#22: New, like-new, and leftovers
Hello door knockers,
You know what it’s time for, I know what it’s time for, so let’s just throw ourselves right into it.
This week’s cartoons are about an old party recipe, a never-ending news cycle, and a like-new idea that is very much not new.
Putting on my best suit,
Chris
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Caption: “It's just fruit juice, soda, and whatever alcohol was leftover from the last party.”
I think every party in my 20s followed this exact process.
You know, you need to make a punch. You wonder what booze will go in the punch. You look at the spirits shelf. You see a ton of random bottles with about a third left. You pour those bottles into the punch. You let the party play itself out.
Simple, right?
A little artist’s note: I’m going to officially call this cartoon part of my short-lived ‘big head’ era. It’s notable because in last week’s shoes cartoon, drawn around the same time, the people also had some disproportionate heads. In this instance, I think I toned it down a little but, I mean, look at the size of the head on the guy in there. It’s enormous!
This is a cartoon that also had a slightly different caption in it’s first iteration. It started out as:
“It’s my grandmother’s recipe: fruit juice, soda, and whatever alcohol my grandad was enjoying at the time.”
And I liked this, but it added an extra dimension that wasn’t quite as relatable.
Caption: “Maybe we'll introduce ourselves with the next news cycle, instead.”
What if every urban legend is out there, somewhere, and they’re just waiting for the right time to introduce themselves? Only, there never seems to be a right time.
I don’t actually know if the former president has any more indictments on the horizon, but I do know that if there is one, it will dominate the entire news cycle and we’ll once again be robbed of Bigfoot’s big reveal.
I guess we just have to wait for a slow news week.
A little artist’s note: This cartoon is the official introduction to the way I draw aliens. Why didn’t I go for the giant head look, especially given my apparent love of giant heads? Quite simply because I wanted it to look a little different to what people would normally think of as an alien. Earlier in the year I read a sci-fi novel called Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir which, among many things, introduced an alien species that genuinely looked nothing like what you would expect an alien to look like and it got me thinking that perhaps they don’t all have to look like bobbleheads. Also, Bigfoot is kind of adorable.
Caption: N/A
You’ve got options. What’s it going to be?
I bought a book recently and I had two options, the ‘new’ and the ‘like new’, and it made me wonder who actually decides what makes something ‘like new'? Which then sent me down a whole rabbit hole of things that could be ‘like new’, which happily led me to here.
Which would YOU choose?
A little artist’s note: I absolutely love the simplicity of this. The confused fella, the towel on his shoulder and the options in front of him, the checked tiles to give it that bathroom feel, and all of them coming together nicely with the flies around the used soap. Of particular note, I really worked hard to get the shading right on this one as the contrast, particularly with the use of the tiles, was key to making the soap options stand out. I also really wanted the soap to be on big stones as I wanted to give it the impression of something fancy, like a high-end bathhouse. It’s the big little things, I guess.
Thanks for reading MiddleSquiggle!
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