Saturday, April 4, 2009

World Wrestling













(You: Is there a way to make this image larger? It is kind of blurry.
Me: Click on it.)

Bizarro is made possible by a grant from The Flying Fat Man Foundation.

The common perception of Atlas holding up the earth is inaccurate–according to Greek myth, Atlas was made to bear the weight of the heavens, not Earth as punishment for wrecking Zeus's car. The heavens were commonly illustrated as a celestial sphere, which is commonly misconstrued as the earth. Yes, this will be on the test.

Still, cartoons are based on common knowledge and cliches, so in drawing a cartoon about Atlas holding up the earth, you're faced with how to draw what Atlas is standing on. Here, I chose to make it a nebulous region of space. The whole concept of the Earth needing to be held up so it doesn't fall is flawed, of course. This first occurred to me when I was a child–where would the Earth fall to? And what would Atlas be standing on?

From an early age I was always trying to make sense of myths and religion (one man's myth is another man's religion and vice versa). As a kid in Catholic school I often asked questions like George Carlin's famous example: If God can do anything, can he make a rock so big that even He can't lift it?

Associating two costumed characters of legendary strength, here I have a luchador holding up the earth for Atlas while he runs and errand. In Greek myth, it was Heracles (Hercules) who took a shift. I like the absurdity of lucha libre costumes and use luchadores in my fine art fairly frequently, too.

Below is a cartoon I did back in the day that addresses the issue of Atlas's position under the Earth. It's one of my favorites from my early career. You may notice that the coloring is much different and a bit primitive. It was done before cartoonists were doing their own coloring on computer, so we had to designate on tracing paper where what colors went, then send them to a company to create film for the color separations. I always just crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. This one didn't turn out too badly, but it looks much different than it would today.

All these years later, I still think this is a pretty good gag. As usual, click the image for a clearer view. Of course, this image presents its own logic difficulties: What keeps Atlas's skirt from falling down? (up)

15 comments:

Nashe^ said...

It's 3AM in Singapore and I'm LOL-ing. Thanks. Hahahahahahahhaha.

Anonymous said...

"What keeps Atlas' skirt from falling down (up)?"

Modesty, sir, modesty!

grinnock said...

Inertia. Gotta be.

Waldo said...

I love Singapore... lived in the Woodlands district awhile back before the economy moved us back to the states. But wouldn't be LOL-lah-ing?

The older strip with the South Pole explorers is great...

Unknown said...

I say it's subjective gravity, kind like dust. Atlas it holding up the earth, thus his gravity is "up" to the human "dust" on the planet. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!!

Elena said...

It's odd how you chose a luchador instead of some politician...I think that would have been more acurate...

have you seen the film Nacho Libre?
great strip as usual!
Hugs!

Karl said...

Since no one here (as far as I can tell with the new moderation filter in place) has asked the question yet, let me take the bait and ask why there are no symbols in the cartoon.

I mentioned in a previous post that I couldn't see a reason for them, now I look for them every day. I miss the symobollies :-(

Anonymous said...

Dude I love this old Atlas one...I wish I could see it recolored. Too bad you can't rerun it.

-Monkeyboy

Anonymous said...

Oh..and it's static cling (gravity of a sort) that's keeping is skirt from moving...ha ha

_monkeyboy

Anonymous said...

I found it funny, I'm guessing there is only one comment because of the blog moderation. It all goes back to the one ruins it for all I guess.

Piraro said...

@ Karl...
I didn't start doing the symbols until the mid 90s. That cartoon is from '91.

doug nicodemus said...

hahaha and haha

i like static cling

way to go
bizarro
dan is
the man

Karl said...

Dan,

I meant the cartoon at the top that's dated 03-29-09. It that a reproduction of an earlier cartoon? I didn't see any symbols in that one. Should have made my question clearer, sorry.

Piraro said...

@ Karl...
Duh. I totally missed that, sorry. Sometimes when a drawing is really spare, I don't add symbols because I don't want them to be distracting to readers who have never noticed them before. If I throw in symbols that aren't somewhat lost in the details of the drawing, I get lots of emails from people who think they are part of the joke and can't figure out how they fit in, etc. So on simple drawings, I leave them out.

Karl said...

Thanks Dan,

At first I was thinking it was some kind of a coincidence that your 1991 and 2009 toons didn't have symbols when drawing the about same subject.

I understand, not adding them makes sense, and I've learned a couple of things today, That you didn't start adding symbols until the mid 90's and you only use them in more detailed drawings.

Oh and while I'm thinking about it, Atlas's wife (he was married wasn't he?) probably used a lot of starch in their laundry in earlier times, which, along with static cling could help explain the stiff skirt in the 1991 cartoon