Congratulations, Raza!
Tomorrow my sister Meredith is graduating from Vanderbilt University! Horrible brother that I am, instead of using my new drawing skills to draw a picture of her graduating, I drew this picture of my friend Raza Panjwani, who is also graduating this week (from Columbia Law school).
As Tom Vinciguerra aptly put it: “Congrats to Raz, the colossus bestriding the campus today and the world tomorrow!”
(as with a lot of my recent work, I used a ton of photo-reference for this: for the skyscrapers, for the law school robes, for Raza’s proud mug, and for the unique perspective, below)
The Land of Cokaygne
Imagine my surprise when Anu Garg’s Word of the Day today was “Cockaigne!” I’ve spent this week and the better part of last working on an awesome 4-page comic based on an anonymous 14th century poem about said mystical land of earthly pleasures. See below!
This is for Stumptown Underground‘s June issue, which has the theme of “myth/folk tales/fairy tales.” If this submission don’t get accepted, I’ll eat my hat! I really busted my patootie on this one.
Back in 2005-2006, when I was a senior at Columbia University, I attempted to write a thesis paper on the poetry of the Goliards, semi-mythical wandering, drunken scholars of the later middle ages, probably best known from the Carmina Burana. I even learned medieval Latin so I could read their doggerel in the original! But no thesis came of it, and maybe from this comic you can see why. It’s just a bunch of crazy nonsense! I lost credit from the course and almost didn’t graduate 🙁
The text of the poetry portion of the comic was freely edited by me based on the original Middle English and two modern translations, all available here. (WARNING: The sex in the original poem is much less consensual than what I’ve depicted here. Even so, I recommend you give it a read, as there are many beautiful and hilarious parts I had to leave out of the comic for space considerations.)
Read MoreHeightening.
Another dumb throw-off cartoon because I am still swamped drawing what I think might be the most epic 4 pages of my life, which I will hopefully post early next week.
In college, I was in an improv comedy group. We always talked about comedic “heightening.”
Read More10 Minute Marx
Happy 192nd Birthday, Karl Marx.
(apologies for the throwoff sketch today – I am still working on several concurrent TOP SECRET projects which will all come tumbling out onto the internet early next week)
One of my favorite Marx quotes ever is:
“A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.”
Though it always appealed to me, I only realized the quote’s deeper meaning when I read this short article by Slavoj Zizek. (This same article addresses one of my other all-time favorite [paraphrased] quotes by Jaques Lacan: “If God is dead, then nothing is permitted.”)
In short, the duty of the Communist is NOT to say “You naive bourgeois idiot! You talk as though money were some magical thing endowed with intrinsic properties, when it is really just a reification of labor relations!” No. Rather, to the capitalist, we should say: “Like any intelligent modern man, you freely assert that money is nothing more than a codified system which stands in for certain relations of labor. However, in your day-to-day life, you nevertheless unconsciously ACT as though money is truly it’s own magical thing.” Wrap your head around that, my friend, and you’ve finished your first lap around Jericho.
Read MoreThe Weekend’s Nudes
I have so much great stuff in the works right now, but nothing I can show you yet (incomplete comics projects, drawings that are gifts for people who haven’t received them yet, etc.!) So here are some of my gradually improving nudes. (Warning! Not Safe For Church!)
I must say, I’m particularly proud of that last one – it actually looks like the subject. Er, model. Woman. I mean lady. I mean person.
Read More