These are uncertain times, and I often wonder what the future will be like.
This time last year, I was mostly worried about climate change. That concern hasn’t gone away, of course. Climate change is just as great a danger now as it was back then. But today it’s been joined by anxiety about the pandemic. With so many people on the planet, and global travel routine, our species is primed to suffer widespread pandemics in the decades to come.
What kind of world will our descendants live in? How will they adapt?
The story of Bedtime Story 2350.
I first drew Bedtime Story 2350 in 2017, long before COVID-19 hit the scene. Originally, the characters weren’t wearing masks, and the bubble-texts were also different. The cartoon was about the Anthropocene, and what life might be like if we wreck our planet and have to move to the moon.
In this “brave new world,” air and water are precious commodities that must be tracked and conserved. The child in the cartoon, presumably born on the moon, has no idea what it was like for his ancestors, on Earth, who took air and water for granted.
Tweaking my Art.
It’s easy for me to “tweak” my folk art after-the-fact. I make a high-resolution copy of the original (I have a large format printer) and doctor the picture from there. (I do not use computer software to adjust the images; all the changes are crafted by hand.) Then I import the revised image into PowerPoint, and add new bubbles, with new text, over the old text. I enjoy the process of “evolving” my work over time, allowing me to make update the themes to make social commentaries relevant to current events.
If you like my work, I invite you to check out my other cartoon galleries, and to leave me comments.
Cartoons from the Anthropocene
Duppies and Uppies (relationships and psychology)
Enjoy!