#79: Make your escape

Oct 16, 2024

Hello escapees,

No matter your stage in life, one thing is certain: You need cartoons. And, maybe, you need these cartoons. Or not. Who knows, I’m not your mother.

This week, we get an alternate ending for a booky escape room, and we stack up a few different school systems.

Getting educated,
Chris

Like what you see? Follow me on Instagram (@chrisshorten), or talk a friend into following me on Instagram. Or, buy some prints from my website.

Caption: “You guys go ahead, I’m good here.”

What if I don’t want to escape?

Because, as well as being incredible puzzles that test all of your intelligence, escape rooms are also little pieces of solitude. Perfect to finish that book and just, generally, keep away from the world.

Would you want to escape?

***

Righty, so this idea has been running around my head for months but I’ve sat on it as I kept thinking it belonged to someone else. It felt like I had seen it before. But I have also spent months searching everywhere I could to see if I could find another version of it. Somewhere. Anywhere. But with no luck. Sooooo, fellow cartoonists, if this is your idea, please accept my apologies and consider this a largely inferior cover of your magnificent work. Just DM me so I can give you proper credit.

A little artist’s note: As you can see above, I really don’t know if this was my idea or if belongs to someone else. But I feel like it’s been haunting me to the point where I just gave in and drew the damn thing. And I like it. I really do. There needs to be many more versions of this out in the world.

Visually, this falls into a trap that I consistently make for myself. I am, of course, talking about bookshelves. Maybe it’s because I make books for a living that I feel the need to populate backgrounds with them, or maybe it’s because I like to submit myself to this heavy level of tedium. But, whatever the reason, there they are, shining dull but unmistakable in the background.

They do look good, though. Please tell me they look good.

Caption: “We should have never sent Marcy to a public school.”

It’s tough to find the right school.

Because, different schools lead to different outcomes. And sometimes those outcomes lead to outright rebellions. Is Marcy going though her own rebellious stage? Or was it the public school system?

It’s especially tough when you’re the youngest in a set of stacking dolls.

A little artist’s note: Stacking dolls! They’re the bread and butter of every cartoonist. And I have seen more stacking doll cartoons than I can remember. They’re a rite of passage. A requirement for every repertoire. And this one is my first foray into this elusive world.

I made a lot of attempts to build up the background on this cartoon, but every time I found myself swinging back to the basics. The white void, if you will. About the only thing I gave in on was to give them some shadow. But even that is pretty minimal. Beyond that, though, this cartoon had a lot of fun challenges. The main one for me, was around making sure that Marcy, our rebel doll, could look rebellious while still also looking like she was just a modified version of the other dolls. Am I overthinking it? Oh, you have no idea.

Was it was worth it? Oh, I have no idea.