#56: Stitches
Hello fighters,
It’s that time of the week. The time after Wednesday and before Friday. It’s Thursday, and that means cartoons. Two, to be precise.
This week, we have a bar fight with some awkward consequences, and some consequences with awkward consequences.
Keeping it real,
Chris
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Caption: “Way to make me the third wheel, guys.”
Have you ever found yourself the third wheel?
You know, the person who, through silliness or circumstance, finds themselves superfluous to supply? Well, this can happen in so many situations, but often it’s when we least expect it. Like, say a bar fight.
Been there, done that?
A little artist’s note: This is an idea that I had been playing with for weeks. Initially, the idea that someone was stuck in the middle of a bar fight. However, once I really thought about it, I realised that this was one of those situations where there are two people fighting and one person feeling left out. And that, is where this one came from.
Visually, I’ve written a lot over the year about getting backgrounds right, and I’ve began putting a lot of effort into getting them closer to how I want them to be. They don’t have to be detailed, but they have to have details. It’s a tricky concept, and one that I don’t think I always get right, but I feel like I hit a good middle ground here with the bar taps and the top shelf bottles on the, uh, top shelf.
But, as always, I’ll let the court of public opinion decide whether I’ve got it right.
Caption: “Your insurance only lets us open you up.”
Who here has been in this situation?
You think you have the best health insurance. You’ve been told you have the best health insurance. And then you need a particular thing done, and you find that to be the one thing that isn’t covered. And, you know, perhaps that missing thing requires a little more manual effort than you had planned.
Have you practiced your needlework?
A little artist’s note: This idea has drifted in and out of my mind for a while now. If I’m honest, the insurance industry baffles me, but none more so than health insurance. The rules, the rules within rules, the rules within those rules. They just all add up and make for some very strange conditions.
This is visually quite simple, but there are a few thorny things here. The main one being the bed. Yes, yes, I know, it’s just a bed. But hospital beds need to look like hospital beds. I can’t just throw in an IKEA bed and hope for the best. It needs to be correctly proportioned and, obviously, stable. The other challenge was the needle and thread. Because both of those things are actually fairly small, but unless they are highly visible, then the rest of the joke simply doesn’t work. It’s a challenge and, as always, I don’t know whether I’ve risen to it.
But I like this joke all the same.
Thanks for reading MiddleSquiggle!
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