For The In(ter)dependence of Ideologies
This is an irregularly produced etching depicting a cowboy wearing none but chaps and a noose riding a bear with a star on it's forehead, captured at the cowboy's point of climax. The etching is irregular first because it is crude and seemingly unfinished, and second because the technique used is unconventional - canvas board was gessoed and sanded and then covered in India ink, then pulled away with an exacto or safety pin or needle. What I think is precarious and likeable about this little etching is that without the rope round Marlboro Man's neck, the piece is propaganda (Caps over Commies and cum in your eye forever! Big Choice takes No Choice for a joyride); with the noose, which isn't all that obviously a noose but I drew the thing so I know it's a noose and I'm telling you so you'll know it's a noose, it's critical commentary and an ode to backhanded cooperation (Now Cappy's got good reason to keep riding, and now he's busted his nut not because he's a simple high-energy domineer, but cause he's all that and also he's into being left w/o a choice, which bodes well for any fatalist. He's balls-deep in a bronco-bear bustin loop of a relationship and it feels good!). Cap's fate lies in his rodeo skills - just how burly is he? How good is his grip on that mangy old fur, now that the fur's been greased by a few decades of private industry negligence because someone forgot to hire back the guy who shampoos the bear after perestroika? If this were an illustrative comic I'd have stuck an Obama in the back with a bow ready to pierce the rope, but it's not a comic, it's a bestial romance, a marriage without choice; a never-ending battle where Caps are always cowboys and Commies are always bears, and there's no compromise. This means I'll never have to submit it to the economist, and I feel good about that, because it leaves open the potential for further realizing the sketch (though perhaps the economist would appreciate it as is, seeing as to how as a comic it gives credit to the ball-busting antics of Buddy Bush and Jetman McCain, and even though some of them pretend not to those black-bitten pushovers in Britton love American Gall! Whipcrack!)
