Sketch 2

These first six remake pages are from the "Animals" handbook. I chose many from this book since it is a subject I care deeply about. The alteration I did for this page, was to change the picture but keep the quotation. I really loved this quotation, I think it's a very wise thing to be aware of; how we appear in the eyes of animals. The first picture was a cute picture of two monkeys embracing, looking kind of scared. I replaced it with this picture of a monkey who is caged and subject to medical testing. This image seems to contextualize the quotation into a modern day paradigm; the older "cute" picture seemed to symbolize a 'before human involvement' shot of nature, while this heartbreaking new picture seems to be an 'after human involvement' shot.

These next two pages share a quotation so I'll discuss them together. Once again I chose to keep the quote and change the pictures to something more contemporary. I chose to include more pictures from animal testing instead of factory farms, although I did include one picture from a slaughterhouse for balance on the issue of Animal rights. Even though these pictures are shocking and very disturbing, I believe that we need to be aware of the consequences of our greed. The quotation is very appropriate to the updated pictures since it deals with the idea of animal slavery, and the needless suffering they endure simply because we deem them less of a being than ourselves.

These pages also share a quotation, but in this instance, the quote is the altered not the pictures. In the Spectacular Times, these two pages had no print at all but I found this quote and thought it quite fitting with the imagery. The original pictures display dead chickens, presumably at a slaughterhouse, hanging upside down in a gruesome fashion. The quote discusses the animal's ability to feel as much pain as we do, without the ability to reason with it. Humans can endure terrible pain if they are focused and strong, the mind can block out the worst of the pain, or can handle it by simply keeping faith in the fact that it will not last forever. Animals cannot do this. For them it is a seemingly never ending tortured existence.

For this page, I added a picture and kept a part of the text. I thought that these two ideas would work well together, despite having different separate meanings. On its own, the cartoon is a darkly satirical take on animal testing, showing the humans caged and tortured with the animals in charge. The text is a simple statement building on the definition of a revolution. When placed with this image I think it highlights the animals' position as the oppressed, with humans as the oppressor.

This page is taken from the "Cities of Illusion" handbook of the Spectacular Times. This particular page focused on the relationship between weapons and authority. The cartoon here is original. The texts I added were two quotes from famous celebrities concerning their own pro-gun views. I chose this because I thought the connection between political authority and celebrity influence would be interesting to explore. These days celebrities have an unheard of amount of power to influence our society, and when the powers of politics and celebrity are mixed (as in the unfortunate Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger), the results can be quite disastrous.

This is actually the same page as the last one, but this time I chose to alter the picture, not the text. The distinct political content of the cartoon comments on the intense debate on gun control in the States, while the text is a quotation from a fictional work. Neither directly relate together, but when presented like this, they take on a different connotation. Now this page seems to suggest that the reason the supreme court "shot down" the gun ban in D.C. was to protect themselves so that the government may then "protect" the people.

This page was taken from the "Media" handbook. The bottom text is original, but the picture and its caption were added by me. I chose this picture to accompany that text because it addresses the constant need we have to be plugged into the electronic/televisual society in order to establish your own personal normalcy. Most people (especially young people) are constantly shoved up against the media, whether online or through TV ads. This enduring contact with the Spectacle forces these people to check themselves again the ideals of our media; always worrying that they do not fit in with the established norm.

This final page is also from the "Media" handbook. For this page, I chose to alter the caption and keep the original picture. The caption I chose is a quote from The Simpson's, which regularly pokes fun at our utter dependence on TV. This contemporizes this picture, making it reference our partiality towards the false reality of television, instead of friends or healthy hobbies. The picture of the man walking with only his TV, in search for some outlet in a post-apocalyptic world, now connotes that he chose to save his TV firstly, since it is all he has left, instead of anything living.

The style of my pages was kept simple and formulaic to try and mirror the aesthetic of the original handbooks I worked from.