Saturday, March 14, 2009
Un- Rest - Rant
Normally I don't plan to write much here outside of the strips, but seeing as this is the first entry I figured just this one time I'd make an exception to give a small introduction of where this nonsense all came from. If you're not interested in all of this 'blah blah blah' I don't blame you. If I was reading this, I'd probably skip it too, so feel free to. Check out the comics and for those of you that find a bit of back story to be necessary here it is:
One cold night, I was walking down Flatbush Avenue and really feeling the cold that evening when I looked up to be struck by a sign. Of course it wasn't a sign like hand-of-god type of thing, but an actual physical sign, the light up neon one advertising Junior's Restaurant, to be specific.
So I drew a picture of it. It just seemed so goddamn specific to my mood. It seemed as though the landscape was trying to communicate with me. The above image was the one I drew right after the event in December 2006 and beneath is the same thought still stuck in my head at the beginning of 2009.
I didn't know what to make of it at the time, but it reminded me of a joke that goes a little something like this:
A Priest is hanging around in his church when the radio announces that a flood is coming. Well, it isn't long before some of his parishioners drop by (the Priest is an old guy) to make sure he's safe. They try to get him to leave with them and head to higher ground, but he sends them off saying that he's served God his entire life and he's certain that God will then be there to protect him in his hour of need. So the parishioners give up and some time passes. The water rises and the Priest is standing on some of the pews to keep from getting wet when a group of firemen break in shouting that the Priest has got to come with them. Still he refuses saying that God is going to protect him in his hour of need. Maybe you know where this is going, or maybe you've heard this before, but an hour later, there he is, this Priest is clinging to the steeple and the water has completely covered the church. A rescue helicopter comes by and tries to throw him a ladder down but he's made up his mind that this is the test that God has created for him. Of course he drowns. He's walking around in heaven a few minutes later when he comes face to face with God. He says, "God what's up with that man, I was you 're loyal servant and stuff, why didn't you help?" God smiles and says, "You idiot, I sent, those parishioners, the firemen and the helicopter."
Okay, so it's a bit overused and a little bit trite and I'm also an agnostic, but still it made me think of something, that perhaps there is significant messages planted in the landscape all around us, yet we ignore them because they're too difficult to recognize. Hell, most of the time we don't try to. So I started a comic-strip, a meager attempt to document those things that go on between here and there, not to claim to understand them, but to paw at them or at least give these moments recognition. The strip appeared weekly in the New York Press throughout 2007 under the title, 'Missed Connections' (The reasoning for this, perhaps I'll get into another time). Then, at the beginning of 2008, it was cut. Now it wanders the internet nomadically, diluted and lost amidst the crowds, like Waldo, maybe, or just another Missed Connection. Un-Rest-Rant.
One cold night, I was walking down Flatbush Avenue and really feeling the cold that evening when I looked up to be struck by a sign. Of course it wasn't a sign like hand-of-god type of thing, but an actual physical sign, the light up neon one advertising Junior's Restaurant, to be specific.
I didn't know what to make of it at the time, but it reminded me of a joke that goes a little something like this:A Priest is hanging around in his church when the radio announces that a flood is coming. Well, it isn't long before some of his parishioners drop by (the Priest is an old guy) to make sure he's safe. They try to get him to leave with them and head to higher ground, but he sends them off saying that he's served God his entire life and he's certain that God will then be there to protect him in his hour of need. So the parishioners give up and some time passes. The water rises and the Priest is standing on some of the pews to keep from getting wet when a group of firemen break in shouting that the Priest has got to come with them. Still he refuses saying that God is going to protect him in his hour of need. Maybe you know where this is going, or maybe you've heard this before, but an hour later, there he is, this Priest is clinging to the steeple and the water has completely covered the church. A rescue helicopter comes by and tries to throw him a ladder down but he's made up his mind that this is the test that God has created for him. Of course he drowns. He's walking around in heaven a few minutes later when he comes face to face with God. He says, "God what's up with that man, I was you 're loyal servant and stuff, why didn't you help?" God smiles and says, "You idiot, I sent, those parishioners, the firemen and the helicopter."
Okay, so it's a bit overused and a little bit trite and I'm also an agnostic, but still it made me think of something, that perhaps there is significant messages planted in the landscape all around us, yet we ignore them because they're too difficult to recognize. Hell, most of the time we don't try to. So I started a comic-strip, a meager attempt to document those things that go on between here and there, not to claim to understand them, but to paw at them or at least give these moments recognition. The strip appeared weekly in the New York Press throughout 2007 under the title, 'Missed Connections' (The reasoning for this, perhaps I'll get into another time). Then, at the beginning of 2008, it was cut. Now it wanders the internet nomadically, diluted and lost amidst the crowds, like Waldo, maybe, or just another Missed Connection. Un-Rest-Rant.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
.jpg)