Everyone You Know... (Part 1)

So, this semester, my first assignment to deal with, in Drawing, was "Death". For those of you who don't know my work for my classes, I tend to use my stand-up as reference to generally make tongue-in-cheek pieces mocking the general world of fine arts. I'm of the opinion that so many art students have their head of their asses that everyone ends up taking themselves -and the subjects of their assignments- far too seriously. So, when this year I was faced with the idea that I would have to tackle Sex, Love, Death and God as the subjects for Drawing, I was less than pleased with the prospect of the cliched work that would be brought out of the most commonly used (albeit incredibly general and broad) themes in art. So I set forth the goal to shit all over every single topic I came across.

So here I am, finally finished with "Death". The project idea stemmed from the idea of telling a toddler that they would die eventually. Some moment that would destroy a child's sense of joy. I came up with the idea to create a children's book, one which would break horrible "truths" to children. So I went about writing down just awful things to tell a child. I'm pretty happy with the turnout, and I'm just back from the printing place, so I have the physical copy, but I figured since some people won't really get to see that, I'd post the images from it, here. There are a lot so I'll have to do it in two posts or more.

This is the first time I've posted any of my real schoolwork because it's really the only fully digital assignment I've done. I hope you enjoy it. Bear in mind the images are very large, and you will have to zoom out on them a ways.

(Everyone You Know...)
For Nick and Adrienne Sweetman who always told the right lies. I still half-believe that Canola is nuclear.


That day Leo’s parents were out. Uncle Francis came to look after him.
“Where did Mommy and Daddy go?”
“To visit your grandma and grandpa.”
“Why couldn’t I come, too?”
“Cause your grandparents are sick, Leo.”
“Are they gonna die, Uncle Francis?”
With that, Uncle Francis told Leo truths about life, and it all stemmed from that one, tiny question...


“Yes, everyone you know will die, eventually...”


“...but it’s okay, because everyone you know is probably an asshole.”
(In this image, the arrow pointing up is meant to point at me reading the story to an audience)


“And grandma and grandpa? Them too?”
“Oh yeah, them too, but they’ll go senile and forget who you are before that happens.”


“You know, you’re lucky to be born here. In some countries, you’d be forced to do manual labor in factories to make toys for kids in rich countries...”


“...On the other hand you will be forced into years of near-pointless education, which will culminate in very expensive, near-pointless education.”