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More from agouti-rex
347 – The Shrining
It took WAY too long to draw all that shrine stuff.
So, unrelated, here’s something I’ve been thinking about and I’m curious about your take on it. As you probably guessed from the fact that I draw a webcomic about child-eating monsters, I do a lot of thinking about child-eating monsters, the foremost of which is, of course, the bogeyman. And I was just thinking, have you ever noticed how often the bogeyman is depicted wearing a tophat? I’m having trouble thinking of concrete examples off the top of my head other than the Babadook, but I’m sure that wasn’t the first time. I know I’ve seen dozens of illustrations of the bogeyman over the years depicting him as a guy wearing a tophat and a long coat. Why is that? Is it because the top hat is an inherently villainous hat? We’re just so used to bad guys like Snidely Whiplash wearing top hats that it’s become an instant signifier that its wearer isn’t to be trusted?
Of course, the coat makes sense to me. Everyone knows that the bogeyman lives in your closet, right? And what’s in your closet? COATS. When you’re lying in bed staring at your open closet door, it’s not hard to imagine that there’s more than just an empty coat in the closet and it’s actually being worn by the bogeyman. But where does the hat come from? I wonder if it’s a holdover from Victorian times when you might be expected to have a few tophats stored on the top shelf of your closet, so illustrators of the era might have incorporated that into their bogeyman depictions and it just stuck? It might be something similar to how magicians are always drawn in formal eveningwear, because that’s what magicians would wear during stage performances in the old days (because that was the style at the time and how EVERYONE dressed) but for some reason the public style moved on while formal eveningwear became cemented in the popular imagination as THE THING THAT MAGICIANS WORE JUST CUZ.
I’m sure I’m overthinking this now. It’s probably just because it makes for a coolly distinctive silhouette when you’re drawing something that lurks in shadows and whose features are, by definition, kind of ill defined. In any case, I gotta do some tophat research to see if my theory holds up.
https://www.guttersnipecomic.com
It took WAY too long to draw all that shrine stuff.
So, unrelated, here’s something I’ve been thinking about and I’m curious about your take on it. As you probably guessed from the fact that I draw a webcomic about child-eating monsters, I do a lot of thinking about child-eating monsters, the foremost of which is, of course, the bogeyman. And I was just thinking, have you ever noticed how often the bogeyman is depicted wearing a tophat? I’m having trouble thinking of concrete examples off the top of my head other than the Babadook, but I’m sure that wasn’t the first time. I know I’ve seen dozens of illustrations of the bogeyman over the years depicting him as a guy wearing a tophat and a long coat. Why is that? Is it because the top hat is an inherently villainous hat? We’re just so used to bad guys like Snidely Whiplash wearing top hats that it’s become an instant signifier that its wearer isn’t to be trusted?
Of course, the coat makes sense to me. Everyone knows that the bogeyman lives in your closet, right? And what’s in your closet? COATS. When you’re lying in bed staring at your open closet door, it’s not hard to imagine that there’s more than just an empty coat in the closet and it’s actually being worn by the bogeyman. But where does the hat come from? I wonder if it’s a holdover from Victorian times when you might be expected to have a few tophats stored on the top shelf of your closet, so illustrators of the era might have incorporated that into their bogeyman depictions and it just stuck? It might be something similar to how magicians are always drawn in formal eveningwear, because that’s what magicians would wear during stage performances in the old days (because that was the style at the time and how EVERYONE dressed) but for some reason the public style moved on while formal eveningwear became cemented in the popular imagination as THE THING THAT MAGICIANS WORE JUST CUZ.
I’m sure I’m overthinking this now. It’s probably just because it makes for a coolly distinctive silhouette when you’re drawing something that lurks in shadows and whose features are, by definition, kind of ill defined. In any case, I gotta do some tophat research to see if my theory holds up.
https://www.guttersnipecomic.com
Category All / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 830 x 1280px
File Size 310.9 kB
I wonder how much all that shrine stuff would go for on the streets in 1910?
And yeah, the boogyman clothing deconstruction is about right. Top hats were worn because you were a mature man and of class or not, you'd get your hands on a hat- either because it was proper, or because it looked great, or because you didn't want to be conspicuous in it's absence. What are kids scared of the dark with? Misshapen shadows. Having a top hat on it means you don't have to worry about drawing the same head-shape all the time. Like with window-frame shadows. No matter where the kid rolls, he's still going to be scared of the same coatrack.
And yeah, the boogyman clothing deconstruction is about right. Top hats were worn because you were a mature man and of class or not, you'd get your hands on a hat- either because it was proper, or because it looked great, or because you didn't want to be conspicuous in it's absence. What are kids scared of the dark with? Misshapen shadows. Having a top hat on it means you don't have to worry about drawing the same head-shape all the time. Like with window-frame shadows. No matter where the kid rolls, he's still going to be scared of the same coatrack.
Why are top hats and coattails symbols of evil?
Bankers.
Especially that fucking Monopoly guy. Why anyone thinks that game is fun... DC Comics actually has a character who was a washout from the Legion of Super-Heroes named Spaceopoly Lad, whose actual superpower is that he's only person in the galaxy who can finish a game of what is Space Monopoly.
Bankers.
Especially that fucking Monopoly guy. Why anyone thinks that game is fun... DC Comics actually has a character who was a washout from the Legion of Super-Heroes named Spaceopoly Lad, whose actual superpower is that he's only person in the galaxy who can finish a game of what is Space Monopoly.
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