my latest contribution to Maisonneuve Magazine with AD Anna Minzhulina, recently awarded best magazine of the year at The National Magazine awards in Toronto.
The subject was about death penalty in Canada. 
Historically, Canada has had an ambivalent relationship with capital punishment. The country executed 710 people, 697 men and thirteen women, before abolishing the practice in 1976. Ten years later, bowing to public pressure, Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government held a free vote in the House of Commons on the question of whether to reinstate the death penalty. Mulroney himself was against it, and the finally tally was 130 against and 124 in favour: Canada would continue to spare the lives of even its most notorious criminals. Since then, the subject has mostly slipped out of public consciousness, reappearing only on the rare occasion when the deeds of some particularly heinous criminal briefly reignite Canadians’ desire for violent retribution.
The subject got back into the spotlight after Conservative Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu remarked that “each killer should have the right to a rope in his cell to make a decision about his or her life.”
The second one was an opener for a piece called «Preacher, Tailor, Zealot, Spy», in the latest issue of The New Republic.
It's an impressive text, following the conversations between the journalist Graeme Wood with a Salafi harvester of souls in Egypt. 
Art Director Joseph Heroun had an idea for this image; in the opening and the end, the author describes the self-inflicted torture of the burning hot tea cup against bare hands as reminder of the pain that awaits non-believers, sinners and infidels. He asked me to think of  a way to capture that idea simply, so it may be a good way in to the story without literally depicting the characters.
He also wanted it to feel dark, foreboding and mysterious.
I think Joseph was right with his idea; it was efficient and simple without possible misreading. Great art direction!
© 2024 Gerard DuBois