#60: Morals and Weeds

Hello conference goers,

You know it’s Thursday. I know it’s Thursday. So let’s all just admit that it’s Thursday and get on with the cartoons.

This week, we find out how the West was really won, and look at gardening gone wrong.

Collecting novelty pens,
Chris

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Caption: N/A

Is this how the West was really won?

You know how it is. There’s always a good. There’s always a bad. But the ugly? Well maybe that is something a little more ambiguous. Say, like a quality multi-level marketing scheme (read: a fancy-sounding pyramid scheme).

Errr, winning?

A little artist’s note: This would have to be one of my favourite cartoons of my more recent batches because, what can I say? I love a good pyramid scheme.

Okay, not really, but I am utterly fascinated by the idea of these strange get rich quick schemes that people seem to fall for time and time again. I also love a good Western, in whatever form it comes. Together, then make an unstoppable force.

On the visuals for this, from the beginning, I knew what the composition would look like and where everyone would go. The challenge was to draw three people who would look distinctly like their labels. Does the good guy look good enough? Does the bad guy look appropriately dastardly? Does the morally ambiguous guy look suitably dodgy? All good questions, but I would like to think I’ve answered them okay.

Caption: “This is a weed. You can tell by the leaf shape, the elongated stem, and the fact it’s still alive.”

Who here can keep a houseplant alive? Anyone? Anyone?

And then, for the ones that you do keep alive, you start to wonder: is it me, or has this plant been somehow replaced with a weed? And then you wonder how that has happened, and then you kind of just give up asking and embrace the weed as your new plant.

This is definitely hypothetical, definitely.

A little artist’s note: As you would guess, this is based on a plant we have at home. A small one, a gift, where I can’t actually remember what was originally in there, but I swear it’s not what is in there now. The good news: it’s flourishing. The bad news: well it might not be what we asked for.

Visually, this one is really simple, but one thing I really like is the way the pots are drawn. I tried to replicate a few of the ones we have around the house, and then make them look like they’ve actually been used. Success? I think so.

Caption: “EXTRA! EXTRA! Former president found guilty of paying hush money to a porn star. This is somehow not a joke.”

It’s a bonus cartoon! Sometimes, the news writes the joke for you.

And I’m sure I’m not the only one getting a variation of this cartoon out there. It’s all still kind of wild, though.

Uh, enjoy!?

A little artist’s note: So, a funny thing happened last Friday.

I was brushing my teeth early in the morning and my phone started lighting up with notifications and they all said one thing: TRUMP GUILTY. And I looked at it and I thought how bizarre the situation was. Now, to rewind this back, the night before I had been working on this cartoon’s visuals, only with a very different caption and premise. So it was all drawn. And then I realised that this visual, combined with pretty much stating the news headline, would work quite well. And so, after a little polish, on the 31st of May, a couple of hours after the verdict had been handed down, this cartoon ventured into the world.

I still like the other caption too, but I might save that for a different cartoon.

Thanks for reading MiddleSquiggle!

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