It almost makes me believe in an ephemeral muse, who sprinkles liminal magic on lucky recipients who may or may not deserve it.

However, when the work is so informed by malignancy, it does make me pause. I am not one to conflate the artist with the art I don’t need my craft heroes to be real-life heroes. is a man at war with himself, with women, and with the world. The fact that his most famous show is about a defeated id furious at his louche ego isn’t a coincidence. But while John Waters or Gary Panter takes a stylish and skewed eye towards the false dream, John K.’s work - I now see - is filled with rage and sadness. There is a broken-dreams-cum-surrealism edge that is in the genre of the late ’80s art-pop trashing of 1950s Americana. It is a Dad who has had too much to drink before Saturday Morning cartoons. Part of the draw of John K.’s work was that it is scary. About two years ago, Buzzfeed reported accusations of sexual assault against young women and girls which were deeply disturbing. When they came to light, the details of John K’s life were not at all impressive to me. “The red candy-like button” was a mantra to ward off social isolation.īut the art was both the cure and the disease, an ouroboros of cause and effect that both ties and unties itself at every step. My weirdo friends and I would repeat the lines to ourselves in the schoolyard while the jocks played football on the blacktop. It was art by pure id, Tex Avery pushed through a meat grinder on acid. Every smile on the show is a deeply psychotic grin, each ear a bright red cauliflower, each mouth a dripping cave.

imprinted on me young enough to feel like his art is seared on my eyeballs. A beloved inspiration of mine, rogue animator and Southern California pop art icon John K. Ren & Stimpy was my be-all and end-all in junior high.

THE REN & STIMPY SHOW | JOHN KRICFALUSI | 1991–1996 One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of our favorite animated TV series.

Stimpy pushing red button gif