This time every week I browse through thirty years of cartoons to find a few that apply to whatever story my mind is putting together. This week, quite by accident, I stumbled upon a common theme that is repeated year after year.
I draw a lot of “I don’t care” cartoons.
It isn’t that I don’t care; at least I don’t think so. Aren’t I just making fun of the foibles of military life and the apathy we have all seen in a few malcontents? Doesn’t every command have at least one person who takes the slacker way out?
But maybe it is me. Maybe there is a hidden part of my subconscious that wants me to avoid all work, to let other people do my job. Maybe that part is trying to get out.
Maybe all those years in uniform changed me into a selfish and detached sloth who couldn’t care less about those poor souls in my charge. Did that happen?
This is an almost impossible question to answer so I won’t even try. What I DO know, though, is that a very dear friend of mine once told me something that I think really applies to this situation. To the question of whether I draw those kind of cartoons because I am mocking others, or because I am creating a self-parody, I say I don’t know.
And I don’t care.
