Ehj3
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ehjthree.bsky.social
Ehj3
@ehjthree.bsky.social
13 followers 10 following 86 posts
Unsuccessful artist, cynical skeptic, parsimonous anhedonic
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ehjthree.bsky.social
THEIR MASTERS’ VICE. talking machines become taking machines. ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
A “Victor Talking Machine” from the earthly 20th century has five small people yelling into its horn and at each other, the record disc has been replaced by a bucket out of which a robot ladles coins into a brief case held by a grinning fat man in a suit. The words “SOCIAL MEDIA 2026” are in a banner flying behind the horn. The point being: things have changed in 100 years. We were the consumers we are now the consumed. We were once whole, take us or leave us as that; we are now just parts used or ignored. Though i like tho think other wise This image looks like a sloppy ink lines/crude paint splotches on paper, but was drawn using photoshop and a wacom tablet. I've resisted the temptation to correct all the little sloppinesses in it and let my not-at-all realistic first efforts stand as I don’t want to be accused of using AI. Not that you can tell on these 500 pixel wide images. Also, maybe more so, I’m lazy and am much more ADHD than OCD. Sometimes I just want to draw something! To enjoy the process without worrying about trying to gain insight or respect. But I lie to myself, I'm neurotic, inauthentic. Sometimes sublimation drives the process, but sometimes rationalization disguised as insight and the illusion of respect is all there is.
April 18, 2026 at 11:31 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
SPLISH SPLASH…TAKIN’ A BATH, “Thinkin' everythin' was [not] alright” ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
A tiny you-know-who in his signature costume of a baggy blue suit, overlong red tie and mop of yellow hair is in a claw foot tub standing on USA mascot Uncle Sam’s head. forcing it underwater as Sam's arms and legs flail about and his phone, mid call, crashes to the floor. In the background are a trio of cropped headless dictators. They are, from left, a shirtless man with an AR-47, a larger man in a gray suit holding a red case with 5 stars on it, and a midget in black standing on a bomb. This image looks like a cross-hatchy black ink with watercolor washes on paper thing, but was drawn using photoshop and a wacom tablet. I've resisted the temptation to correct all the little sloppinesses in it and let my not-at-all realistic first efforts stand as I don’t want to be accused of using AI. Not that you can tell on these 486 pixel wide images. Also, maybe more so, I’m lazy and am much more ADHD than OCD. Sometimes I just want to draw something! To enjoy the process without worrying about trying to gain insight or respect. But I lie to myself, I'm neurotic, inauthentic. Sometimes sublimation drives the process, sometimes rationalization is disguised as insight and sometimes illusion of respect is all there is.
April 15, 2026 at 8:55 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
LOSING MY PERSONA – Me in the corner, them in the spotlight. ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
A well-lit artist’s studio is where a Jungian trio waits for the ego painter to show up. They are Shadow in his suit looking angrily at his expensive watch, a retired persona reclining behind him in his peintre maudit costume and an Anima lookalike clutching at Shadow with one arm while rejecting the persona with the other. We see in the foreground, looking from the outside in, the painter Ego’s fingers gripping a window frame and a dip pen. This image looks like a cross-hatchy black ink with watercolor washes on paper thing, but was drawn using photoshop and a wacom tablet. I've resisted the temptation to correct all the little sloppinesses in it and let my not-at-all realistic first efforts stand as I don’t want to be accused of using AI. Not that you can tell on these 486 pixel wide images. Also, maybe more so, I’m lazy and am much more ADHD than OCD.
April 11, 2026 at 9:33 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
REMAINS TO BE SEEN – A cover up of a cover up of a cover up. ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
A still life in a cheap apartment with two paint cans. They are You-Know-Who branded paint, the labels are each only half shown. One is red called PEDO… the other is blue called…MENTIA. You can guess what the entire words are. There are splashes of those colors on the wall behind them but the vandalism they were meant to cover up, the word CORRUPTION painted black, shows through. This image looks like a sloppy ink lines/crude paint splotches on paper thing, but was drawn using photoshop and a wacom tablet. I've resisted the temptation to correct all the little sloppinesses in it and let my not-at-all realistic first efforts stand as I don’t want to be accused of using AI. Not that you can tell on these 486 pixel wide images. Also, maybe more so, I’m lazy and am much more ADHD than OCD.
April 11, 2026 at 9:02 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
EARLY AUTUMN, a visualization of the deciduous politics of the current regime. ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
A solitary tree on a hill. It has shed almost all of its “leaves” and now the bare branches resemble a profile silhouette of the leader of the free world. Those leaves, now mostly abandoned on the ground, are red MAGA caps, This is one of those ideas that likely has been done by someone else and probably better. It seems too good (I could be wrong, it could be not that good) for just lowly me to have come up with it but I have never seen it, I promise. This image looks like an acrylic sketch with ink-like lines brushed over it, but it was drawn using photoshop and a wacom tablet. I've let sloppy first efforts stand as I don’t want to be accused of using AI. Not that you can tell on these lo-res versions. Also, maybe more so, I’m lazy—much more ADHD than OCD.
April 5, 2026 at 3:47 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
AFTER THE FLAW a robot looks for a sign—seeks meaning?—before it loses its charge. ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
A humanoid robot based on the one that shared the white house spotlight with humans recently struggles for a phone signal on a desolate (as in Krazy Kat comic strips) mesa. It and its phone share an unplugged charger so they will both “die” soon. The drawing is based on Ron Cobb's 1966 drawing of a PTSD’d guy searching in a post-apocalyptic landscape for an outlet to plug his TV into. This image looks like a cross-hatchy black ink with watercolor washes on paper thing, but was drawn using photoshop and a wacom tablet. I've resisted the temptation to correct all the little sloppinesses in it and let my not-at-all realistic first efforts stand as I don’t want to be accused of using AI. Not that you can tell on these 480 pixel wide images. Also, maybe more so, I’m lazy and am much more ADHD than OCD.
April 1, 2026 at 10:53 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
LEAP OF FAITH, an allegorical landscape with staffage concerning mostly art, faith and a bit of greed. ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
An edenic idyll or just some unkempt shrubbery below brutalist highway bridges that funnel traffic to and from the burning city in the background. A cartoon artist—or post-fall Adam—is about to leap across a small stream half bridged by art supplies. A snake-in-a-suit capitalist emerges from the background to pursue the artist and in the foreground a naked Eve fascinated by her apple[phone] ignores him. This image looks like a cross-hatchy black ink with watercolor washes on paper thing, but was drawn using photoshop and a wacom tablet. I've resisted the temptation to correct all the little sloppinesses in it and let my not-at-all realistic first efforts stand as I don’t want to be accused of using AI. Not that you can tell on these 480 pixel wide images. Also, maybe more so, I’m lazy and am much more ADHD than OCD.
March 29, 2026 at 9:52 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
FLY THE FRAUDLY SKIES. The more you fly, the more you can fly, until... Ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
Left: A bloated man in a baggy blue suit and a mop of yellow hair floats over a great city connected to it by his tie. On this balloon, ride a tech bro, a wife/mistress and an arms dealer self congratulating their successes, Right: the balloon is gone, floated away, as the tie has been cut. The trio falls, their wealth is dispersed in the air falling to the ground. This image looks like a cross-hatchy black ink with watercolor washes on paper thing, but was drawn using photoshop and a wacom tablet. I've resisted the temptation to correct all the little sloppinesses in it and let my not-at-all realistic first efforts stand as I don’t want to be accused of using AI. Not that you can tell on these 480 pixel wide images. Also, maybe more so, I’m lazy and am much more ADHD than OCD.
March 27, 2026 at 11:21 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
Out of the way, cartoonist! A robot is coming! Actually, it is already here. ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
A parody of B. Kliban's 1982 drawing, usually titled by its word balloon caption “Out of the way, you swine! A cartoonist is coming!” The word balloon is gone, but The troupe still parades down a street. The hired "girlfriends" in the original are now an executive assistant and a trophy wife. The cop is now a lawyer with a Kliban cartoon cat head and tail. The old beggar, he pushes out of the way, has dropped his pen, ink and pad. The love-sick girl-fan is the same but she's now in the shadows. The cartoonist is a robot. This image looks like a cross-hatchy black ink with watercolor washes on paper thing, but was drawn using photoshop and a wacom tablet. I've resisted the temptation to correct all the little sloppinesses in it and let my not-at-all realistic first efforts stand as I don’t want to be accused of using AI. Not that you can tell on these 480 pixel wide images. Also, maybe more so, I’m lazy and am much more ADHD than OCD.
March 22, 2026 at 6:42 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
Should you avoid a void, or just void it? ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
The top left panel above shows an angry maga fascist, a praying fundamentalist and a scientific empiricist interacting with a roughly circular, fuzzy-edged, dark and featureless void. The top right panel shows a fat cat and a trophy wife luxuriating unsatisfactorily in another void passing as a hot tub. In the bottom panel the void is cast as a half-set anti-sun being eyed by a too-small for his tools of the trade artist pondering the complete void via a cartoon thought balloon. He's not begun to create as he’s still at some distance from the still blank canvas. This image looks like a cross-hatchy black ink with watercolor washes on paper thing, but was drawn using photoshop and a wacom tablet. I've resisted the temptation to correct all the little sloppinesses in it and let my not-at-all realistic first efforts stand as I don’t want to be accused of using AI. Not that you can tell on these 480 pixel wide images. Also, maybe more so, I’m lazy and am much more ADHD than OCD.
March 17, 2026 at 11:12 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
Mr. Atom’s reunion tour with special guest you-know-who will be a hard act to follow. ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
The bomb-shaped “Mr. Atom” created by brilliant editorial cartoonist Herblock 70 years ago to satirize and condemn the arms race is here on stage with a new partner you-know-who. Also here is a card girl/press secretary—pretty enough in a crude way, if you like that sort of thing—who can't keep up with the act changes and the out of tune, out of time maga-capped house band is in the pit. This image looks like a cross-hatchy black ink with watercolor washes on paper thing, but was drawn using photoshop and a wacom tablet. I've resisted the temptation to correct all the little sloppinesses in it and let my not-at-all realistic first efforts stand as I don’t want to be accused of using AI. Not that you can tell on these 480-pixel wide images. Also, maybe more so, I’m lazy and am much more ADHD than OCD.
March 13, 2026 at 11:22 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
SELF PHONES. Symbolic images of four metaphors of how asocial social media is. ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
Top left: a survivor of a shipwreck, clings to a cell phone shaped raft, content that rescue is at hand. Top right: The same person now luxuriates in a cell phone shaped pool, with a sunbathing spouse nearby. Bottom left: modern day gladiators (the bathing spouses from top right) fight with cell phone shaped weapons. Bottom right: the bathers and others carry cellphone shaped blocks up a mountain presumably to make a monument for their god-kings. This image looks like a cross-hatchy black ink with watercolor washes on paper thing, but was drawn using photoshop and a wacom tablet. I've resisted the temptation to correct all the little sloppinesses in it and let my not-at-all realistic first efforts stand as I don’t want to be accused of using AI. Not that you can tell on these 480 pixel wide images. Also, maybe more so, I’m lazy and am much more ADHD than OCD.
March 8, 2026 at 6:53 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHED – a temper-tantrumping toddler rides a coin-op attraction-distraction machine. ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
An obese temper-tantrumping toddler orange faced, yellow mopped, wearing a blue suit and a red tie rides, not a galloping coin-op horse, but a cartoonified B-2 bomber—real ones are killing people half-around the world as I write—with a much larger price per ride long after ‘dad’ (Uncle Sam) has run out of money—though the power-hungry and vengeful congress has not—and wants to go home. This image looks like a cross-hatchy black ink with watercolor washes on paper thing, but was drawn using photoshop and a wacom tablet. I've resisted the temptation to correct all the little sloppinesses in it and let my not-at-all realistic efforts stand as I don’t want to be accused of using AI. Not that you can tell on these 480 pixel wide images. Also, maybe more so, I’m lazy and am much more ADHD than OCD.
March 3, 2026 at 8:35 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
MONSTERS LLC – a contemporary, neither heroic nor romantic, princess vs dragon vs hero tale. ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
Andromeda, Perseus and Cetus from the Greek myth are shown here in a traditional setting roughly based on a print made from a William Hogarth work mentioned in Moby Dick. Andromeda and Cetus are modernized. She is a fake-everything trophy wife, unbound and no longer naked. He is a human billionaire who has kept the monster’s body. He points at his mega yacht named “CETUS.” Perseus is now bound in Andromeda’s discarded chains and remains in clumsy old school armor. He points too, but at nothing in particular. This image looks like a cross-hatchy black ink with watercolor washes on paper thing, but was drawn using photoshop and a wacom tablet. I've resisted the temptation to correct all the little sloppinesses in it and let the not-at-all realistic anatomy, constructions, perspectives and lighting stand as I don’t want to be accused of using AI. Not that you’d notice at 483 x483 pixels or even the originals that are 1207 px wide and tall. Also, maybe more so, I’m lazy and am much more ADHD than OCD.
February 28, 2026 at 10:07 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
SNAKES AND STORKS – Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny culturally. ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
It's a stand off between a pair of anthropomorphized beasts: A snake in a suit is being strangled with his tie by a long-legged big-beaked stork in a cocktail dress. They are standing in tall grass. There is money up his sleeve, coins at her feet And a frog leaps out of harm's way. The stork seems to have the upper hand for now but the snake who could be either venomous or a constrictor is not out for the count. This image looks like a cross-hatchy black ink with watercolor washes on paper thing, but was drawn using photoshop and a wacom tablet. So, I've resisted the temptation to correct all the little sloppinesses in it and let it stay not at all realistic as I don’t want to be accused of using AI. Also, I’m lazy and am much more ADHD than OCD.
February 24, 2026 at 9:16 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
APPEASE ACT. An underwhelming performance or an oversharing confession? ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
A Euro-style circus scene oddly with no audience. It's all darkness ‘cept for a spotlight on an empty trapeze hanging too low in the ring and a circle of empty chairs, a psycho-therapy group with no participants. A smart phone influencer and a CCTV surveillance camera record the scene. This image looks like a cross-hatchy black ink with watercolor washes on paper thing, but was drawn using photoshop and a wacom tablet. So, I've resisted the temptation to correct all the little sloppinesses in it and let the not at all realistic lighting stand as I don’t want to be accused of using AI. Also, I’m lazy and am much more ADHD than OCD.
February 20, 2026 at 9:03 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
I’M NOBODY AND SO ARE YOU plus a comic weapon and a dreary somebody. Ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
A cartoony psychoanalyst’s consulting room with couch and chair behind it where a Bohemian “arteest” with his stereotypical smock, brushes and palette seeks help with self. His head transforms into a robotic cannon that shoots a laser beam at the analyst, but misses. The Freudian has become a [Emily] Dickensonian frog but retains the shrink’s tweed coat and round glass and now with the quick reflexes of such beasts escapes. His note pad is in mid-air as is his cigar which is also a fountain pen, whatever that means.
February 16, 2026 at 5:37 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
“In this petition evil is not an abstraction.” ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
Top: A morbidly obese You Know Who—his head is cropped but the red tie, white shirt and blue suit makes it obvious who he is—fills the frame squeezing uncle sam and ms. liberty (and the rest of us) into the margins of the scene. Bottom: You Know Who is now gone, only his red tie slithering into the depths of the void remains, but the dark space he occupied, his absence still present, continues to squeeze us to the edges. It will be that way until no one who knew someone who is alive now still lives. We can take down the signs, change laws, even prosecute his enablers. But he will live in our memories as long as we live. He forking wins even when he loses!!! Contrary to what “they” say, you can’t forgive if you can’t forget… in this petition evil is not an abstraction.
February 12, 2026 at 8:19 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
Suburbia is a recovery room for your dream-ectomy. ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
A birds-eye view of an almost typical suburban neighborhood in the USA, maybe elsewhere too. Ordinary suburbanites minding their own business here are: a wife-berated (for good reasons, he drinks and is a MAGA) husband, a sunbather showing a little too much skin on purpose, a sullen teenager up to no good and a delivery truck feeding the needs of the residents hereabouts. Not quite typical is a medieval European style castle-keep beginning to fall apart just like the cheap as can be constructed houses it stands in the midst of. We don't see its resident, but we do have evidence of an au plein air (possibly a voyeur as well) painter on its top deck. No, the splash in the moat he or she has instead of a lawn is not self-destruction or hubris rewarded a la Icarus; it's just a chunk of his or her old self defense system failing. Don't worry, better ones are being built inside the tower.
February 9, 2026 at 10:00 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
SOLAR POWERLESS. An A.I. dystopia of sun and shadow. Nasty and brutish for peasants and predators alike. ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
A massive solar panel array is laid out in front of a walled city, full of executive mansions, data centers and pleasure palaces. No room there for the middle class even if there was still one. Eutopia (a good place, not a utopia, no place) for the few, dystopia for the rest of us. In the shadows under the array a small fire consoles a trio of poor hunter-gatherers. Smoke from the fire rises between the panels to an ominous sky. With any luck the surveillance drones will let us be.
February 3, 2026 at 9:33 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
COLLECTIVE DECEPTION Domestic surreality. Chimeras or confabulations? Creativity or construction? ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
In an ordinary bathroom we see from our behind the one-way mirror point of view, a frog at the sink who could have a human lower hidden under his towel. In the tub behind taking a bubble bath is a mermaid, but there could be a real woman and a big fish. He draws, she drinks. He has a pen instead of a toothbrush and she has a glass of champagne instead of soap. So, in spite of the superficial intimacy of two half-naked half-human "people" in a small room together, it's obvious that they can’t be friends, let alone lovers.
January 31, 2026 at 12:12 AM
ehjthree.bsky.social
POST AND REPOSTE Yes, it's gotten to the point that everyone knows who “he” is. Some time ago, actually. ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
A two panel drawing. Top: a mountain climber reaches the retreat of an ascetic hermit of no particular religious flavor. Coming out of his cave, the hermit asks, “Is he gone yet?” The “he” here is, of course, you-know-who. Bottom: same scene, but the climber has answered, “No.” and the hermit has turned around and is half way back into his dark, but safe solitude.
January 26, 2026 at 9:29 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
TO GO NO WHERE. I think therefore I…need protective gear to go outside into an alien landscape inhabited by strange beasts. ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
A space ship/flying saucer has landed on a distant planet and the artist-astronaut has stepped out and faces a moon-like landscape inhabited by strange beasts. This is an environment that is unlikely to support artistic life, so a clumsy space suit that protects yet confounds seem in order. The multicolored creatures, each with three eyes on stalks, antithetical to the human space traveler seem to be at, an as alien to this creative as the creatures themselves, a midcentury modernist cocktail party where they are all dressed up, martinis in hand, with quips and repostes in progress
January 25, 2026 at 9:02 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
FEED THE NEED. a consumer, a temporary collection of traits, watches itself consumed ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
A dark prison cell with a window to the outside blue sky with a hint of a tree. no bars are needed as it is too small and too high to escape from. And a smart phone on the floor glowing as bright as the window above it. There's a prisoner in the shadows, but we see only legs and hands so we can't know if their gaze is towards the window or the phone, towards the real world or cyberspace, towards choosing or being chosen.
January 21, 2026 at 11:10 PM
ehjthree.bsky.social
FIRST MUSEUM, THEN YOU DON’T. Almost about life—or maybe art—not about you know who. ehjohnson3.wordpress.com
A scene in a museum—where art ends up—where a know it all lectures an older tourist couple. One is enamored but the other is skeptical. Also, a somewhat younger woman seems confused about the gallery wall seemingly broken through and we see the origins of art. Is this real or part of the show? There's a hint of you know who here too, his symbols anyway, and a stench made visible
January 18, 2026 at 10:40 PM