#32: A face, a name, and a place

Hello deliberators,

There comes a time in every week when you need cartoons, and one could argue that that time is now.

This week, we look at an unfamiliar form of ID, a new literary experience, and a mistake you could only make in a toga.

Keeping the river flowing,
Chris

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Caption: Two-factor authentication.

Sometimes, the face isn’t enough.

With crime on the rise, security is tight everywhere. Sometimes that involves working smarter, other times tougher and, sometimes, that involves taking steps that perhaps we hadn’t considered. The big question is: how long is it going to be before phones and doors request more forms of ID. Say, like a belly?

It could definitely open some interesting doors.

A little artist’s note: Ideas can come from anywhere, believe me.

I remember this one for a couple of reasons. I was on a bus, which in Melbourne should be everyone’s first red flag, and I was watching out the window. It was our first warm day in months and so, as is often the case, people had decided that shirts were now optional. Thus, I found myself with a prime view of not one, but an incredible amount of bellies. And from that bus window, I wondered how far away we were from this being a new form of ID.

Another interesting artist note here is the use of line weight, as you’ll see that most of the lines are one size, my usual pen size, but the written text is actually a size thicker. Among many things, this provides a clear distinction, making those all-important labels stand out a lot more. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Caption: “Romeo, Romeo, wet for art thou, Romeo?”

This is silly. Oh, so silly. And Shakespeare was totally up for silly, right?

But, in the world of modern entertainment, where TV shows about people singing in absurd masks can be groundbreaking, silly just doesn’t seem that silly anymore.

And, you know what? I would probably pay to see this.

A little artist’s note: I have struggled a lot of with the shading for this one. Is there too much? Is there too little? Should the water be shaded, or should the shore? My conclusion was to shade the shore to contrast with the white water. Did it work? I’m really not sure. Is it fun? Most certainly.

Caption: “We'll, uh, we'll show ourselves out.”

Let this one sink in for a moment.

We all make mistakes. Sometimes it’s a typo on an invite. Sometimes we misread a situation. And sometimes we turn up to a yoga studio wearing a toga and carrying a case of beer. It happens.

Has this happened to you?

A little artist’s note: The question I needed to ask myself here was: how much toga to show vs how much yoga to show. The answer, I deemed, was hard to determine. In the end, I chose to put an emphasis on the toga wearers, the heart of the joke, as I felt that the mats and accessories, as well as the backwards text in the window, would be adequate to show the reader that this involved yoga. Did I make the right choice? Should there have been people doing yoga here? Perhaps, although I worry it would have been a little distracting.

Thanks for reading MiddleSquiggle!

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