smacky and bucky

(Updating just because I'm tired of seeing blurry cellphone pics of Star Wars candy...)

Gil Thorp is a daily comic strip that has been running in newspapers since the invention of the printing press and explores the thrilling world of high school sports. The subplots off the playing fields are what make the strip readable (and freaking insane). The current storyline concerns a baseball player getting deported because his father came to America illegally. I don't think that's exactly how the system works, but since 9/11, who knows? Maybe we deport entire families and sort it out later??

I'm describing this simply because I want to highlight a single panel of the strip, from yesterday specifically. The art is usually just okay, nothing special, but yesterday... someone created art:

See it? Just a sec, let's take a closer look...

Holy crap, what beautiful use of black and white. And the caption! Elmer is a high school student, not the king of Zimbabwe. Flies into exile???

Seriously, the artwork rivals one of my favorite b&w comic artists Adrian Tomine.

This single comic strip panel has made my day. I'm thinking of making this my avatar in a few places:

Labels: art, Gil Throp