#107: Can you relate?
Hello fighters,
Find yourself a comfortable chair and hold on tight. Because now, today, this minute, is time for some cartoons.
This week we have a treadmill to an unfamiliar place and the makings of a psychological masterpiece.
I’m sure you’ll see your mother,
Chris
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Caption: “You got fast, slow, and casually looking through your ex’s window.”
Because maybe you’ll see them.
Love is a strange beast that can make people do strange things. Or, at least, think of doing strange things. Like going by your ex’s house, just on the off chance that you might see them and they see you and maybe they’ll want you back.
It’s a very big maybe.
A little artist’s note: This is such a movie trope. I know it, you know it, everyone knows it. But, it does happen. And the question is: does it happen because of the movies, or do the movies happen because people do it? Where is the line?
Whatever it is, there were two inspirations for this cartoon:
Gym treadmills: I’m not a huge fan of gyms, and I don’t see that changing any time soon, but the treadmill is perhaps my least favourite thing there. Because, why would you go to a small and sweaty room to walk when there’s a whole glorious outside to experience. Providing it’s safe, of course… from perps and wildlife and… well maybe the treadmill isn’t so bad.
Taylor Swift’s ‘I look in people’s windows’: This is a song off her recent The Tortured Poets Department Anthology. It’s the shortest song on the whole record, and maybe the strangest. Just a little circular melody about, you guessed it, looking for your lost love in people’s windows.
Visually, this is pretty simple. And in the versions I tried to sell, the background wasn’t so pronounced, but I added it here as it seemed a little stark without it.
Caption: “It’s great, but make it less like my mother.”
Art is subjective. And some art, like a Rorschach test, is VERY subjective.
This one goes out to all of my fellow artists dealing with the whims of clients and their ever-changing views and briefs. Assuming there is a brief.
It especially goes out to anyone painting Rorschach tests.
A little artist’s note: So I remember exactly when I had this idea. I was driving and my partner was in the passenger seat, and the idea itself just sort of floated into my mind. And it was so powerful that I had my partner text me the caption.
At, at the time, I thought it was the best thing I had ever written.
Now, is that really the case? Probably not. But I still really like it. Although it didn’t always read like this. The version I tried to sell, with the caption that floated that it’s way into my head, is below.
And while the joke is similar, when I began thinking about posting it here I realised that it just wasn’t quite there. I mean, sure, the sentiment is the same, but it doesn’t quite hit the same notes. It’s one thing to be relatable, it’s another to be specific about what the client might find relatable.
And, you know, maybe it really is the greatest thing I’ve ever written :O
Thanks for reading The Mid-Week Squiggle.
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