Pessimist goes utopian IF YOU GO Who: Ivan Brunetti’s “Thirst” What: Aerial Gallery sidewalk banners Where: Las Vegas Boulevard from Charleston Boulevard to Stewart Avenue When: Beginning in February

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Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2008 | midnight

By Kristen Peterson, Las Vegas Sun

A little over a year ago cartoonist Ivan Brunetti was considering his future.

“I will most likely disappear off the face of the Earth for an unspecified period of time,” Brunetti told a reporter after completing “An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories.”

“For the most part, my work is done. I accomplished just about everything I wanted to accomplish ... I'm frankly exhausted and finally free of delusions that I have anything left to give.”

But that wasn't the last we saw or heard of the Chicago-based artist, whose autobiographical, deeply personal and melodramatic discourse is characterized in his adult cartoons.

After his grand departure statement in Publisher's Weekly, a common expression of his highs and lows, Brunetti went on to design the January and May illustrations for the covers of the New Yorker magazine, a first for the 40-year-old artist. He had his collection of old works published in “Misery Loves Comedy,” and now (for something completely different) Brunetti is working on his first public art project, a narrative on thirst for Las Vegas' outdoor Aerial Gallery.

Working as a Web designer and teacher at Columbia College Chicago, Brunetti learned of the project when he was contacted by Michael Ogilvie, Las Vegas' public art coordinator.

“I just said, ‘Well, OK, if you think so,'” Brunetti says. “I didn't know what kind of chance I had. Mostly, I'm a cartoonist. We don't usually get chosen for public art things.”

Brunetti's 50-panel story in vintage muted tones of gold and red was the winning selection (of 36 entries) for the $35,000 project, a series of banners scheduled to be installed above the sidewalks on Las Vegas Boulevard in February.

His cyclical narrative presents a utopia of an ecosystem in which wants and needs are met, everyone is provided for and all thirst is quenched -- be it thirst for knowledge, exercise, employment, solace or health. The panels of the storyboard begin with a woman pouring water onto the ground and end with a water fountain. The story is circular and viewers can enter at any point to follow the activities and stories told through sequential pictures of bees, birds, flowers, people and pets.

Everything is connected. A household chore progresses to draining to water reclamation to filtered water that sprouts from a drinking fountain in a park in which a jogger stops to refresh herself. A beekeeper's story morphs into that of a woman who buys the honey for her tea to sip while reading.

“I had more abstract ideas at first,” says Brunetti, creator of “Schizo” comics. “I thought about 50 different kinds of drinking vessels and one person's life from birth to death -- starting with a baby bottle and in the last frame invert it so that it's like an IV bottle.

“But that was kind of depressing.”

Brunetti then considered Las Vegas, “a city that starts in the desert” and carries on with abundant growth, and instead of following one person's life, chose to follow several “through the flow of different liquid forms.”

The story doesn't have the dark and adult nature common in Brunetti's other work. But the Italian-born artist, who moved to Chicago at age 8 with his family, says he's beyond his darker periods anyway.

His first success came when his grim outlook appeared in his cartoons that were as engaging to the reader as they were cathartic and therapeutic for the author. When Brunetti wasn't focusing on his own struggles, he delved into the suffering of fellow artists, writers and philosophers, including Soren Kierkegaard and James Thurber.

This is the first year a national artist has been commissioned for the Aerial Gallery, which has shown the work of more than 120 Las Vegas artists since the public art project began in 2000. Brunetti's project replaces “Nine Deadly Sins,” which featured students in UNLV's Art in Public Places course.

Ogilvie, who is a fan of Brunetti's work, says he thought his style would be perfect for the project. “One of the goals of the Arts Commission is to attract international attention, to let people know that there is culture in Las Vegas, and to expose locals to international artists.”

Patrick Duffy, an arts commissioner who was on the subcommittee to select an artist for the Aerial Gallery, was impressed by Brunetti's storytelling and reputation and the continuity of the work in his proposal. Duffy said he thought the simplicity of the line drawings would best reach viewers, most of whom are in transit, either driving or walking by.

Brunetti plans to visit Las Vegas in February to discuss his work.

Regarding comments about his creative demise in the Publisher's Weekly article, Brunetti says with a soft chuckle, “The universe conspires against me.”

Kristen Peterson can be reached at 259-2317 or at kristen@lasvegassun.com.