Cupid, upload your bow

With apologies to Sam Cooke. This piece for the LA Times was actually finished up a couple weeks ago, but it just ran in the Sunday LA Affairs section yesterday. It's for an essay describing the relationship a man had with a woman he met through Twitter. They exchanged various communiques via social networks online, and grew fairly close. However, after they met in person and went on a few dates, the relationship soon fizzled out.

I've heard hundreds of anecdotes about people meeting online, and falling in love, but I thought this essay was really interesting in that it gave an example of when love over the internet doesn't work out. I thought of this concept of a digital cupid sheepishly picking up his cursor/arrows that failed to hit their mark. I also had another sketch that I think would have worked well:

A bouquet of wilted thumbs-up flowers, showing that a relationship based solely on "likes" and whatnot will eventually fade and wither. Thank you to Wes, my AD on this!

My friend Jake, who I went to art school with and now resides in L.A.,  sent me a pic of my piece in the Sunday paper. Thanks, Buddy!

Lost in translation

This piece ran in last Sunday's L.A. Times. It was for the L.A. Affairs section, for a story that recounts the author's recent experience in that dark, dangerous, jungle we call the dating scene. She explains that after buying a beer for a guy she spotted across the bar, and after trying in vain to converse over the noise, asked if he wanted to step outside to chat (where the conversation might actually be audible). He (wrongly) interpreted that to mean: "Let's go back to your place, stud."

I wanted to show how her words went in one ear, and after going through all that machinery we humans have in our heads, is rearranged into something completely different. Read the essay here.

And in a first ever Draw Your Weapon Outtake, here's a thumbnail sketch that, while well received, was a little PG-13 for the section, and didn't make the cut.

She's only thinking about opening up another beer, he's thinking about opening her pants. I think it would have been hilarious. Oh well, the AD and I both really liked how the final turned out.
Thank you to the wonderful Wes Bausmith for this very fun piece!