Oilfield’s Ablaze! (Old Sketchbook Doodle)
Here’s a crappy-quality sketch I put down in my sketchbook a few years ago. I think this is from 2003, I was feeling a bit cynical about Bush, oil wars, SUVs, American urban planning, lack of good mass transit, and the troubles of being a cyclist. At least there’s a happy ending!
I’ve put a transcript down below, since some of the handwriting is hard to read.
OILFIELD’S ABLAZE!
America’s jowels drop as gas prices soar!
(hugest SUV ever)
Family’s gaze in horror at the terrifying images of war.
America’s highway system seizes and becomes a vast network of parking lots.
Suddenly, the absence of a functional public transit system becomes apparent.
The economy buckles as fearful (and sluggish) consumers cling to the safety of their sofas.
Ok, it seems weird, but all of a sudden everything switches up and people start riding bikes all over.
October 9th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Ha! This is a hot comic Sally. Suggestion for episode II - a healthy bike ride in the morning air makes congress members care about the environment. Accordingly, they require that 3/4 of all (now unused) parking lots are converted to solar collectors.
October 9th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
Ahaha, I love the ending! Reminds me of Matt Sutter’s comics over at Inkfinger.
High five!
October 9th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
@Sally: My favorite panel is “Families gaze in horror at the terrifying images of war.” That rocks.
@Jake: Parking lots already are solar collectors, just not the kind we want! :-P (They convert solar radiant energy into conductive and radiant thermal energy.) Neat idea.
October 10th, 2006 at 1:28 am
@Tim: Hmm, right you are - I’m ashamed that my two semesters of Thermodynamics failed to help me realize that (though I did do quite poorly in Heat Transfer). Imagine if we laid pipes in the asphault when we poured it - then used our massive parking lots to heat our water (and perhaps our air).
October 10th, 2006 at 8:59 am
Now that’s a workable idea! I suppose you could pump the water deeper into the ground and back again, creating a thermal pump, which could then drive a generator…
Don’t mind us, Sally, we’re just implementing your comic strip. :-P
October 10th, 2006 at 10:27 am
Haha, this is great. Wow I just realized that if we could get Dane, Jake, and Tim together (perhaps at next years SXSW? eh? eh?) you could probably solve most of the world’s problems in an afternoon.
October 11th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
SXSW? OMG yes!
We will conquer the world with math.
October 12th, 2006 at 12:49 am
We will conquer the world with meta.
October 12th, 2006 at 12:53 am
SXSW - I’m already signed up (so is Dane).
Allow me to nerd out a bit more on the parking lot idea:
Not only do parking lots already act as great solar radiation collectors - they also are a bit like oceans w/ tides. Cars pile on top of them in the morning, then slide off at night - like tides on a beach. Along those same lines, if the entire parking lot was on a spring-loaded raised platform, you could turn a generator w/ the weight of the cars. Cars drive on in the morning - turn the generator one way as the parking lot sinks — cars drive off at night, and the springs/pneumatics/whatever push the platform back up. They already do this with ocean tides — why not with car tides?
We might actually have a shot at this “all the worlds problems” thing.
October 12th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
SXSW is one of those things I would love to go to but in the end won’t be able to make, such as Wikimania and @media.
October 12th, 2006 at 10:14 pm
@Jake - You are a genius, what do we need to do to make this happen?
@Tim - Bummer! I guess you have school, hu?