I had originally titled this "York and Chapel" because this is from a series of four quick smartphone shots that I took near that intersection while on a business trip in New Haven in February of 2018. Just prior to posting, however, I googled that title and found that there is a nebulous e-company of the same name, and they dominate the search results. Wanting to avoid muddying the waters with this confusion, I decided to rename the comic.
I could invent justification for how each image fits the formula of the strip: the image of the electrical lines evokes anxiety, the strange block and pulley jutting from the front of that building evokes a sense of dehumanizing quantification, etc., but that would be disingenuous.
The truth is that I had just come out of the Yale University Art Gallery, having immersed myself in several hundred years' worth of Western Civ's finest efforts, and my brain was buzzing. I looked up and saw that looming concrete figure and immediately knew that it was a comic frame. And snapped it. And as we walked down York toward our car, I saw one image after another that was edifying. So this comic is about being turned on...and nothing else, really.
The working title, before I settled on the street names, had been "Lookup", because that was what I was prompted to do on leaving the gallery. New Haven is a contrast between lofty ideals and base humanity - class division is a significant issue there, and looking down forces one to confront the shortcomings of our society. Looking up wasn't so much a call to ignore those problems as it was to look optimistically toward solutions. (Of course, the simple fact that I get to spend several hours in the gallery, and then step out onto the street and feel optimistic, and then spend several hours making a cartoon about feeling optimistic, and then onanistically go on about it it in this note, is itself a nauseating display of class privilege.)
Nevertheless, "Lookup" felt short as a title, for some reason, and I wanted to emphasize that this was something that occurred at that intersection, as if this experience was a significant event in my life (speaking of onanism).
Not sure of the real etymology, but thinking about the 'sect' in 'intersect' made me realize that it was a literal digestion of my afternoon in the Gallery: each period, each style, each school represented therein was itself a sect of humanity, and our expression of culture was a vibrant crossing of these groups, each a heretical camp within the overall cause. Occurring, of course, at a literal street intersection.
So, that's why I went with this title.
So happy with the orange tinge that bled into the first two frames. GIMP artifacting at work.
I had originally titled this "York and Chapel" because this is from a series of four quick smartphone shots that I took near that intersection while on a business trip in New Haven in February of 2018. Just prior to posting, however, I googled that title and found that there is a nebulous e-company of the same name, and they dominate the search results. Wanting to avoid muddying the waters with this confusion, I decided to rename the comic.
ReplyDeleteI could invent justification for how each image fits the formula of the strip: the image of the electrical lines evokes anxiety, the strange block and pulley jutting from the front of that building evokes a sense of dehumanizing quantification, etc., but that would be disingenuous.
The truth is that I had just come out of the Yale University Art Gallery, having immersed myself in several hundred years' worth of Western Civ's finest efforts, and my brain was buzzing. I looked up and saw that looming concrete figure and immediately knew that it was a comic frame. And snapped it. And as we walked down York toward our car, I saw one image after another that was edifying. So this comic is about being turned on...and nothing else, really.
The working title, before I settled on the street names, had been "Lookup", because that was what I was prompted to do on leaving the gallery. New Haven is a contrast between lofty ideals and base humanity - class division is a significant issue there, and looking down forces one to confront the shortcomings of our society. Looking up wasn't so much a call to ignore those problems as it was to look optimistically toward solutions. (Of course, the simple fact that I get to spend several hours in the gallery, and then step out onto the street and feel optimistic, and then spend several hours making a cartoon about feeling optimistic, and then onanistically go on about it it in this note, is itself a nauseating display of class privilege.)
Nevertheless, "Lookup" felt short as a title, for some reason, and I wanted to emphasize that this was something that occurred at that intersection, as if this experience was a significant event in my life (speaking of onanism).
Not sure of the real etymology, but thinking about the 'sect' in 'intersect' made me realize that it was a literal digestion of my afternoon in the Gallery: each period, each style, each school represented therein was itself a sect of humanity, and our expression of culture was a vibrant crossing of these groups, each a heretical camp within the overall cause. Occurring, of course, at a literal street intersection.
So, that's why I went with this title.
So happy with the orange tinge that bled into the first two frames. GIMP artifacting at work.