Previously in this series: Two monks invent cartography.
MONK #1: oh hey what did St. Mark look li–
MONK #2: tornado with a face on it
MONK #1: what happens to your body when you hide behind a curtain
what’s the best way to draw that, I can’t get it quite right
MONK #2: it disappears entirely
MONK #1: really!
MONK #2: just…mmp. Vanishes.
you pretty much just turn into a floating head
MONK #1: oh and this probably goes without saying, but most people’s feet are–
MONK #2: criss-crossed in barbed wire, yeah, exactly
MONK #1: ahhhh
MONK #2: whats up
MONK #1: nothing
it’s just like
i cannot remember how big the letter C is today for some reason
MONK #2: what like
on the page?
MONK #1: yeah
MONK #2: big enough to fit Jesus and like nine of his friends in it
MONK #1: right right
sorry
MONK #2: no don’t feel bad about it
MONK #1: ok haha well as long as im bugging you
D is like…pretty much the same size as C, or…
MONK #2: oh my god no
let me see what you have
ahhhhahahahaha
MONK #1: bigger, right?
MONK #2: way bigger
no
bigger than that
look let me draw it for you
MONK #1: ohhhhh
MONK #2: you should always be able to fit a modest castle inside the letter D
remember that
MONK #2: hey dont forget that when people sit down they lose their knees and turn into pointy ovals
MONK #1: do you remember Eadwin the Scribe
MONK #2: Kind of
MONK #1: big guy, right?
like, used to sit on top of houses-big?
MONK #2: that sounds right
MONK #1: blue hair?
MONK #2: blue-ish, yeah
and he always wrote with two pens
two-pen Eadwin, we’d call him
but he was so tall he never heard
MONK #1: uuuuuuggghh
MONK #2: whats up
MONK #1: how many eyes does a dog have
MONK #2: oh man
wow
MONK #1: RIGHT?
MONK #2: that is a good question
MONK #1: because like
i can tell that for sure seven is NOT RIGHT
but beyond that
i have no idea
MONK #2: ok well it’s time for lunch
so i feel like
executive decision
seven is fine
MONK #1: you sure?
MONK #2: yes im sure
we’re having bread today and i don’t want to miss it
MONK #1: how far away are stars
MONK #2: pretty much just as far away as a tall tree with jewels on it
MONK #1: yeah?
MONK #2: yeah
a good rule of thumb
is that your hand is about the same size as your whole head
and stars are about three hands away from the top of your head
MONK #1: okay great
MONK #2: also humans don’t have spines so their heads and necks can go in just
any direction
MONK #1: what does it look like when people sit in a row?
MONK #2: they just turn into heads
no bodies
MONK #1: hey just checking, Jesus is –
MONK #2: like forty feet tall
furious
covered in mustaches going in like six different directions
MONK #1: yeah ok cool
MONK #2: and one lady sitting under him has a smushed-in head
MONK #1: UUUUUUUGGGHHHHHHH
MONK #2: hey
you okay?
MONK #1: I HATE THIS
MONK #2: is it eyes again?
MONK #1: HE IS LITERALLY COVERED IN EYES AND I KNOW THAT CAN’T BE RIGHT
MONK #2: do you want to just go get lunch
MONK #1: yes
Tags: artwork, make it bigger though, medieval getting used pretty loosely here, more carolingian than medieval really, poking gentle fun at medieval art, two monks inventing things
HELP ME I AM COVERED IN EYES
“I HAVE NO IDEA”
Monk 1: Who lives in the letter S?
Monk 2: Some dude with a beard, but I think he’s getting kicked out by a bunch of dragon bird dogs. I’ll have to check the lease.
dragon bird dogs
also what’s going on with bearded dude’s body though
those feckin Celts, always breakdancing with their feckin hybrid animals.
Oh my god that is such a better explanation
“two-pen Eadwin”
laughed so hard at this
Nice to see Monk #1 didn’t forget that 40 foot tall furious copiously mustachioed Jesus must also be whistlin’.
WHISTLIN’ JESUS
Monk #1 was right, there were angels covered in eyes! But they were also wheels? The bible is weird.
Actually, it turns out that “Medieval” times never happened. We just skipped from 614–911 AD. The internet told me so!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_time_hypothe…
……..
oh my god
amazing I LOVE IT
This is my new favorite conspiracy theory!
THIS IS UP THERE WITH RONBLEDORE
http://ronbledore.net
IS THERE STILL TIME TO CHANGE THE URL ON THE SHIRT
Evidence for: Idle speculation.
Evidence against: Facts.
This is nothing like Ronbledore.
“Evidence for the theory: the presence of Romanesque architecture in tenth-century Western Europe. The scarcity of archaeological evidence that can be reliably dated to the period AD 614–911. The relation between the Julian calendar, Gregorian calendar and the underlying astronomical solar or tropical year.”
FACTS.
Charlie Mackenzie: Hey Mom, I find it interesting that you refer to the Weekly World News as, “The paper.” The paper contains facts.
May Mackenzie: This paper contains facts. And this paper has the eighth highest circulation in the whole wide world. Right? Plenty of facts. “Pregnant man gives birth.” That’s a fact.
I was just listening to a podcast about that!
https://soundcloud.com/nosuchthingasafish/episode…
thanks for giving me the topic for my 3pm post
You’re welcome!
I always knew my degree was useless, but I didn’t know it was FALSE. Damn.
That sounds like Immanuel Velikovsky, who tried to prove the events in the Bible by saying that, among other things, there was a 500 year “extra” period that historians had inserted between the fall of the Mycenaean civilization and the Ionian age which shouldn’t have been there, and that by doing this they had also duplicated 500 years of Egyptian history (Ramses I and Necho I were the same person, Seti I is Psamtik I, Ramses II is Necho II, and so on). http://www.velikovsky.info/Ages_in_Chaos
His books were banned from many academic institutions.
Considering the nonsense that DOESN’T get banned, that’s quite an achievement.
The eyes have it.
The eyes are welcome to it.
so excited for bread
a loaf of bread is sitting on my desk next to me right now
I made it, it is perfect
“do you want to just go get lunch”
Basically the solution for any problem.
Sometimes I get so sad that I can only use this solution once a day at work. But that’s why “do you want to just go get coffee” was invented.
Monk 1: hey
what’s a good way to remember the letter B
like how big it is
Monk 2: B stands for bro
don’t forget
so just tall enough for one of your bros to stand inside
basically
you guys i love you. this is the sort of funny geeky stuff that I never thought anyone besides my sister and I would understand.
I’m developing sympathy for Monk #1, despite knowing nothing about him except he keeps getting bossed around due to his lack of spacial understanding. Hope that kid had a good lunch.
YES. A key part of the joke for me is that the monks have distinguishable personalities.
He’s the person the word “hapless” was invented for.
he is totally ASKING to get bossed around though! ugh, Monk #1!!!
monk #1 LOVES monk #2! he thinks monk #2 is the smartest guy in the whole world
I ship it.
Seconded
I was starting to suspect that the relationship between Monks 1&2 was eerily similar to my cats’ relationship to each other (if Monk #2 cat ever deigned to speak to Monk #1 cat) and now you have confirmed it
MAYBE HE IS THO
Monk #2 is the most awesomely insouciant version of a walking Dunning-Kruger effect. What’s not to love?
The medieval monks are so far and away my favorite of all my favorite Mallory jokes. Like, my love of this joke is the size of a D if my love of all the other jokes is the size of a C.
Dude looks pretty bummed out that he turned into a bunch of pointy ovals.
Who wouldn’t be, in his situation?
This is the kind of thing that makes the internet worthwhile.
(Two-pen Eadwin is actually holding one pen and a scraper to remove his boo-boos.)
Before they bought him the scraper they called him Trashbin Eadwin. 🙁
I was debating whether to be That Person and mention Eadwin’s scraper. Thank you for making my decision for me.
My That Person urges just overwhelmed me this morning.
YOU HUSH WITH YOUR FACTS
He also looks to me like he’s just sitting in a fancily-carved chair, not on top of houses. Maybe I’m looking at it wrong.
iiiiiii think it’s a brush? i am not 100% on this but i can make a faairly informed guess. He would definitely have had a scraper but he would not have held it in his left hand while he wrote, because, you cannot scrape ink off vellum with any accuracy until it is 100% dry.
(probably his scraper was also the tool he used to cut his quill!)
so: he would be holding a quill to write with, and a brush to refill the ink, because quills do not hold a lot of ink but large brushes hold enough that you can top your pen up every few words. This is still how it’s done today! If, that is, you are the kind of person who does that kind of thing.
(i’m sorry I just that-personed a that-person, can we still be friends)
All of those heads had bodies???
I love these so much. Also how about a spinoff: “Two Modernist Drunks Invent Cubism.”
I am in GREATLY favor of this.
YES PLEASE
Because of a disaster involving our landlords totally not telling us what spray-foam insulating our ceiling entailed, or how long it would take, my roommate and I are trapped in one room with two cats, and have to wear gas masks.
This post just massively improved our day.
how did you get gas masks on the cats, photos plz
Unfortunately the cats did not get masks…but that would have been adorable/painful. Cat1 (Monty “Baboo” Burns) is an awesome fat asshole cat who, as it turns out, is a serious wuss. He’s been under a bed for most of the last three days.
Also I guess they were technically those white dust masks, the serious ones with valves on the front, not actual gas masks. But they still impeded our eating of sadness donuts.
also boo to your landlords natch
This reminds me of many, many gchat conversations.
“wanna just go get lunch”
“yes”
oh yeah like we are the two monks for sure
You might also be Argos, in which case, do try to stay awake if Hermes drops by.
This series is so perfect.
Although I guess the point of ‘perfect’ is that it doesn’t have gradations. EDIT: This series is perfect.
I also really love how decisive these monks are. No hemming and hawing — they get shit DONE.
I want a Hildegard von Bingen and her lackey invent art ….pleaseeeee.
iiiiiii think it's a brush? i am not 100% on this but i can make a faairly informed guess. He would definitely have had a scraper but he would not have held it in his left hand while he wrote, because, you cannot scrape ink off vellum with any accuracy until it is 100% dry.
(probably his scraper was also the tool he used to cut his quill!)
so: he would be holding a quill to write with, and a brush to refill the ink, because quills do not hold a lot of ink but large brushes hold enough that you can top your pen up every few words. This is still how it's done today! If, that is, you are the kind of person who does that kind of thing.
(i'm sorry I just that-personed a that-person, can we still be friends)
I hate monk 2. He thinks he knows everything about art. So stuck up. So bossy.
This is so funny I'm crying, just discovered the monks today, now madly reading all the posts
The "pen" on the left is actually a pen-knife! Used to erase mistakes and hold the page down.