Terms & Conditions WILL Apply

November 3, 2015 3:04 AM

Robert Sikoryak is turning the iTunes terms and conditions text into a beautiful graphic novel, a document full of mind-bending legalese that everyone agrees to without comprehension. A new page appears each day, in which our intrepid hero Steve Jobs dramatically imparts the otherwise soul-destroying passages in various scenes, rendered in the style of different cartoonists.

Some notable pages so far: Hergé, Allie Brosh, Cathy Guisewite, Charles M. Schulz, Jim Davis, Scott Adams, Bill Watterson, R. Crumb.

posted by NordyneDefenceDynamics (25 comments total)

This is so, so good. Thanks!
posted by chavenet at 3:06 AM on November 3, 2015

I love the Allie Brosh one.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:27 AM on November 3, 2015 [6 favorites]

The fact that there is a Goseki Kojima page warms my heart.

This guy has lost his mind, though.
posted by selfnoise at 3:50 AM on November 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

In chronological order.
posted by ardgedee at 3:59 AM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

I thought he did a good job on the Kate Beaton one.
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:47 AM on November 3, 2015 [4 favorites]

Apple should use these for the real iTunes agreement, but that would defeat the goal of making sure nobody ever reads it.
posted by double block and bleed at 4:59 AM on November 3, 2015 [5 favorites]

R. Sikoryak previously: Franz Kafka meets Charlie Brown
posted by a car full of lions at 5:18 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

These are brilliantly and attentively done. Seems like the project has been ongoing for a while - I'm surprised by the low number of notes (likes and reblogs) on the Tumblr posts. Good post, this deserves more attention!
posted by oulipian at 5:37 AM on November 3, 2015

It's absolutely unreadable. More's the pity; I love the illustrations
posted by trif at 6:02 AM on November 3, 2015

Oh, I would PAY to see his Oglaf page. (nsfw)
posted by SPUTNIK at 6:15 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oooh, this is neat, thanks! I love the surrealism and of course the Tintin. I think the specific reference for that is perfect, too; in the original, they're outside the tomb of the pharaoh Kih Oskh and Tintin figures out how to get inside (by pressing a panel that matches one of my tattoos) and then inside it's weird and creepy and pretty surreal because it's an ancient tomb but also (SPOILER ALERT) headquarters for a gang of opium smugglers. He also finds the bodies of a party of explorers mummified and in open sarcophagi (as you may note in the last panel of this version) and eventually he and Snowy find empty sarcophagi labelled with their names.

I think this selection is great because the feeling of this moment in the original fits in with the surreality of Tintin just spouting this total nonsense to which we are expected to adhere AND I think the shock that comes from finding these dead men and then realizing it's even worse because this fate will befall you too actually kind of captures a surprising amount of the existential dread you feel when you are bound by "agreements" you can't negotiate and can't understand in a way that makes this selection especially brilliant. I mean, or maybe I'm just biased because I love Tintin.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 6:36 AM on November 3, 2015 [4 favorites]

I want to see Tula Lotay but he doesn't do color.
posted by fiercekitten at 7:23 AM on November 3, 2015

I thought he did a good job on the Kate Beaton one.

TOO MUCH PUNCTUATION
posted by the_blizz at 7:30 AM on November 3, 2015

1) The Watterson one was actually funny!

2) I'm so impressed by his ability to pastiche other artists. I recognized the Seth one right away.

3) I hope he does Lynda Barry, and Chris Ware!
posted by spacewaitress at 7:37 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

It would be cool if he did different lettering styles, but maybe that would be just too much.
posted by spacewaitress at 7:45 AM on November 3, 2015

THIS IS SO MUCH MORE READABLE.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:47 AM on November 3, 2015

I don't know if it's deliberate or just a by-product of most of the styles that he's using here, but Steve Jobs looks so much more vital than he did in his final years. And, sorry to contradict double block and bleed, but there's nothing here that particularly compels the reader to actually read the text; Sikoryak is obviously an accomplished mimic, but the action doesn't particularly reflect on whatever piece of legalese boilerplate that's filling up the word balloon, and aside from the obvious iconography of Jobs, with occasional apples and iMacs and other gadgets used as props, nothing that connects the pictures with the text. (See, for example, this one; it's a decent riff on Watchmen, but is there any particular meaning behind having two Steve Jobs (Jobses? Steves Job?) in the scene, or his repairing a broken iPhone, and any connection with the text, which is about establishing an iTunes account? Or did he just pick a page out of Watchmen at random, redraw Dr. Manhattan as Jobs and the beaker of science stuff as an iPhone, put in the next chunk-o-EULA, and move on? (I mean, if you're going to compare any of the principals in the book to Jobs, wouldn't you go with Adrian Veidt?))

tl;dr--overanalytical comics nerd overanalyzes, is left wanting.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:45 AM on November 3, 2015 [4 favorites]

I am unreasonably excited to see Rob Liefeld Steve Jobs.
posted by Rock Steady at 9:49 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm mildly surprised Apple isn't going after him for unauthorized copying of their content. (The T&C text) But just seeing the first two pages as Little Lulu and AstroBoy has made my day. The comics nerd in me is going nuts.
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:16 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

The Mignola and the Kirby ones were pretty great, too.

I want a Jim Woodring and maybe a Bernie Wrightson.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 10:33 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

He's a great mimic, yes, but it's also interesting to notice his limitations. They're clearest in his Bill Watterson and Craig Thompson pieces: Watterson uses a brush and a nib, and Thompson uses some kind of brush; the marks they make with these tools is essential to their styles.
posted by the_blizz at 11:14 AM on November 3, 2015

Bless you, ardgegee.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:06 PM on November 3, 2015

Beatnik Snoopy makes incredible sense, now that I think about it.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 12:25 PM on November 3, 2015

One of the (few, of course) art masterpieces of our time.
posted by oluckyman at 1:54 PM on November 3, 2015

I want to see a Basil Wolverton.
posted by hydrophonic at 2:22 PM on November 3, 2015