Jim Woodring is super dopey. Jim is so dopey, I made this picture to introduce him. It’s (tentatively) part of a project I’m working on called The Voice of God:
Now, Jim draws a good frog. Some call his work absurd and surreal, but Faerneth calls it one of the realest portrayals of real life. Personally, I’d trust the bird’s eye view. One of Faerneth’s (few) rules is: Respect only hierarchies of competence. Respect the creative chain of command. So there u go:
For context, the lyrics to the M83 song “Raconte-Moi Une Histoire”:
I’ve heard about this frogIt’s very tiny frog
But its also very special
You can only find it in the jungle
So far away from you/me
But if you find it
And if you touch it
Your world can change forever
If you touch her skin
You can feel your body changing
And your vision also!
Blue becomes red, and red becomes blue
And your mummy, suddenly becomes your daddy
And everything looks like a giant cupcake
And you keep laughing, and laughing, and laughing
Nothing is quite the same really
And after you finish laughing
It’s time to turn into a frog yourself
Its very funny to be a frog
You can dive into the water
And cross the rivers, and the oceans
And you can jump all the time, and everywhere
Do you wanna play with me?
We can be a whole group of friends
A whole group of frogs
Jumping into the streets
Jumping into the planets
Climbing buildings
Swimming in the lakes, and in the bathtubs
We would be hundreds, thousands, millions
The biggest group of friends the world has ever seen
Jumping and laughing… forever
It would be great, right? See all the colours in the sky See all the colours in the sky See all the colours in the sky See all the colours in the sky See all the colours in the sky See all the colours in the sky
One of my favourite kiddy books is the Frog and Toad series. The dynamics of human nature simplified into two lovable, anthropomorphized amphibian friends. A true classic.
Moon and ET?
I’ve caught tadpoles as a kid, watched them grow lil legs before dying out in my plastic tank. I’ve danced around with the little singing toads in a garden called Eden, in my Methodist primary school, at 6 in the morning when it was still dark.
Amphibians are fuckin great. For one, they generally undergo metamorphosis. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arboreal or freshwater aquatic ecosystems. With their complex reproductive needs and permeable skins, amphibians are also ecological indicators; in recent decades there has been a dramatic decline in amphibian populations for many species around the globe.
There are hallucinogenic toads, too. Toad licking, to be precise. Colorado River toads. Their toxins contain 5-MeO-DMT and bufotenin. Of course, if you are a more evolved frog, you don’t really need to ingest them to understand this magic.
