#40: Hemisphericals
Hello drifters,
It’s time to get cracking, moving, and shaking with another round of cartoons.
This week, you’ll find a Christmas tree love that’s run its course, a message from old-man winter, and a Guess Whodonnit.
Keeping an eye on the prize,
Chris
Like what you see? Follow me on Instagram (@chrisshorten), or talk a friend into following me on Instagram.
Caption: “It was a summer fling, that’s all.”
Christmas is a little different in the Southern hemisphere, which is the only place this gag works.
Who’s to say that, during the yuletide season, our Christmas trees don’t find themselves making rendezvous with the locals? There are few riffs on this joke out there, and I am entirely indebted to those great cartoonists for paving the way, but there was no cartoon out there that showed it from this perspective.
So, uh, for those in the Northern hemisphere, just imagine your Christmas is in the middle of a very hot summer.
A little artist’s note: So this post was meant to go up last week, but I kind of sat on it.
The thing is, most of my audience is in the Northern hemisphere, and I tend to frame my cartoons from their perspective, or from a neutral perspective, to keep it all relatable. But, I kept coming back to this one. As I note in my description, the idea of plants getting friendly with Christmas trees has been done before, but it hasn’t been done like this.
Visually, I wanted to keep this one simple, but it ended up being quite the opposite. Instead, it needed to have enough detail so you would know that it was out the front of a house, but not enough detail that it would take away from the core of the cartoon. I’ve also used minimal colour to try and give continuity between the pot plant and the abandoned Christmas tree. Does it work? Kind of.
Caption: “They called me mild! Can you believe that? Me, mild.”
This one first appeared in the January 2024 issue of literary journal Prosetrics.
Winter is a cold and dark place. Everyone’s just trying to get though it, including winter itself.
When you think about it, and clearly I have, winter would likely be pretty petty. It brings things that most people really don’t enjoy, and it does so for a solid three months. What could be worse? Maybe if winter made a point of complaining about it to you.
I guess I would be pretty annoyed too.
A little artist’s note: This one has been rattling around for a while and I always really liked it. So when the literary journal Prosetrics reached out looking for submissions, and they told me their theme was winter, it felt like it could be the perfect opportunity.
The challenges with this cartoon were around how to present winter in a way that would feel authentic, and to show a background that wasn’t too complicated, but complicated enough to complement winter.
Also, incidentally, winter also kind of looks like a cartoon of former (and disgraced) US President Richard Nixon. The result was not intended, but it seems to fit all the same.
Caption: "Now would you say your attacker had long or short hair?”
Mine in issue #321 of Weekly Humorist magazine.
I seem to watch a lot of crime shows. Maybe too many.
I also played a lot of Guess Who as a kid. You know, the game where you slowly eliminate a set of physical characteristics until there is only one stereotypical, yet odd-looking, face left? Which is kind of like identifying a suspect, I guess.
It's got to be the key to modern policework, right?
A little artist’s note: Would you believe, this is the first cartoon I have ever sold. Like actual money being exchanged! I’m pretty proud of this.
I actually drew it back in July 2023, but it took until January 2024 to find its rightful home. So it’s been a long time since I drew it, but I still really love it. Of particular note, this is in my style of 6 months ago, so there are certain things that I do here that I don’t really do now, and also my noses are much more prominent (because every cartoonist has to have their thing).
Thanks for reading MiddleSquiggle!
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Thanks for more to ponder. 😄