Stumpers and Befuddlers

More often than not I pretty much know what I am looking at when I find a drawing or other creation on the floor or in the "done" pile.  It may be funky or psychedelic, alien or traditional, comforting or disorienting, black-and-white or neon but, I have a sense of what it is and its native narrative.

Sometimes, though, I get  what I call "Stumpers."  I have no clue on a stumper and, although I could ask, I find it funner to just be in the dark.  Take this one from Z for instance:

This could be anything from a neural view of the energy in a synapse to a anachronistic bomb combining a medieval mace and a hand-grenade (and oddly enough, a yam); a concise, to-scale drawing of the initial Big Bang to simple protozoans living in the muddy puddles of the back yard.  My heartwarming guess is... weaponry.

Here is a stumper from Nick:

Yeah, I'll wait... weird, huh?  Now I initially thought this was standard run-o-the-mill alien, perhaps related to Rocket Butt Dude.  But then, as I looked more closely, it started doing this sort of Escher-esque thing where, at one moment I saw a whole sort of winged birdish being, the next moment it was a flightless baby bee looking down on the birth of a planet and sun, there about neck-level on the bird thing.  I think it's a commentary on the Venus de Milo painting and the commonality of the Creation Myth... I have no idea what this is supposed to be.

Now I'll show you a "befuddler."  These are ones that seem to be recognizable but really, don't make any sense.  The elicit a a "what the Hell" sort of reaction:

Who and what the... ?  It is obviously a ying-yang face transplanted dude wearing a toupee; in one of his giant hands he is throwing a comet (or is it the maceyamgernade shown above?) which, judging from his super-hero shirt is his signature move.  He seems happy and comfortable with having no feet and, he scares me a clonwish sort of way.  Thanks N, I'll never see two-faced men quite the same again.

One last beffudler from The Z-man:

Oh, trails-of-tears-woeful-faced-cosmic-alien-dude why are you so sad?  Has your lovely galaxy necklace irradiated your body so only your veiled head remains?  I do know this is an alien because it was in a pile of aliens, marked "alians."

So that's what it looks like here sometimes.  Recently someone asked me how I found all the stuff I post on ihopeiwinatoaster.  Honestly and literally, I just look down.

From Marci's Bill's '...things you don't expect to hear from the backseat yard...'

"How 'bout ground versus air, I'm ground and you're air, and we fight."

This can't end well...