My work at the moment hopefully looks a little strange (javascript??) but have no fear, I will pontificate.
I am very interested in losing the "lines of code" approach to programming. To my knowledge, the only language that really tackles this is ANSI common lisp, but the loading/saving cores is almost an obscure feature of SBCL, and most other compilers and almost all hackers gravitate to just writing blub code using the de facto blub system definition asdf (and npm4lisp ("quicklisp")).
This problem clearly ties together with the vt100 emulator nature of computing. We are stuck with that, since graphics hardware's approach of having a separate wodge of RAM "for graphics" far away from the RAM you are using makes interactive graphics slow.
Yes, you are right, 9front's libdraw is clearly where I need to be working but I have two and a half problems with it. Firstly I need a decent lisp, and not a cop-out like ECL (get to C and use a C compiler) or ABCL (javvvaaaa). SBCL, which is metacircular (SBCL is written in lisp)  still requires wxallowed (I guess there is a performance tradeoff there) and is far away from 8c's IR. None of these seem to port well to 9front, and let's be honest it's about time for outer space to get a new lick of paint. So if I want a language, I basically need to dig into 8c's IR and make the damn thing (and have file refer to something served over 9p...). But then libdraw is C so I have to start again there too. The half a problem is that it only lives in outer space and I feel like I need something else to be my space elevator to help good people trapped in this gravity well escape to outer space with me.
Alright, let's talk space elevators.
Knocking out drawing on frame buffers - openbsd has spoken on this front. Now is the time to pragmatically work within a heavily patched Xenocara X. Using a framebuffer [in X] is pointless given that X is an albatross. This is pretty much what SDL1.2 is, but I feel like openbsd is more right about swallowing xenocara than SDL1.2 is about just freezing time long past.
So... SDL2, with ECL + C? This was my first goto and I am still quite happy with it. I don't like being beholden to SDL2, which is subject to and perverted by too many corrupting pressures - the graphics hardware industry, Apple, Windows, WebAssembly, playing ball with Android, Steam, etc etc. ECL has similar faults. It needs a good purging fire [I say with love].
Now hear me out. There's an American charity, the Processing Foundation which has a bog standard implementation of a few shape drawing functions. They set out to teach children to be java programmers. That's obviously ridiculous but... Due to their free kindergarten level lessons, those shape drawing functions in even-more affected java are very frequently taught, but to very little avail since they were used to lure people into Java, which sucks, and then with p5js lure them into javascript. But the evils that be have already driven hapless many into javascript and so p5js is some incidental lessons about learning javascript with some random shape drawing functions that are less relevant in the web 15.7 scripting security nightmarescape anyway (and the commercial powers don't want it in the same way they want/ed java).
You get where I'm going.
processing -> java <-> abcl
A very minimal sketch that just passes the processing control function behaviors on to abcl, which is normal lisp and has direct access to the running java classes and functions.
Ignoring startup time (long but probably shorter than downloading the malware-riddled "minified" p5js) I think that abcl flies at about java speeds (it's literally just doing java using the java garbage collector, albeit with the java lisp interpreter playing the symbolic role of the wall). Java is also a top-10 fastest, used compiled language along with SBCL lisp.
Now we also get p5js for free, though I am a bit leery about including something like parenscript to javascriptify my lisp. Maybe parenscript is alright. I don't want to have a big list of things to audit and purge beyond processing and p5js themselves.
So this is my waterslide to freedom. People - some of whom will love freedom - have been trained in processing to learn java, and p5js to learn javascript. Both java and javascript are worthless, but the drawing functions really are drawing functions. The lessons are pretty dumb because they are gasping to imply that idiomatic java/script are a good way to do things. They incidentally have a mediocre spline curve implementation that they haven't noticed the utility of, relatively.
So I have just taken the graphical (real utility) side of processing, and its event stream watchers, and I can catch a few babies falling from the burning building with my waterslide. These metaphors have gotten away from me, but still- They've been taught shape drawing and two worthless product knowledge domains. I have placed their shape drawing inside the common lisp object system, which is God's work. Come because of 
-mobile device
-wob
-x platform
Stay because it's honestly hard to go back up the waterslide