Is This Something? Part 2: a Suggestion

A plea for help.

Jason Chatfield, as pro a cartoonist as there is, co-hosts (with his Aussie buddy Scott Dooley) a podcast called Is There Something in This? The repartée is sometimes a bit fast for an old codger like me, but there is always a laugh out loud moment or three. Fantastic. I highly recommend it.

They also take requests. Well, not requests exactly, but suggestions for something that might make a good joke.

I think everything starts out as words. I mean like, In The Beginning was the Word right? AI is going to prove it.

I’m not completely sure about this. I have had a few moments of ‘art thinking’ in my life, a let your fingers do the walking sort of thing where you come up with something materially, no reason, just because you did. Papier maché might very well have been invented this way. I’ll post pictures one day.

But in cartooning, a gag usually starts out for me as words. Example, Jason and Scott periodically revisit “three babies in a bar”. There’s GOT TO be something funny in that!

Here is my suggestion. It’s probably too complicated an idea to be something, or maybe just too obscure. On the other hand, “art”, “art openings,” art galleries” and “artists” are all popular cartoon tropes. Here’s how it started:

Explanation: my friend Al, also an artist, has a thing about is + and - signs. In paintings mostly. In his mind, it’s roughly about economics. Al is searching for the “missing link” in art, talking about things in terms of social and value exchange, which is actually, almost completely forbidden in art. Al and I talk weekly and lately I’ve been a bit testy (as old farts can be) so I think I did this drawing to sort of poke fun at him.

Then, I got to thinking, is there something in this?

There’s something funny about it, but what is it? A parody of art generallly, minimalism in particular, or maybe positivism?

Or is it about alignment, loyalty, leanings ? Optimists and pessimists? Is the floor half empty or the ceiling half full?

Taking the + ceiling bit out of alignment with the - space in the floor, is this just about how people mill about?

Looking at things for the sake of looking at them is kinda funny when you think about it.

Jason? Scott?