The Professional Webspace of Designer and Illustrator Kevin Cornell:
"Design, Art, and Lackluster Humor."
Secondary Guessing
The other day I was enjoying John Martz's Excelsior 1968, a brilliant reincarnation of his mother's secondary school yearbook in comic form. Browsing through, I thought it might be fun to try and backward engineer a couple of these folks, the results of which you can see above.
While drawing these up, I found myself attaching quite a lot of story to each student. Remember that horrible student-submitted play the school put on in 1968? Peter Taylor wrote that. And Brenda Henhoeffer? Dropped out right before graduation because her 23-year old biker boyfriend got her pregnant. Marilyn Dietrich went on to a fine private high school, graduated magna cum laude from college, then moved to the big city to spend several hip years strung out on heroin, making paintings that incorporated her period blood. Luckily, she was eventually saved by Pastor Larry Williston's traveling outreach program, Junkies For Jesus. Dave Williamson was the model of determination, perseverance, and just plain stick-to-it-iveness, delivering some of the most outstanding bullying the school has ever seen. His exemplary performance was almost single-handedly responsible for Roger and Walter Strauss becoming lifelong recluses, too focused on filling their house with large musty stacks of newspaper to bother disposing of their mother's corpse when she died abed in 1972.
Comments on this Article
There are currently 10 comments.
2. phyllis
As always, awesome work, Kevin!! I love Dudley Do-Right (aka Dave Williamson)! He only lacks a mounties uniform and horse who's smarter than him and viola!! Seriously, though, what this world needs more of is stick-to-it-iveness - you could start your own line of motivational books: Kevin Cornell, Purveyor of Stick-to-it-iveness! Sure-fire win, that!
4. phyllis
Maybe there's a space missing there - "she died a bed ..."? Of course, that generates follow-up questions in my mind, chiefly, how does one become a bed and why would one undertake such a transformation, since it clearly has less than desirable side-effects? I, personally, do not think I would react well to the box-springs transplant; I'm allergic to steel and insulation.
5. bearskinrug
8. Glindon Marten
These are great. Roger Strauss looks just like a young Connor Oberst.
9. Glindon Marten
These are great. Roger Strauss looks just like a young Connor Oberst.
10. bearskinrug
They have a lot of other similarities... for instance, listening to either one too long can make you very, very sad.
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1. Tudorminator
Great work! And an unexpected use of reverse engineering in a non-engineering field :). I have one drawn by a friend, would you venture reverse engineering on that? I would be really curious how close to the real thing you get.
And of course, you get to see my picture, but only afterwards :).