Demo Pages: One-Pagers + Comics Poems

"The Editorial Board will review your submission"

Another installment - see previous posts here and here - in the continuing series of experimental sequential art - though an important caveat/note of distinction in that it might not necessarily be "sequential." This first one here though is just a straight-up one-pager/multipanel, with kitties.

It's a funny/not funny commentary on the current state of the internet, and also why I'm growing to hate social media more and more these day, and also why I will always love cats.

It's becoming increasingly obvious how platforms like Meta, Twitter et al are spreading the rot at the roots of the tree of liberty. Not to mention the psychological toll repeated exposure to toxicity has on our mental health. And, perversely/conversely it's no exaggeration that I would have lost my shit and/or bailed on Facebook many years ago were it not for the groups like Orange Cats Rule, Tabby Cats Forever and so on. The paradox of my feed being a calming cavalcade of kitties amidst such a cesspool of ugliness is rather symbolic of the situation. So while staying informed I keep chumming the waters in hopes of maybe adding a few seconds of levity and amusement in a horrible place aka the vast, online litterbox.

So now on to even more cheerful topics, like the wholesale destruction of the planet and everything on it. I doodled this out over a couple days of field trips to a local resource for my students to gather reference sketches for a pen + ink assignment. In-between excursions I happened across this bleak article that surreptitiously fit into the final panel in the middle of the page. Sometimes that's a part of how art happens: things just fall naturally into place, often as they fall apart. I especially like how it's a one/two sucker punch that leads the view in with cute critters & funny noises, then delivers the knockout blow.

Lastly here's a demo done on-site while visually sampling + remixing the latest 64th Parallel exhibition at the epicenter of creativity, the Fairbanks Arts Association. Special hat-tip to the juror who's statement contained some provocative and inspirational verbage.

Filbert and Round (Natural Bristle)