Bane of My Existence - Because stereotypes are real time-savers.
June 19, 2007 8:06 PM   Subscribe

Bane of My Existence is a very observant and well done record of idiocy for future historians by illustrator Rod Filbrandt. You of course, are nothing like these drawings. The rest of his blog is pretty good to poke around too. (via Drawn)
posted by Stan Chin (48 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
That's a book right there, if I've ever seen one.
posted by empath at 8:26 PM on June 19, 2007


Wow. What DOESN'T this guy hate? What a jackass.
posted by jonson at 8:37 PM on June 19, 2007 [1 favorite]


Wow. What DOESN'T this guy hate?

No idea, but I can't wait to see more of what he does.
posted by IronLizard at 8:40 PM on June 19, 2007


oh no.... he...got...me... *expires*

Funny stuff!
posted by maryh at 8:52 PM on June 19, 2007


Misanthroporiffic!
posted by bunglin jones at 8:53 PM on June 19, 2007 [3 favorites]


bane of my existence: angry chuch palahniuk wannabee mysanthropes wearing their misogyny/gender-identity-crisis on their sleeve. think they're a real hater but only exist by defining themselves by who they are not.

uh wait...
posted by geos at 8:53 PM on June 19, 2007 [4 favorites]


Nope. Not one of them.

Not like one of them at'all.
posted by Samizdata at 8:57 PM on June 19, 2007


Brilliant.
posted by meh at 8:59 PM on June 19, 2007


Wow. What DOESN'T this guy hate? What a jackass.

Heh, I love these. Maybe it's just me projecting, but speaking as a hyper-critical asshole who's fully aware of his own many shortcomings, I'd be surprised if Filbrandt was unwilling or unable to turn his glare back onto himself.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:12 PM on June 19, 2007


And then you turn thirty and this stuff becomes totally irrelevant...in that the Bane of My Existence wears a Brooks Brother's suit, carries around a folder full of "requirements", wants you to participate in "team building activities," but does not invite you to poker night.

I'll take Filbrandt's list of denizens any day.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:26 PM on June 19, 2007 [1 favorite]


I like this.
posted by interrobang at 9:28 PM on June 19, 2007


interrobang, you have to do jonson now.
posted by carsonb at 9:42 PM on June 19, 2007


Dry Shave was fucking awesome!

One of the best Canadian weekly cartoons of the 90s.

I'll guarantee that Filbrandt hates himself as much as he hates most of these individuals.

Raunchy!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:46 PM on June 19, 2007


But I like jonson.
posted by interrobang at 10:03 PM on June 19, 2007


Don't we all, interrobang, don't we all.
posted by maryh at 10:08 PM on June 19, 2007


I estimate that 80% of the current population of San Francisco fits into one of these stereotypes. Good reason not to live there. But nice work, Filbrandt deserves an award of some kind. (I vote we give him a key to the city--of San Francisco.)
posted by metasonix at 10:30 PM on June 19, 2007


I just read his post about Elvis Costello (and others) selling out, and it has the best line about Shane MacGowan:

All I know is that I'd hate to think that Shane MacGowan drives a Cadillac. Then again, I'd hate to think that he drives anything.
posted by stefanie at 10:53 PM on June 19, 2007 [1 favorite]


(Peter Bagge - insight) * suck.com = Filbrandt
posted by fleetmouse at 11:04 PM on June 19, 2007


fleetmouse beat me to it, but this reminds me heaps of Terry Colon & Polly Esther's work back in the suck.com days.

(sorry, cannot link. suck is workblocked for some unknowable reason)
posted by UbuRoivas at 11:32 PM on June 19, 2007


Re li'l sausage boy, I wish people would stop saying 'awesome'. I really, really, really wish *adults* would stop saying a word that a nine year old would be embarrassed to use.
posted by stavrogin at 11:33 PM on June 19, 2007


Uh oh. I know a couple of these people.

But Filbrandt certainly seems to have a testicle fixation, doesn't he?
posted by jokeefe at 11:51 PM on June 19, 2007


But I like jonson.

He said DO him, not draw him.
posted by IronLizard at 12:05 AM on June 20, 2007


It's good that he can work through his anger with his art, but he does come across as a bit whiny.
posted by Poagao at 12:35 AM on June 20, 2007


aren't canadian comic book artists their own cultural stereotype?
posted by cazoo at 12:36 AM on June 20, 2007


Let's see, now. Take a cupful of Mid-Afternoon Rambler, a smidgen of Li'l Sausage Boy and a touch of Painful White Head, fold into a large mixing bowl containing equal parts nerd and pirate, glaze with goth and garnish with a pair of suspenders.

That's me, all right.
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:43 AM on June 20, 2007


This is pure genius. Cheers for the post, Stan! There is a little bit of me in a bunch of these (or is it the other way round) but it is great to see today's walking stereotypes thus analysed and exposed....
posted by The Salaryman at 3:33 AM on June 20, 2007


I like this.
posted by pracowity at 4:22 AM on June 20, 2007


Your favourite archetype sucks.
posted by Serial Killer Slumber Party at 5:01 AM on June 20, 2007


These are great. They remind me of the Telegraph's "Social Stereotypes", which have long been by far the best thing in the Telegraph.
posted by WPW at 5:01 AM on June 20, 2007


He doesn't have a nerd one.
posted by DU at 5:14 AM on June 20, 2007


Those are great illustrations, but it's killing me that they're resized in the browser. Why go to all that trouble and then have them re-rendered by the browser's resizing method? Yay, jaggies!
posted by Optimus Chyme at 6:24 AM on June 20, 2007


Filbrandt was the cartoonist in the (otherwise wretched) campus newspaper when I was going to the University of British Columbia in the early eighties. I remember thinking to myself "Turtles, that guy's going places." And so he did.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 6:33 AM on June 20, 2007


I'm going to continue to love this right up to the point where he draws a cruel unfeeling caricature of me.
posted by Wolfdog at 6:38 AM on June 20, 2007


I got a chuckle, even the new, I love everybody me, got a chuckle.
posted by OmieWise at 6:41 AM on June 20, 2007


The bit about Elvis Costello selling out is quite good.
posted by OmieWise at 6:46 AM on June 20, 2007


I remember thinking to myself "Turtles, that guy's going places."

I like that you formally address yourself by your MeFi user name when thinking to yourself. You have such awesome drama.
posted by grubi at 6:56 AM on June 20, 2007


Reminds me somehow of exactitudes.
posted by marble at 7:03 AM on June 20, 2007


Nothin' quite as tasty as good snark.

...and yes, he's channeling suck and that can't be bad.

(ubu, suck is workblocked because of the name... Welcome to corporate logic 101.)
posted by djrock3k at 7:28 AM on June 20, 2007


"Ooh ooh! Do me, do me next!"
posted by Bugg at 7:43 AM on June 20, 2007


I wonder what type the artist is?
posted by jeffamaphone at 8:38 AM on June 20, 2007


I wonder what type the artist is?

The type who rescales their jpgs via html to produce hideous compression artifacts over the entire image making it an acute exercise in tedium to digest the smarmy bullshit he's so eloquently scribbled next to his infantile renderings. Unskilled and unaware, etc...
posted by prostyle at 10:32 AM on June 20, 2007


Chrissakes, it says "click image to enlarge", you morans!

This guy's style looks familiar- does he do the "Uptight Seattleite" drawings in the Seattle Weekly? He has it mentioned in his blog's main page, and it appears he's from the PacNW (Vancouver's mentioned, and the Hep C caricature explicitly mentions Seattle's crap-tastic Belltown neighborhood).

Personally, I loved these: it really captures the pathos of wanna-be individuals who are painfully easy to caricature.
posted by hincandenza at 11:40 AM on June 20, 2007


Chrissakes, it says "click image to enlarge", you morans!

And? If you are a web designer who thinks people want to click thru an image to see a whopping 25% larger version you are an idiot. If you are a cartoonist who promotes your work mainly through the visual medium and you don't understand this concept you are a fool, especially in the context of someone who makes it their business to look so far down their goddamn nose at everyone else - something about glass houses...

Thanks for the Fark trope though, always enlightening.
posted by prostyle at 12:39 PM on June 20, 2007


Or, he could just be just an illustrator (that probably does good business through old-fashioned channels, where editors and art directors could give a fuck less about the web), who just uses the ease of typepad to upload his random projects every once in awhile for our benefit.
posted by Stan Chin at 1:03 PM on June 20, 2007


I liked them, but I don't understand why all the hipster haters live in places like Seattle and New York and San Francisco. If the hipsters bother you so bad then just move back to the lame small town that you were too cool for growing up. Or hell, just come on down to South Carolina. No hipsters here. Just people that you will hate even more because they are just as cliched as the hipsters but with less intelligence and money. Come to think of it, stay up there.
posted by ND¢ at 1:45 PM on June 20, 2007


Oh and what the guy who said that this is all irrelevant once you become 30 said, except the part about a Brooks Brothers suit, as I have mine on today.
posted by ND¢ at 1:46 PM on June 20, 2007


Geez prostyle, you sure get all your panties in a bunch from having to click on an image. No comedy should be taken too seriously, or else you start over analyzing. We all make fun of people, then we laugh, and then we move on.
posted by vodkadin at 4:16 PM on June 20, 2007


The hipster stereotypes were fun enough, but I was particularly impressed to see the cartoonist broaden his sights have a go at a couple of stereotypes that are common where I live, but fall outside the cliched hipsters-you-love-to-hate. I'm talking of the smug mummy, and the lycra power walker.

I love the way he nails the power walker, in particular, because I've been hating on that breed of idiot for a while now, but nobody seems to get why I find it so laughable that these women deck themselves out in all that gear (exactly as in the cartoon) just to go for a vaguely brisk walk.
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:21 PM on June 20, 2007


« Older How does one mend a ripped bodice, anyway?   |   Google's panels are online Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments