Stick figure drawings are the far bound of my ability to represent reality through pictures. Still, I love them - and somehow, a wobbly frame, an oval with two dots and a line within it, or a squiggle or a black blob, if particularly expressive, perhaps a jagged attempt at a hand allow for as much in terms of humor, acid critique, and maybe even insight than more vivid and fleshy mediums. Case in point: "DNE" from the oddly-named but quite good XKCD - the strip title an in-joke, I'm sure, and one that I haven't bothered to get as yet.
Dave Eggers' Smarter Feller strip in SF Weekly was my first recognition of the enormous potential of stick figures to speak fluently to the modern condition -- with a certain long-lost episode about Smarter Feller's disdain for Journey adorning my freshman dorm room door, the only marker on an otherwise barren cork-board. Since then, I have brandished my weapon of choice, a black Sharpie, in many boring lectures, tiresome meetings, and as a bleary-eyed morning recourse against the foul demon alcohol. I am proud to say that my three-inch-by- three-inch classics "How Did I Become Such a Monster?" and "Why Are My Dreams So Sad" hang on the walls of a famous contemporary art museum, or if they don't, they should. Needless to say, said pieces are not about me, but rather, about the human condition. That is the vista that the stick figure looks out upon, with his two pen-prick eyes.
Not that true genius does not use the stick figure, as well. Visit Toothpaste For Dinner, voted by someone as the best comic on the web. Also, check out Michel Gondry's prep work for Dave Chappelle's Block Party, bottom. Any more questions?
Dave Eggers' Smarter Feller strip in SF Weekly was my first recognition of the enormous potential of stick figures to speak fluently to the modern condition -- with a certain long-lost episode about Smarter Feller's disdain for Journey adorning my freshman dorm room door, the only marker on an otherwise barren cork-board. Since then, I have brandished my weapon of choice, a black Sharpie, in many boring lectures, tiresome meetings, and as a bleary-eyed morning recourse against the foul demon alcohol. I am proud to say that my three-inch-by- three-inch classics "How Did I Become Such a Monster?" and "Why Are My Dreams So Sad" hang on the walls of a famous contemporary art museum, or if they don't, they should. Needless to say, said pieces are not about me, but rather, about the human condition. That is the vista that the stick figure looks out upon, with his two pen-prick eyes.
Not that true genius does not use the stick figure, as well. Visit Toothpaste For Dinner, voted by someone as the best comic on the web. Also, check out Michel Gondry's prep work for Dave Chappelle's Block Party, bottom. Any more questions?
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