Do you have summer plans? Road trips are fun, but it helps if you have a road and a car, unlike those two above. Cartoonists often use tropes, such as the desert island image. Here are a few more that I have done over the years. I am not a huge fan of these kind of visual devices, but sometimes they can work. And they are good to play around with if you are stuck with no ideas (which unfortunately happens too often).
It’s funny because it assumes an assumption that turns out to be something else entirely, but also a juxtaposition of two things that are disparate from each other; physical tree leaves and ethereal cloud... but each is real .. and now I’m explaining why the humor works making it the most unfunny funny of all the funnies... which ironically, makes it funny! 😁😁😁
Also tree leaves and aspiration. The subtext has subtexts..
So fun, your interpretation! Love it! As you describe the drawing, it becomes clear to me it is a classic twist of expectation....hadn't thought of it that way. I went into it with the visual cloud/tree top visual play. And indirectly I gave the tree a deliberate intention, as if it had a desire to do this to the man for some reason...not sure what that's about. Nature angry at us?
Nature is impartial... but I’m reading “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” and now I’m not so sure that is the case... but in my head, I heard George Costanza say “the sea was angry that day, my friends...” as I was reading your comment... I don’t know why I found THAT funny...
I once read in a newsletter here (can’t remember the author, but I’ll look it up now or go mad...) that the smell of freshly cut grass or the smell of a rosemary bush as I brush its branches is a cry of anguish and pain, that the plants can feel and speak in ways we misinterpret for our pleasure. Perhaps the leaves were producing tears ... we’ll probably never know and I truly do want to know with all my heart.
Anyway, the Orcas are fighting back and now I’m less sure about Nature’s impartial role in all this... I *really* need to quit sitting with myself on my back deck on Sunday mornings ... maybe I’ll take up gardening, something to do, less time to think... 😳😁
Nature may be impartial, but we just don't know. I love trees and sometimes give them brains. Maybe they do have brains, of a sort we have no clue! But the job of a drawing is to inspire either laughter or thought or emotion or all three.....
Liz, I haven’t had any ‘Summer plans’ since I became disabled. As a matter of fact, my entire 29+ year career in law enforcement, and firefighting, I maybe actually took 3 vacations. That’s all. The rest of the time I was working.
I love that tree cartoon because the joke is in the very essence of the cartoon itself: how the reader interprets the shapes in the drawing. The artist is deliberately vague in communicating, the opposite of what the artist would normally do. It’s like a magic trick in pen and ink. Super fun!
Thank you! I myself enjoy seeing vague drawings, where the artist allows the viewet to interpret as they want. Saul Steinberg was a huge influence for me in that way.
Oh wow that’s so interesting you say that about Saul S. I absolutely love his work. When I was 14 I took art classes with a neighbor who was an artist and taught us kids in her house after school. She gave me a book of Steinberg’s art as a gift when she saw I kept borrowing her own copy of it. 😀
Well, I think that poor schmuck would get rained on regardless of where he is. There’s some humor in that!
hahahaha!
One man’s shade is another man’s shower
Love it.
Whatever the meaning, I laughed out loud🤗
That makes me so happy!
Sometimes we try to read too much into things. I find this one to be wonderful silliness.
Thank you, that's in fact what I thought as well. But I love the various interpretations.
It's a morality tale: take nothing for granted, especially nature. But I love the other interpretations as well.
I love that and so agree. Take nothing for granted. These are all good.
It’s funny because it assumes an assumption that turns out to be something else entirely, but also a juxtaposition of two things that are disparate from each other; physical tree leaves and ethereal cloud... but each is real .. and now I’m explaining why the humor works making it the most unfunny funny of all the funnies... which ironically, makes it funny! 😁😁😁
Also tree leaves and aspiration. The subtext has subtexts..
So fun, your interpretation! Love it! As you describe the drawing, it becomes clear to me it is a classic twist of expectation....hadn't thought of it that way. I went into it with the visual cloud/tree top visual play. And indirectly I gave the tree a deliberate intention, as if it had a desire to do this to the man for some reason...not sure what that's about. Nature angry at us?
Nature is impartial... but I’m reading “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” and now I’m not so sure that is the case... but in my head, I heard George Costanza say “the sea was angry that day, my friends...” as I was reading your comment... I don’t know why I found THAT funny...
I once read in a newsletter here (can’t remember the author, but I’ll look it up now or go mad...) that the smell of freshly cut grass or the smell of a rosemary bush as I brush its branches is a cry of anguish and pain, that the plants can feel and speak in ways we misinterpret for our pleasure. Perhaps the leaves were producing tears ... we’ll probably never know and I truly do want to know with all my heart.
Anyway, the Orcas are fighting back and now I’m less sure about Nature’s impartial role in all this... I *really* need to quit sitting with myself on my back deck on Sunday mornings ... maybe I’ll take up gardening, something to do, less time to think... 😳😁
Nature may be impartial, but we just don't know. I love trees and sometimes give them brains. Maybe they do have brains, of a sort we have no clue! But the job of a drawing is to inspire either laughter or thought or emotion or all three.....
What looks like a nice shady tree can really be just another rain cloud...
Yes!
Liz, I haven’t had any ‘Summer plans’ since I became disabled. As a matter of fact, my entire 29+ year career in law enforcement, and firefighting, I maybe actually took 3 vacations. That’s all. The rest of the time I was working.
Wait too long, and eventually it will rain on you.
I love that tree cartoon because the joke is in the very essence of the cartoon itself: how the reader interprets the shapes in the drawing. The artist is deliberately vague in communicating, the opposite of what the artist would normally do. It’s like a magic trick in pen and ink. Super fun!
Thank you! I myself enjoy seeing vague drawings, where the artist allows the viewet to interpret as they want. Saul Steinberg was a huge influence for me in that way.
Oh wow that’s so interesting you say that about Saul S. I absolutely love his work. When I was 14 I took art classes with a neighbor who was an artist and taught us kids in her house after school. She gave me a book of Steinberg’s art as a gift when she saw I kept borrowing her own copy of it. 😀
His work was a game changer for many of us. But The New Yorker doesn't really print work like that anymore.
Ha, well, for better or worse I just discovered that Midjourney knows who he is. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1003795758232903880/1120351428179927110/philipshane_a_cartoon_in_the_style_of_Saul_Steinberg_dcf745ef-95b7-4518-93df-ad97bfb9fa2f.png
I asked it to create “a cartoon in the style of Saul Steinberg”
I was just about to ask what Midjourney is. I get it. I think it's way off, dont you?
Masterful drawing of treetop that turns out to be a raincloud. 🤔 Your work continues to inspire me. Thank you.
Thank you, Pamela!!