"Science: Set Yourself Apart From The Pack"

This was my remote contribution to the March For Science. Not to inject a thin veneer of politicization here with this, but in my own small way it's lighting a cartoon candle against the coming return of the dark ages in regards to science. The loud + mindless background baying of the superstitious and ignorant, versus the disciplined, contemplative pursuit of knowledge + fascination of discovery.

Gutting the EPA, censoring research, appointing climate change denialists to administration positions while abandoning other key agencies, astonishingly stupid policy reversals, ignoring experts like overruling scientists to approve pesticides linked to birth defects, etc. etc.

This piece was featured as another classroom demonstration in materials + technique. It also doubled as an example of what one can do with with a sustained, focused period of time in achieving a range of textures and experimenting with varying line weights so as to subtly emphasize foreground/midground/background layers and push depth in the picture plane. Oh yeah, and a meta-lesson in getting shit done, since more than a few folks commented on it afterward: you just did that? Yes, and so can you, or at least would do if you just did more of the ass in the chair thing. usually that's "all" it takes, and is the bare minimum that defines relative success at creating anything.

Afterwards turned it around for another demo for a different class (a lot of the time pieces get rolled over into another level for a different group of students) and cranked out a wash version on the original pen + ink. It's always a bonus to be able to put hand-in-glove with a series of panels for interrelated show & tells: I find it facilitates a faster connecting-of-dots for a meta-lesson in process.

PS: I was recently playing some Rush in the background, and one of my favorite songs came up, and this lyric stuck out since I was looking at this particular panel. "The Pass" is some powerful stuff.

The line "All of us get lost in the darkness/Dreamers learn to steer by the stars/All of us do time in the gutter/Dreamers turn to look at the cars" alludes to Oscar Wilde's "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" from his play Lady Windermere's Fan. - Wickipedia