Spongebob 2: The Reckoning

These Spongebob caricatures... they're really strange. It's seems like only someone with a really great sense of humor would even consider getting one of these done. And for the most part, it's true, but when it isn't... the drama shoots out the roof.

This seemingly jolly, plump mother with her super cute daughter approaches my stand wanting one of our extra-deluxe Spongebob and Patrick caricatures. As always, I make super sure that they are asking for the "full-transformation" style and the mom says yes and tells me all about how much she and her daughter LOVE Spongebob. She made it sound like it's the only reason that they even live, so I was pretty stoked to give them a good job. The mom wanted to be Patrick and her daughter would be Spongebob. But something funny happened halfway through the drawing... something I picked-up on like Spidy-sense. The mom, without even having seen the drawing, suddenly decided that she wasn't going to like it. It's hard to say why, everyone was having a great time. Yet there was a sudden and drastic change in atmosphere that I knew spelled trouble.

I tear the drawing off and she, like I predicted, hated it. She was, in fact, absolutely insulted. She told me she could never hang this drawing up in her home, that I had drawn her like she was fat. At that point, with the risk of being rude to her, I told her that I drew exactly what she asked for. She, a complete stranger to me, who IS fat, asked me to draw her as a FAT cartoon character. She ended up just walking away from the situation, her daughter obviously confused as hell. The customers that were waiting next in line looked at me and said, 'we're not going to be like those people!"