Sorry, Cupid

Sorry, Cupid. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on February 15, 2007.

The idea for this Valentine’s Day-themed cartoon came from a great Nokia ad* done in 2002 by Bates Advertising Singapore.  I tweaked the basic concept — instead of the cellphone as the culprit, we had the crazy college workload to blame for foiling the cherub’s plans.

The student in the cartoon wears Penngineering sweatpants, a nod to the fact that my Engineering friends were some of the most stressed people that I knew. While I wasn’t an Engineering major, my schedule was also hectic at that time because I was busy looking for a summer internship. A freshman friend actually asked me if I was especially stressed that week. “This is your second cartoon in a row that features OCR,” she pointed out. And she was right.

This is a scan of the original drawing prior to publication. More about my stint at the DP here.

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* Nokia went on to make cutesy ads (OK, I actually liked that one, too) about how its products could be a tool to facilitate, rather than hinder romance… Still, I think that the concept of communication technology as a barrier to real communication rings even more true today. (Who hasn’t observed couples at restaurants engrossed in their smartphones as opposed to one another?)

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