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Monday 17 May 2010

Caption competition No. 42. My Cartoon.



Here is this week's macabre effort. Nine points! And two people gave me their top marks, putting me into fifth place. This is really buoying up my self confidence and the people concerned have earned themselves permanent golden places in my heart.

Shall I let you into a little secret? It's only mildly shocking really, I suppose, but I didn't really enjoy drawing this cartoon. I worried about this one for ages before commiting it to ink. The pencils had a female victim being just that, a victim and I found that personally disturbing. Is it right to make light of events that still shock today? So, I decided that this particular lass was going to fight back with the option of flipping Jack over on to his back, hence the foot in Jack's gut - his forward momentum should have him sailing far over her head.

I also tried to direct the viewer's eye to the cigarette and away from the potential murder, hence the position of the knife and finger. It was my attempt to dissipate the inherrent horror. I worry far too much, don't I?

So, why did I draw it then? When I saw the caption my initial thoughts ran to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, naturally. Surely everybody has the Romantic poets as a default thought mechanism, don't they? No? Ah.
Here is the pencil rough to sort of nail the idea. Okay, it wasn't really going anywhere, but the germ of an idea was there. Then I made the fatal error of discussing my intended cartoon with a work-mate. He pointed out that, to date, most of my cartoons were quite dark in tone. And like down from a dandelion, I went fluttering down that dark place and drew Jack the Ripper.
Sometimes I frighten myself.

7 comments:

  1. yeah, yeah, yeeaahhh, you warped individual! very dark and morbid erm, humour. keepy uppy with a brain lol. rest my case...my idea for look, i'm sorry was having a president with his finger on the red button, and a cleaner or the likes coming in the office. problem is, i can't draw...

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  2. You can justify it as loudly as you want, but we all know you're just a sick individual.

    Anyway, isn't it interesting that your antagonist is known solely by his Christian name? Have you ever read "Gotham by Gaslight"? It's a re-imagining (I hate that term) of Batman investigating Jack the Ripper turning up in Gotham City in 1889. Mike Mignola artwork, just to keep a sort of cartoon/art theme going.

    Just wondered.

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  3. Er, okay . . . how about Burne Hogarth's "Fred Flintstone v Alien"?

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  4. . . .and what happened to No. 41?

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  5. You do mean the unexpurgated version, of course, don't you? (Yabba Dabba Ourrrgh! - Rriip! Splatter!)
    I didn't have time to enter No.41, I was at the Cartoon Museum, luxuriating in Searliania. I did do some preparatory pencils, though, and guess what? Darkness abounds. The caption was "Next!". I immediately thought of auditions. Failing auditions. Failing auditions on a uni-cycle. On a uni-cycle juggling chain-saws. And failing. I'll scan it in so you may see exactly how worryingly sick I am.

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  6. Any time I hear "Next!" I think of seeing Alex Harvey doing the Jacques Brel song.

    Okay, I'm even more sad than you. Next . . .

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