‘What you do when no one is looking defines you’.
I am not sure how and when this sentence got stuck with me. But it did. And there is always this mental image of a lone corporate person going about his usual mundane business activity but with something going on in his mind. Sure, he does his work well, but something isn’t quite right, he seems to be in another world altogether. Being one with the ‘flow’.
That’s right, the flow. The utopian zone that we all want to be in. I used to watch tons of youtube clips on craftsmen or artists working and drawing. I often get a huge high from watching them do their stuff. It’s extremely therapeutic to see someone creating or working on something that they are highly passionate about. Something that gets them into the flow.
So in the above piece, I seek to articulate that state of ‘flow’ through a corporate person who seems to have a found a way to integrate his passion for music into a seemingly mundane corporate life. There is an element of mismatch where he is like a pianist being in the wrong setting. Yet, there isn’t any conflict as he dives into it as though it didn’t matter. He could be in a war zone and still find a way to go into the flow.
The technicality involve in this piece is slightly complex. Simple as it seems, with twenty panels of largely similar set-up, the difficulty lies in the overlaying of the pianist into this corporate form. The keyboarding actions were heavily referenced from that of a pianist in a large performance. Minor details of where he places his bag, and how he adjusted the monitor as though it was his music score were very important to ensure that the readers are connecting the dots in their mind.
In some sense, I might be drawing me. I hope you can hear the music when you are reading the cartoon. I heard it when I was drawing him.
JunMing
Sam Lay 