Archie the Apolitical Archilope (Sketch)

I haven’t been inspired to sketch much in almost a month. A lot has happened politically since I shared Biden’s Brain in a Jar — exciting stuff. At an earlier point in my life, I considered pursuing a career as a political cartoonist. The part of me that still wishes I’d taken that route was feeling obliged to write or sketch something topical and relevant, snarky, hard-hitting, or insightful.

Instead, yesterday, while staring at the blank page, I had a fleeting and indistinct vision: a long-legged something with a high-arched back. Well, hell, that’s something at least. And I ran with it.

Introducing Archie: the Apolitical Archilope

The scale of the creature was determined late in the process. Was this the size of a ferret? A cow? At my daughter’s suggestion, I made it big. I wanted to put in a human to show the scale of it. I also wanted to do something with the creature’s mouth. One simple solution.

The After-the-Fact Allegorical Archelope?

Apparently I like to draw aliens. And I do like to think about speculative evolution. Perhaps I can force an after-the-fact political allegory onto Archie as depicted in it’s natural evolutionary environment:

The Archilope symbolizes a comfortable apolitical individual who isolates themselves from societal issues. Its side-mounted eyes and indifference to the human it carries reflect a lack of depth perception, a lack of curiosity, and a disregard for the consequences of it’s behavior. “I found this thing. I might eat it.”

There you go.

The medium of this sketch is ball-point pen and colored pencils.