Welcome to my nightmare, Art Monkeys.

At our last session, Marlo Marquise posed as Elizabeth Short, better known to the world as the Black Dahlia. The Black Dahlia, like the Black Panther, Black Lightning, and Black Goliath, was an ethnic character created by a writer trying to appear socially relevant. Like Alex DeWitt, she is most famous for being killed and disposed of in a particularly gruesome fashion, thus inspiring a whole generation of women to become horribly dismembered in pursuit of some fleeting glimpse of stardom. But enough of the history lesson! There are breasts to ogle! Take us away, Justin Lussier!

The session was held at Paul Booth's famous Last Rites Tattoo Theatre, which had many advantages for us, not the least of which was the kickass Giger backdrop.

No, seriously, watashi kirei?

(Hai, sen-bai, hai.)

Now she's just taunting the audience.

By the way, fur is murder.

We now pause to recognize non-mutilated women, like Molly Crabapple.

The Left-Handed Drawing Contest allowed our audience to experience how partial dismemberment might affect their drawing.

If Marlo Marquise is going to have a past, she prefers it to be multiple choice.

As I always say, as long as you still have legs, you might as well flaunt them.

You could view these poses as a commentary on the detrimental effect of the way women are judged in our society - the way they are dissected and looked at as a series of parts. Alternately, you could view them as some sick bastard's wank material. At Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School, relativists that we are, we like to think of them as both.

Our second contest was for the audience to aid the police investigation by including in their drawing some clue that the murderer left behind.

I know from the numerous times I have played Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? that this means the killer just came from Anaheim.

You can't really tell from the photo, but there are footprints on the floor.

I'm pretty sure the giant squirrel was just a red herring.

A playbill from Hamlet implies that the killer was in fact in Elizabethan Anaheim.

Of course! It was Robert Oppenheimer! It all makes sense now!

Getting cut apart can really take it out of you.

Here, Justin took a picture of Steve taking a picture of Marlo.

And here, Justin took a picture of Steve taking a picture of Molly taking a picture of Marlo. I say not meta enough! We must have at least five photographers before it is art!

Artists at this session got a lot of use out of their red paints.

We have reached the final pose and the more observant of you may have noticed that our model is still in one piece, which is not at all historically accurate. So, for our final contest, we had our artists tear the body to pieces. Our audience really got into this one, as if they had been waiting all session for someone to suggest that. That's why we love them.

I tell ya, that hacksaw cost her an arm and a leg!

Oh no! It seems her head has come loose!

Oh, good, she caught it.

This drawing is very... um... you know what? You write a caption for this one.

"Now I'm bleeding like watercolors.
Keep me dreaming in pale blues and greens,
Keep on running like watercolors.
Lead me back to the sea."
-Nina Gordon "Watercolors"

But our final drawing really goes the extra mile by stuffing the body into a martini glass. It's that kind of touch that really makes a winner at Dr. Sketchy's.

And that's all for this session! Thank you to Paul Booth's Last Rites Tattoo Theatre for hosting the session; to Rondi Scott for the fantastic make-up job; to Etch-a-Sketch, Squishable, and Boyd and Blair for sponsoring us; to Molly, Justin, Melissa, Foley, Tim, Yao, and Paul for their help; and to Mary Kelly, who opened the door for so many young women.

- Syd Bernstein