SlowpokeBlog

I was working on a cartoon about a completely different subject, when I drowsily closed my eyes and envisioned the bearded hipster character shown in the first panel. (Some people see visions of sugarplums, I see hairy hipsters.) Wanting to preserve this little message from my subconscious, I drew a doodle of him in my notebook. Suddenly the phrase "metrosexual backlash" came to mind and, I decided to draw this cartoon instead.

To be honest, I'm not sure the untamed hipster beard qualifies as a full-fledged trend -- it's just something I've noticed. Its message seems to be, "I'm so cool and manly, I don't put effort into making myself attractive to women." One of its forbears seems to be Mike Watt, formerly of the Minutemen. When I saw him ten years ago, he shambled about the stage in his full-bearded, drunken ship-captain glory. Hence the Minutemen t-shirt in the first panel.

Now, let me reiterate that I do not eschew all beards. Some neatly-trimmed beards can look very nice. It is the crumb-littered mountain man beard on a hot young man I do not understand.