Soviet Matryoshkas

Even if you have yet to visit Russia, you've likely seen images of contemporary matryoshka dolls. The latter range from folk aesthetics to representations of political leaders and even athletes (ugh! indeed).  Considered a traditional Russian souvenir, the dolls actually originated in the late 19th century inspired by their Japanese counterparts. Evidently, this was a Silver-Age version of kawaii.

So it seemed natural to use matryoshkas as icons for a website on Russian art in that very period that I created many moons ago and recently came across in my old files. These were a Red-Army soldier, peasant, worker, and...kolobok, a fairy-tale character, posing as a proud sailor from Aurora. All girls! Except for kolobok--whose delicious, carb-filled, baked goodness is beyond classification.

Great, now I'm hungry. 

Sumo Wrestlers and Keynesian Economics

A few weeks ago, Tokyo's new English-language magazine, M2, asked me to create a number of editorial illustrations. So I did. I mean, how could anyone say "no" to the chance of drawing fat sumo wrestlers? Though before you accuse me of being a typical 外人 who thinks that Japanese culture is all about sushi, sumo, and inappropriate tentacles, I must explain.

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The wrestler represents Japan's new Keynesian-inspired economic plan dubbed "Abenomics" by the media--after the country's current PM, a large portion of which comprises a government stimulus.  Naturally, this token image seemed like an instantly accessible visual analogy to the usage of "pork" to refer to similar bailouts in the English-speaking world. At least that's how I justified my gross insensitivity to myself! But my cute, little, and colorful wrestling fatty jumping on a price chart and experiencing a gradient-mesh overdose was, evidently, too "mainstream". So I had to kill him off and replace him by a fatter, meaner, old-school, pen-and-ink sumo man, gorging on some yen-in-a-bowl takeout and simultaneously CRUSHING OLD JAPANESE PEOPLE. After all, increasing the money supply will erode their savings, some predict, and that's a lot more real than a cute line graph.