Recently published on The New York Times's web site, Snow Dope by Dean Haspiel — a celebration of the consolations of urban solitude, snow and drunkenness. Read the rest of the short strip here. The spirit of Jack Kerouac lives — sad, mad and transcendent. Kerouac knew that the ghost of Walt Whitman walks with every lonely drunk down every lonely street and along the side of every lonely highway in America, and you can feel his presence in Haspiel's panels.
A cartoon-moderny greeting from the Disney studio — the classic characters don't look quite right in the style, but we overlook that in the spirit of the season.
Some holiday cheer from Roy Doty . . .
Arf!
Do not open until 25 December!
Hello, Santa . . .
[By Al Moore for Esquire, 1950]
“Aranjas” (“Oranges”) by Julio Romero de Torres. In winter, a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of oranges, which seemed to be associated in de Torres's imagination with women, for reasons that are not always obvious. See this image, for example.
In honor of Hawaii, birthplace of our 44th President. Remember, 44 is eight the hard way.
By Vargas.
After the prom-night tragedy, Joey was never quite the same.
Not that it worked out all that great for Johnny and 'cuda, either.
[Images by Zina Saunders via Boing Boing.]
There's no business like the show business . . .
[Image by Al Moore for Esquire, 1950.]
Once it seemed that love would never die, but . . .
Golden girls and boys all must,
Like chimney sweepers, come to dust.
Yet another image by Laurie Lipton from her Day Of the Dead series, inspired by Mexican folk iconography associated with the holiday and more specifically by the calaveras in the prints of Posada . . . but given an eerie, unsettling precision and naturalism. I like the way the lovers' bed is a bare mattress, as though its sheets have rotted away, dissolved in time, like the lovers' flesh.
But . . . what if they aren't masks?
[Image by Laurie Lipton from her amazing Day Of the Dead series.]
You left her standing at the altar, all those years ago — tomorrow night she will be back for her revenge . . .
[Once again, the image is by the stupendously creepy Travis Louie, via Femme Femme Femme.]
The spirits are gathering . . .
[Image by the stupendously creepy Travis Louie, via Femme Femme Femme.]
