"Grandeur & Beauty"

Sometimes I can empathize with Fine Artists who take themselves and their work Very Seriously: all artists, if not all normal people in general, to some degree share the basic, common desire for legitimacy and validation of their creative expression. Then again, there's something special that sets the cartoonists off from the rest of the pack - a healthy slightly warped sense of humility and mischievous disregard for the insufferable egos of the artsy-fartsy elite.

sketchbook doodle

Maybe it comes from never being taken seriously, and/or after long enough time in the proverbial trenches you kinda stop caring, and just concentrate on creating. That, in my experience, also inadvertently tends to really annoy the hell out of critics. Like a lot of incidental idiots in life (especially the internal), if you can't ignore it, just point & laugh.

penciled panel