perspective-3
Original: perspective-3 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Child: Dad, how come in old paintings the perspective is really badly drawn?
Panel 2:
Dad: Perspective didn't exist back then. Sometimes there'd be a whole castle right behind you. Other times you'd sit at a table and the tabletop would face away from you.
Panel 3:
Dad: That's also why the portraits were so badly drawn. Try holding a brush in a world without three consistent dimensions.
Panel 4:
Dad: Later Italian architects invented perspective in order to make it easier to draw buildings. That's why things suddenly look a lot nicer around the 16th century.
Panel 5:
Child: Are you sure?
Dad: How else do you explain that it took 10,000 years of civilization to invent Cartesian coordinates?
Panel 6:
Child: I figured people are just kinda stupid.
Dad: How facile.
Votey:
The dad, drawn in a wild, scribbly, badly-proportioned style, leans/lunges with a furious expression.
Dad: Stupid boy!
Child: Dad, how come in old paintings the perspective is really badly drawn?
Panel 2:
Dad: Perspective didn't exist back then. Sometimes there'd be a whole castle right behind you. Other times you'd sit at a table and the tabletop would face away from you.
Panel 3:
Dad: That's also why the portraits were so badly drawn. Try holding a brush in a world without three consistent dimensions.
Panel 4:
Dad: Later Italian architects invented perspective in order to make it easier to draw buildings. That's why things suddenly look a lot nicer around the 16th century.
Panel 5:
Child: Are you sure?
Dad: How else do you explain that it took 10,000 years of civilization to invent Cartesian coordinates?
Panel 6:
Child: I figured people are just kinda stupid.
Dad: How facile.
Votey:
The dad, drawn in a wild, scribbly, badly-proportioned style, leans/lunges with a furious expression.
Dad: Stupid boy!
Alt text
A six-panel comic. A young child asks their dad why the perspective in old paintings is so badly drawn. The dad, holding a coffee mug, gives an elaborate deadpan explanation: that perspective literally didn't exist back then, so sometimes a whole castle would be right behind you, or a tabletop would face away from you. He says that's also why portraits were badly drawn, and that later Italian architects invented perspective to make buildings easier to draw, which is why art suddenly looks nicer around the 16th century. The child asks 'Are you sure?' and the dad doubles down: how else do you explain that it took 10,000 years of civilization to invent Cartesian coordinates? In the last panel the child says 'I figured people are just kinda stupid,' and the dad dismissively replies 'How facile.' Votey: the dad is redrawn in a deliberately crude, distorted, perspective-less scribble style, lunging with an angry face and shouting 'Stupid boy!' — visually embodying the bad old art he was describing.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.