Menthol Moose

Menthol Moose is a digital illustration combining the style and themes of my earlier Simpsons Abstracts as well as the cartoon collage structure of Merry Melody. The earliest versions of this piece trace back to 2016, with the majority of the structure completed by 2018. The drawing uses a semi-abstract structure to arrange shapes and characters from 1990s animations of The Simpsons. The approachable cartoon style and pastel color scheme is contrasted by a complex composition with dark and emotional undertones. Like much of my other figurative work, Menthol Moose explores the concept of identity formation and socialization. Specifically, this collage attempts to frame the development of moral values and familial roles in the modern suburban environment.

Menthol Moose 2018
Digital Drawing
18” x 24” (single panel print)

Built on a 5400 pixel x 7200 pixel digital canvas (at 300 dpi) Menthol Moose features a densely filled upper and lower section that effectively frames the center point of the piece. This structural composition is loosely inspired by High Renaissance frescos by artists such as Annibale Carracci and Pietro da Cortona. Carracci’s 1608 masterpiece The Loves of the Gods is a particularly important inspiration, both in its sectional “floating“ arrangement and its surreal depictions of sexuality and vice.

As with most of my large scale drawings, the development of this work was broken up over several years, slowly revised and updated with sections and segments borrowed from other new drawings and tests. The most significant revision to the work was the replacement of the drawings original centerpiece, depicting the titular mascot Menthol Moose.

The obscure Simpson’s character, a parody of the kid-friendly cigarette mascot Joe Camel, seemed a fitting representative of the confusing moral values of the 1990s. While the socially realistic, and ethically grounded storytelling of The Simpsons was commonly framed (most famously in 1992 by George H.W. Bush) as a corrupting influence on the nation’s youth, much less political or parental attention was directed toward mainstream cartoon advertisements that promoted harmful products and habits to children.

Ultimately, my choice to remove the Menthol Moose character from the center of the drawing was based on a decision to re-focus the work on the imagination and moral development of children, as opposed to the methods adults use communicate concepts and habits to children. This subtle shift, which parallels the show’s early narrative focus on Bart’s misadventures, focuses the drawing on the individual conflict between innocence and experience, and the universal struggle to conform with social norms, and the effort to define an ethical identity in adult society.

Rather than assign generational blame, this work attempts to communicate the universality of the adolescent experience, specifically, the phase of moral discovery and experimentation that defines our adult sense of self. While it’s easy to look at the early years of our life, and point to misguided moral guidance of older generations, in the context of the modern suburban experience (in which maturity is poorly defined, and rarely advertised) it may be more accurate to view both family and society as a loose hierarchy built around lifelong state of adolescence, rather than the traditional expectations around the adult/child role.