Toby Morris describes himself as “an Auckland-based illustrator, art director, comic artist and recently the author of Don't Puke On Your Dad: A Year in the Life of a New Father.”
The Pencilsword comic On a Plate uses two parallel lives to examine privilege and opportunity.
Morris places two characters side by side, showing how different levels of financial security and practical support influence their paths, even when both come from loving families.
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ThewirelessThe closing contrast invites readers to reconsider how much of an outcome belongs to effort alone, and how much depends on the circumstances that made that effort possible.
About the comic: On a Plate was part of Morris’s series The Pencilsword, published by Radio New Zealand on its youth site The Wireless. It was shared around the world and translated into several languages. Morris later became widely known for “Flatten the Curve”, the 2020 COVID-19 explainer he made with the microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles, and won New Zealand’s Prime Minister’s Science Communication Prize for 2021.
Sources: Toby Morris, The WirelessMore from the archive:
- Twenty-Nine Social Satire Illustrations by Paweł Kuczyński
- Disturbing (But Amazing) Pictures Expose The Absurdities Of Modern Culture *Warning: Graphic Images*
- A Short Comic About Love and Everyday Care
- John Lennon’s Imagine in Comic Form
- A Reflection on Choices, Consequences and Comparison
- The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword: 28 Cartoonists Pay Tribute To The Victims Of The Charlie Hebdo Shooting
- Arab Newspapers React To ‘Charlie Hebdo’ Attacks With Cartoons Of Their Own
- Korean Artist Puuung Captures What Real Love Looks Like
- Western Fairy Tales Get an Eastern Makeover by Korean Artist Na Young Wu
- Lauren Wade's Retouched Paintings Question Beauty Standards
- Thirty Pencil Drawings That Create an Illusion of Depth
Compare the turning points
The parallel structure lets the reader meet similar stages of life under different conditions. A decision can look individual while the resources around it change what is realistically available. By keeping both stories in view, Morris makes that surrounding context part of the action rather than background information to be forgotten.
The comparison also allows small advantages to accumulate. One turning point does not have to explain the entire outcome; what matters is the repeated difference in support, security and room to recover from a setback. The comic gives those differences a sequence, making their cumulative effect easier to follow than a single isolated contrast would.
Affection within a family is not treated as a substitute for material resources. That distinction keeps the argument focused on unequal opportunities rather than sorting parents into those who care and those who do not. The two fictional lives are a way to examine a social question, with the clarity and selectivity that a short comic permits. They do not predict every individual's future, but they make the conditions around personal choices difficult to leave out of the conversation.
Social ideas take a more symbolic visual form in Igor Morski's Surreal Illustrations of Modern Society.
Hi, I'd be Paula in this scenario. That being said, I had opportunities some really poor or third world kids didn't have, but I also didn't have anything like "Richard" had. I was raised by my a single parent dad. He worked hard, still does. He probably will never get to retire, nor will I. But if I had worked harder, I could have changed that outcome for myself and for my children, and so on. We are not entirely victim to circumstance, we have choices, even if they are limited. And often, we can reach beyond what we think and feel our choices really are. I'm a white male. That doesn't make me privileged or racist or sexist or any other undue title you want to heap on my narrow shoulders. It doesn't define who I am no more than my name does. My actions and my choices, not my circumstances are what makes me who I am.
ReplyDeleteI Understand now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant, it is what we do with the gift of life that determines who you are. - Mewtwo
DeleteRight. So the fact that my parents saved, sacrificed, and stayed together so that my siblings and I could achieve is "white privilege"?
ReplyDeleteIs "white privilege" a secret code word for "I'm jealous and angry that I don't have what you have"? It sure seems like that. Penis envy is unbecoming of one who claims to be part of "thinking humanity".
What's the phrase for people of color who share "Richard's" lottery-winning situation? They're out there, you know.
I feel sorry for you and your ilk. With apologies to George Bailey, what a warped, frustrated man you are.