Questionable Content led me to referring to this trope as “Steve Eats Cereal”: a daily serialized strip that cuts to a trivial moment with an unconnected character or group of characters after the previous strip ends on a dramatic cliffhanger.
Depends upon whether this the General Education Requirement Studio Drawing 101 (never) or the art-major Life Drawing 201 (I’m surprised she’s not already weeping).
I remember that class. I’m already super uncomfortable ’cause my classroom has a naked person in it, and then somehow my drawing ended up as some cubist monstrosity, and the professor praised me for how expressive they were, and somehow that’s so much worse than being criticized ’cause I wasn’t trying to be expressive. I was trying to be realistic, but my hands betrayed me.
OctopusGardener
I feel like that’s how some of these styles came to be, some artist was trying for realism and screwed it all up, and said ‘Fuck it, it’s a new style now.’
Uly
True story: This is how we got Where the Wild Things Are. It was supposed to be Where the Wild Horses Are, but it turns out that Maurice Sendak couldn’t draw horses, so he redid it with “things”.
Moral: If you can’t draw horses, give up.
Yumi
I was going to reply with, “He just wasn’t gay enough” in reference to this piece from the New Yorker, but then I remembered that he was, so I guess it’s just that horses suck.
BigDogLittleCat
I find that cartoon especially hilarious, because horses do seem to be difficult for a lot of webcomic artists. Comic will have wonderfully rendered people with emotion and movement spot on, and then a horse shows up and it looks like it wandered in from a different dimension.
And tack is even worse. They render vehicles and weapons so realistically you can almost read the serial number, but they construct a bridle the same way a first grader does.
So what is it with horses and cartoonists?
There’s a story with that I heard at a convention. The writer of “Pretty Deadly” (a magical western comic) gave the first script to her artist, and apologized because she HAD to include some horses, the setting being the Old West, and she knew much artists hate horses. The artist sent her back a giant file of all her horse drawings, and said “I LOVE horses.” The next script had 3x more horses, and the partnership was forged.
TL,DR; Even “regular” artists supposedly hate horses. But that might be a canard, and now I have a horse/duck joke in there…
I know that a lot of the artists who helped invent impressionism had eye conditions. No joke. When Monet had his cataracts removed and could suddenly see what he’d been painting all those years, he was horrified and tried to destroy several of his paintings.
This comment made me check the professor’s previous appearance… and he gives Mary the exact same praise, word for word, in his previous appearance. I can’t tell if that means he’s throwing extremely subtle shade like Malaya suggests…
Given that the immediate next line in that comic was ‘remember people: you need to break free of your artistic habits’ I don’t think it’s particularly subtle, all told.
I’m really hoping that it turns out that they’re supposed to be drawing a still life of a bowl of fruit, and then it turns out that the teacher is just a figment of one, or better yet, both of their imaginations, and so are the other students, and it’s just Malaya and Mary sitting in an empty, darkened room scrupulously not drawing the bowl of desiccated pears right in front of them, while they have a shared delusion about being in class drawing a live model.
Honestly I completely buy Mary sitting there every day out of spite/rivalry and Malaya just not caring. Alternately, Malaya didn’t care but started off as a somewhat weak artist, given the other time we saw the professor he mentioned improvement, Mary sat next to her to feel superior, and now the informal seating arrangements are set and changing them would be an admission Mary doesn’t have control over things.
Maybe Mary picks that spot because it’s her favorite, and Malaya picks it because whatever she doesn’t care. It’s cognitively easier to sit in the same place.
Even if she has a repressed yaoi fetish, I don’t think Mary would draw Marcie that flat-chested. Also, I’m pretty sure Malaya wouldn’t draw Marcie with a gut like that.
Which means Hyde is both the teacher and the model.
Nymphie
The model on my first lifedrawing class ended up being a teacher for me in another class two years later. We both looked at each other and could recognise each other but not from where. We had bonded more than the other students because he was a swede and I spoke swedish, in an art school in denmark. It wasn’t uncommon during lifedrawing classes, especially croquis, for artists and models to talk while working.
If course I said out loud “I didn’t recognise you with clothes on!” once we understood where we recognised each other from.
202 thoughts on “Contours”
sirconanad
Hey look its the favorite character of the comment section, Mary!
sirconanad
Sometimes having the early shift is an advantage, not a curse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do_HpqILPLo
Slartibeast Button, BIA
Scene change, as predicted by some.
DrWattson
Questionable Content led me to referring to this trope as “Steve Eats Cereal”: a daily serialized strip that cuts to a trivial moment with an unconnected character or group of characters after the previous strip ends on a dramatic cliffhanger.
Schpoonman
Shouldn’t there be a reference to the cut? “Cut To Cereal” or “Cut To Steve”?
sirconanad
Doesn’t really take a lot to predict that, by now.
David
You know, I actually thought “of course” and hit the “Next” button before it dawned on me that it would not help yet.
Cyrus
Collective shit: lost.
Jess
HECK
Clif
The commenteriate’s pain it is. Though it’s always nice to see Malaya being helpful.
Needfuldoer
Flippin’ ‘eck. Now we have to go find it again.
Jhon
Where the france…
( picks up shovel )
ValdVin
When is art school going to start “beating the anime” out of Mary’s work?
Rotunda
When Mary gets her first grades, at the latest.
Dara
Depends upon whether this the General Education Requirement Studio Drawing 101 (never) or the art-major Life Drawing 201 (I’m surprised she’s not already weeping).
not someone else
Given Malaya is in it and she seems uninterested in art, I think it’s the first?
BrokenEye, the True False Prophet
I remember that class. I’m already super uncomfortable ’cause my classroom has a naked person in it, and then somehow my drawing ended up as some cubist monstrosity, and the professor praised me for how expressive they were, and somehow that’s so much worse than being criticized ’cause I wasn’t trying to be expressive. I was trying to be realistic, but my hands betrayed me.
OctopusGardener
I feel like that’s how some of these styles came to be, some artist was trying for realism and screwed it all up, and said ‘Fuck it, it’s a new style now.’
Uly
True story: This is how we got Where the Wild Things Are. It was supposed to be Where the Wild Horses Are, but it turns out that Maurice Sendak couldn’t draw horses, so he redid it with “things”.
Moral: If you can’t draw horses, give up.
Yumi
I was going to reply with, “He just wasn’t gay enough” in reference to this piece from the New Yorker, but then I remembered that he was, so I guess it’s just that horses suck.
BigDogLittleCat
I find that cartoon especially hilarious, because horses do seem to be difficult for a lot of webcomic artists. Comic will have wonderfully rendered people with emotion and movement spot on, and then a horse shows up and it looks like it wandered in from a different dimension.
And tack is even worse. They render vehicles and weapons so realistically you can almost read the serial number, but they construct a bridle the same way a first grader does.
So what is it with horses and cartoonists?
Fred
There’s a story with that I heard at a convention. The writer of “Pretty Deadly” (a magical western comic) gave the first script to her artist, and apologized because she HAD to include some horses, the setting being the Old West, and she knew much artists hate horses. The artist sent her back a giant file of all her horse drawings, and said “I LOVE horses.” The next script had 3x more horses, and the partnership was forged.
TL,DR; Even “regular” artists supposedly hate horses. But that might be a canard, and now I have a horse/duck joke in there…
DSL
Moral: If you can’t draw horses, draw things other than horses (or practice drawing horses).
BrokenEye, the True False Prophet
I know that a lot of the artists who helped invent impressionism had eye conditions. No joke. When Monet had his cataracts removed and could suddenly see what he’d been painting all those years, he was horrified and tried to destroy several of his paintings.
Needfuldoer
When the teachers stop praising her mediocrity.
SuperZero
In his two appearances, he’s said exactly the same thing to her–word-for-word–and then praised Malaya’s work more enthusiastically with specifics.
The first time, before praising Malaya, he immediately gave the room some general criticism that he thought of after looking at Mary’s work.
Jhon
Mary has evolved her own personal style.
Any resemblance to ‘anime’ is purely coincidental.
mancuso
Also, accidental. And Occidental.
Ana Chronistic
headcanon: the model is AFAB/nonbinary, so the prof is literally digging for inoffensive complements
(this is terrible, tho, my prof would do that and it didn’t help me worth shit not knowing what I was doing wrong)
Myth
This comment made me check the professor’s previous appearance… and he gives Mary the exact same praise, word for word, in his previous appearance. I can’t tell if that means he’s throwing extremely subtle shade like Malaya suggests…
foamy
Given that the immediate next line in that comic was ‘remember people: you need to break free of your artistic habits’ I don’t think it’s particularly subtle, all told.
Phil
Damn, Marcie looks really different.
Slartibeast Button, BIA
It’s the glasses, like with Clark Kent
Shane Wegner
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THAT
StClair
(ah, memories of art class. maybe I should have kept that up.)
One is actually drawing what they see.
The other’s just drawing a cartoon in a pose that matches the model’s.
foamy
Yeah. I don’t know much about art, but I know which one of those is paying attention to what’s in front of them.
Doctor_Who
The rules of comedy dictate that we must now see the model, and he must look exactly like one of these.
Plasma Mongoose
I’m envisioning a naked guy with a beer gut if Malaya’s picture is anything to go by.
BrokenEye, the True False Prophet
Malaya’s guy from the neck down. Mary’s guy from the neck up.
Lawzlo
I’m really hoping that it turns out that they’re supposed to be drawing a still life of a bowl of fruit, and then it turns out that the teacher is just a figment of one, or better yet, both of their imaginations, and so are the other students, and it’s just Malaya and Mary sitting in an empty, darkened room scrupulously not drawing the bowl of desiccated pears right in front of them, while they have a shared delusion about being in class drawing a live model.
That’s what I hope for.
ktbear
Wow Lawzio thats…dark.
BrokenEye, the True False Prophet
And then the camera pans to a naked, reclining Rod Serling
Clif
Someone’s in the zone.
StClair
“Submitted for your approval…”
Diane
DAMN YOU WILLIS!
For not only the scene change, but seriously? These guys? Uggggh…
Doctor_Who
Willis right now.
Deanatay
“Gee, ain’t I a stinker?”
AnvilPro
Alt-text is being sassy but these two have been some of my favorites honestly
foamy
There’s a few people in the comic where inflicting Malaya on them is not actually a bad thing, so Mary’s serving a noble purpose here.
He Who Abides
Now if only Carla would pop in (and then pop off), Mary would really be getting what she deserves.
Eve
Now, is masochism the reason they choose to sit next to each other, or is there a jerk section of the room and they have no choice?
Regalli
Honestly I completely buy Mary sitting there every day out of spite/rivalry and Malaya just not caring. Alternately, Malaya didn’t care but started off as a somewhat weak artist, given the other time we saw the professor he mentioned improvement, Mary sat next to her to feel superior, and now the informal seating arrangements are set and changing them would be an admission Mary doesn’t have control over things.
Marsh Maryrose
Both of them are fully capable of doing things out of spite, but I think only Mary would genuinely give a shit for real.
But there is indeed a natural instinct to sit in the previously claimed seat, subsequent considerations be damned.
Regalli
Also, Mary is only barely on Malaya’s radar (compared to, say, Sal.)
DailyBrad
Malaya probably doesn’t especially care about Mary, and I don’t figure Mary knows enough about Malaya yet to try to target her.
JBento
The black dude in the background is sitting in the same relative position as he was last time, so maybe it’s assigned sitting?
Leorale
Maybe Mary picks that spot because it’s her favorite, and Malaya picks it because whatever she doesn’t care. It’s cognitively easier to sit in the same place.
JBento
Habit, a stronger force than gravity.
timemonkey
Yes! Malaya plot returns! Suck it Mary!
He Who Abides
Not that DYW needed the Slipshine idea, buuuuuuut . . .
Regalli
… Wait, why is Marcie tagged instead of Mary?
Woomy
Hmmmm
Thursday Violist
What if Marcie is the model
Marsh Maryrose
Even if she has a repressed yaoi fetish, I don’t think Mary would draw Marcie that flat-chested. Also, I’m pretty sure Malaya wouldn’t draw Marcie with a gut like that.
Slartibeast Button, BIA
Is Marcie the model?
Marsh Maryrose
As I post this, Marcie is not tagged and Hyde is. Is Hyde the teacher, or the model? From the two posts so tagged, it could be either.
Slartibeast Button, BIA
Glitch in The Matrix.
Sunny
Which means Hyde is both the teacher and the model.
Nymphie
The model on my first lifedrawing class ended up being a teacher for me in another class two years later. We both looked at each other and could recognise each other but not from where. We had bonded more than the other students because he was a swede and I spoke swedish, in an art school in denmark. It wasn’t uncommon during lifedrawing classes, especially croquis, for artists and models to talk while working.
If course I said out loud “I didn’t recognise you with clothes on!” once we understood where we recognised each other from.
Just thought of that memory with that comment xD
Woomy