Two 19th Centruy woodcuts walk into a bar...  

Posted by Jonathan E Johns in , , , ,

I'd like to talk with you about Antique Lithography, and sarcastic humor.

Have you ever seen a picture like this:


and like a giggily pee monkey cracked wise about what the subjects of the image might be saying to one another?

Well, I have, and so has David Malki. Only he has visualized, and successfully created the humor, whereas I have only imagined this happening to me.

At http://wondermark.com/, David Malki has created much more than a blog, but a merchandising tour de force. All based loosely on my description above.

Without going too much into the Biography of David, which you can read here: http://wondermark.com/about/ ; He has had an impressive life up to this point, and now works his buns off to make us laugh, and provide the means for us to share our laughs with others.

From the penthouse suite at the top of the headquarters of TopatoCo, (http://topatoco.com/hey/) David oversees all daily operations of a team of thousands of highly trained operatives whose sole mission in life is to ensure that the 'humors' infecting David are expunged, and spread virally to all of us.

As it was told to me, David woke from a Slushee-induced sugar coma, trapped in the basement of the Los Angeles Central Library where he was surrounded by books depicting 19th century woodcuts and engravings. While in his stupor, the characters in the images began to speak to him, and challenge his manhood, calling him a pansy-artist and both taunting and provoking him. When he finally made it out of the Library, the haunting images became his tool for expression, and he began assembling the images in a humorous fashion, and adding funny words coming out of the images word-holes.

The result is a tour de force of funny stuff.

David, though, has his little pinkies in a few other pies, He is a partner in the crime called "Tweet Me Harder" ( http://tweetmeharder.tumblr.com/ ), and for now, he is passionately involved in this: http://wondermark.com/thanksgiving-project/ which is a honorable plan to get books and money for public libraries! (Which is why you are reading this)

I found Wondermark, and Mr. Malki through a friend of mine (Also named David. Do They have a convention?) Who pointed out to me once a cartoon which mirrored one of our own conversations. I am sure I was the snide one. But I read a few more, and was hooked.

Malki takes these 19th century images, and mixes and matches them as if they were a Colorform set, and adds conversations all to familiar to us, but with a slightly 19th century... accent? It's clever, and wonderful, and funny.

Amidst all the online Comics out there, it must be difficult to be original, and clever, but Mr. Malki has done both, establishing a strong foothold in the market. Best thing about it is, he has something funny to say, and is not a gimmick.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 2:13 PM and is filed under , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

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