References to Popular Culture
As is well known, anyone who makes artistic work featuring mainstream copyrighted characters is either a shady sellout undeserving of respect, or an insufferable post-modernist undeserving of life. William Bessai-Saul is certainly guilty of this, and has stirred up intense controversy among his fan base for it. Some argue that he is emulating those with a modicum of popularity on the internet in a desperate bid for attention and validation, while others maintain that, as a topic people tend to think about for large portions of the day, it's a perfectly valid outlet in a daily comic. In any case, I believe that all of Bessai-Saul's work--the profound and the banal--should be publically available for the sake of posterity. To accommodate viewers who might not share Bessai-Saul's interests in media, I have done my best to annotate these comics, so that everyone understands the references.
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Saul Goodman is the sheister lawyer portrayed by Bob Odenkirk in the television drama Breaking Bad. Here he is performing what is known in 3D animation circles as a T-Pose, which is the default position for prebuilt human models. T-posing has connotations as a surreal expression of dominance.
Spamton G. Spamton is a character from the video game Deltarune, who bears visual and thematic similarities to the literary figure of Pinnochio. Spamton is a con artist, so a connection is drawn between the two characters by showing Spamton's nose growing (a trait of Pinnochio) whenever Spamton makes an incredulous claim. In the foreground is Kris, the protagonist of Deltarune.
"Twilight" is a novel written by Stephanie Meyer, about teen vampire romance. "Twilight of the Idols" is a book written by Friedrich Nietzsche, about philosophy or something. William Bessai-Saul has never read either of these books, though he is familiar with a unicorn named Twilight.
"Big" Jack Horner is the central antagonist of the film Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Here he is depicted in the place of Jon Arbuckle in a recreation of the "Garfield" strip from July 27th, 1978 (with Puss assuming the role of Garfield himself).
Leo Tolstoy is a Russian existentialist author and philosopher. In chapter 13 of his 1897 book "What is Art?", he reviews and criticizes a production of Richard Wagner's famous opera: "Die Nibelungen." One scene that Tolstoy found particularly stupid and annoying featured Siegfried laughing for fifteen uninterrupted minutes. It is curious why Bessai-Saul chose to portray the scene with bird people, as this is not typical of his pop culture work. Perhaps, given the archaeic manner and clothing of Bird People, Bessai-Saul is giving us a clue here as to the world's setting.
This in reference to "Dreams in a Witch House": the episode of Guillermo Del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities starring Rupert Grint, and adapted from the H.P. Lovecraft story of the same name. The original story was a rather subtle and atmospheric look at a man tormented by nightmares as the result of his house's unusual geometry opening a gate to another world.
Flowey the Flower is the main villain of the video game Undertale. Though mostly text based, he has a few spoken voice lines, which are sourced from a 1968 McDonald's commercial. At the edge the fourth panel, we can make out Sans, another character from Undertale, whose vocal beeps are sampled from a line in Spongebob Squarepants: "Maybe it's the way you're dressed."
I'm sure this reference is painfully obvious to any educated person, but it bears mentioning anyway. The video Minecraft Mars Mission from the "You-Tube" channel Minecraft and Donuts, starring Will and Sophie. In this video, Sophie habitually steals the faces of many robots.
Sheldon Cooper is a character from the sitcom "The Big Bang Theory", known primarily for sitting only in his favourite spot on the couch and resembling an eggplant. Leonard is his friend. In keeping with the show's conceit, both characters are nerds, as evidenced by Sheldon's "Green Lantern" T-shirt.
Dark Shadows is a daytime gothic soap opera created by Dan Curtis, which ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971. The story is set in the fictional town of Collinsport, Maine, and focused on the antics of the eponymous Collins family. Bessai-Saul's favourite character in this series is apparently Roger Collins, the snobbish, useless, mooching brother of Elizabeth, the head of the family. Roger's main subplot revolves around his continuing efforts to cover up that time he killed a man in a drunk driving accident, as well as dealing with his ex-wife, Laura the immortal fire witch. In commemoration of Father's Day, Bessai-Saul here is continuing a project he did in college, imagining the mythic figure of Batman if he were in fact, not the noble Bruce Wayne, but Roger Collins. Also pictured in this comic are Roger's psychotic son David, the drunken artist Sam Evans (whom Roger bribed to lie on the witness stand, and with whom now holds a relationship of mutual blackmail), and Bessai-Saul's interpretation of an adult Jamison Collins.
Wilson "Kingpin" Fisk is the protagonist of hit shonen anime "Into the Spiderverse".
"Harry Potter and No One in Particular" is an AI-assisted novel written (and narrated in the audio book) by Dashiell Jackson. The book is an existential urban fantasy following the mid-life crisis of floundering bureaucrat Harry Potter as he untangles the supernatural truth behind the disappearance of his old childhood friend.
Though not making a direct allusion, this strip is highly reminiscent of a comedy album called "The Super Ghostbusters"; which itself is parodying the movie "Ghostbusters", starring Bill Murray as The Ghost Buster.
"Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius" is an atompunk drama about all-American everyman Hugh Neutron, who struggles with queer identity and undiagnosed autism, while trying to maintain the image of a strong role model for his son in 1950s suburbia.
"Wacky Time Racers" is a Hanna-Barbara cartoon in which bizarrely themed racecars (such as a caveman car, etc.) do a cross country race each wig, and try to sabotage each other. Sometimes the good guys win, sometimes the bad guys do. There is a dog in it.
Beauty and the Beast is a fairy tale about the complex history of class solidarity and the gentleman-tyrant duality of aristocracy in medieval France.
Pizza Tower is a video game about a middle-aged man whose PTSD and crippling debt causes him to suffer a complete neurotic breakdown.
Amphibia is a television show about growing up in a small town. The pastoral beauty, the friendly neighbours, the quaint little gables.
Deltarune is a video game about juvenile delinquents who spend WAY too much time on the computer.
Jenny Nicholson is a horse famous Youtube personality who makes primarily video essays on theme parks and fan fictions and other useless stuff like that.