#97: Ocean sounds
Hello swimmers,
Gosh, what a week. Of course, I feel like right now I could say that about any week and the sentiment would still be blindingly true. And, given I’m writing this on a Sunday, I guess you would say I’m betting on this being the truth.
This week we see a crab seeking new sounds, and an unexpected dinosaur revelation.
Splitting hairs,
Chris
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Caption: “Yeah, the shell was nice enough, but I just got sick of having the ocean in my ears all the time.”
Ocean sounds are great, until they aren’t.
Because, would you want the sounds following you around? Would you want it as part of your home? Is that how you would want to live your shell?
Sometimes you’ve just got to get out.
A little artist’s note: I’ve sat on this one for a while, always hoping that someone would buy it. It’s probably a little obscure, but it’s one of my favourite rejects. There’s obvious prior knowledge required here. Because, you’ve got to know that hermit crabs like to move on to new shells, and also that people often claim that when you put a shell up to your ear you can hear the ocean. This cartoon combines those two ‘truths’ in an easy to follow package.
Visually, it’s simple but it gets the message across, and I’m okay with that.
Caption: “We knew about their size, we didn’t know about their mullets.”
What if dinosaurs had mullets?
The bigger question is: do you know that they didn’t? Scientists don’t know. And, unless anyone has a time machine, it would be difficult to prove that dinosaurs didn’t, in fact, have long, flowing, glorious hair.
Believe in the dino mullet.
A little artist’s note: I don’t know why, but I’ve always been obsessed with this idea of dinosaurs and hair. Because, yes, I know they’re giant reptiles and reptiles today don’t tend to have hair. I acknowledge that. But, without hard evidence, that seems more like a working theory than a fact. In the same way that we just assume that dinosaurs are the colours we think they are, but they could actually be pink and yellow fluorescent.
Visually, this one was actually a whole lot of work. Because, there’s the scientists and their time machine, which is a bit TARDIS-ish, then there’s the landscape, and then there’s the dinosaurs with their glorious mullets, and it all has to fit comfortably into a single panel. So, you know, overall, this has worked out pretty nicely.
Also, this isn’t my first cartoon about dinosaurs and hair. That prize goes to this very well-liked cartoon from 2023:
Older style, of course, but a sure continuation of my dino-hair obsession. Glad you could join me for it.
Thanks for reading The Mid-Week Squiggle.
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