Dangerous Subjects

For Nietzsche, the idea that we are Cartesian subjects, or the creators of our own thoughts—or, likewise, the creators of our own drawings—is "simply a formulation of our grammatical custom that adds a doer to every deed"...

Being a big fan of both Nietzsche and Freud, I found myself drawing them recently when I suddenly became paralyzed with what seemed to be the awesome responsibility of giving them a cartoon worthy of their stature. Having not been making cartoons for very long, I don't know if this is a problem generally felt in the cartooning world, but this was certainly new to me. I have experienced anxiety in teaching Nietzsche and Freud, and in quoting Nietzsche and Freud (especially in my new book), but I have never before had any problem including Nietzsche and Freud in jokes of any kind.

Nietzsche would have made a great guardian angel, or so I like to imagine...

Something about Nietzsche and Freud together, about putting them in this specific juxtaposition, left me feeling overwhelmed. As such I tried creating not one cartoon out of my drawing, but two. You can judge the results for yourself, but this anxiety over this drawing of two of the Fathers of Angst is likely not going anywhere anytime soon.

If anyone would have deconstructed their own portraits, it would have been these two...

Perhaps it's even a manifestation of my concern that I'm starting to enjoy drawing philosophers more than I enjoy quoting them in papers...