Art and commentary by Kimberly Harris

Posts tagged ‘bigfoot’

The Bigfoot Family Goes for a Sunday Drive

Mr & Mrs Bigfoot, Junior Bigfoot and their two terriers are riding in a classic convertible

The Bigfoot Family of sasquatches is taking a Sunday drive in their classic 1953 Ford Crestline Sunliner convertible to reminisce about the carefree days before instant communications and social media spawned a generation of pesky cryptozoology zealots.

Contrary to some scientific theories based on data extrapolated from known species of large primates, Sasquatches actually live extraordinarily long lives. Papa Bigfoot can remember way back to the times that predate mechanized transportation when the only humans he encountered in the wilderness were on foot or on horseback. But one day, the tranquility of the woods was shattered when a noisy chattering Ford Model T Ford emerged from the trees belching noxious fumes as it worked its way up a hill. These invasions of their once tranquil domain persisted and grew more frequent. Then, in the 1960s, a flood of cheap pulp magazines featuring sensational accounts of frightening human interactions with Sasquatches hit the newsstands and launched an era of annoying Bigfoot enthusiasts, researchers and hunters.

The Bigfoot family made the difficult decision to move deeper into the forest to avoid contact with these ghastly mechanical abominations and their loathsome occupants that were now appearing throughout the country. For this reason, Sasquatches are not seen as frequently today as in the past when humans and Sasquatches routinely interacted with Native Americans and traded firewood for food. It is said that some tribes even learned to communicate with Sasquatches using their own language which is characterized by crude vocalizations consisting of whistles, grunts and birdlike chirps.

Or so they say…

The truth is that Sasquatches have learned English and other human languages and can carry on a perfectly credible telephone conversation without arousing any suspicions on the part of the person they are communicating with. The Bigfoot Family routinely orders takeout from a local Chinese restaurant which they pay for with money filched from sleeping hikers’ backpacks. When a delivery is imminent, they leave it on a picnic table for the delivery person to find before retreating into the woods.

Sasquatches are known to have supernatural abilities that allow them to escape detection. They can use hypnosis and low-frequency infrasound to induce short-term memory loss in people who have seen them. Junior Bigfoot once used telepathic suggestion to get free extra cheese on a pizza that the family had delivered to a park on the outskirts of town. Earlier on, before he started his family, Papa Bigfoot opened up a trans-dimensional portal into Dearborn, Michigan and drove a brand new 1953 Ford Crestline Sunliner convertible right off a dealer’s showroom back into the portal while the salesman was in the office struggling to close a sale on it with a reluctant customer. Junior has christened the car “The Fortean Falcon” and enjoys the family excursions in the mountains with their two terriers, Meldrum and Heuvelmans. They use their capability of becoming invisible to avoid creating a distraction for other drivers on the road.

Illustration by Kim Harris
Story by Don Rudisuhle

N.B. The author has never seen a Sasquatch, but he has actually gone for a ride in a real-life restored Ford Model T. During the years he lived in Mexico he drove a 1956 Buick Special convertible not unlike the Bigfoots’ 1953 Ford.

Strange Love

Margaret sits on a bench flanked by two suitors, Swamp Creature and Bigfoot.

Two improbable suitors are competing for young Margaret’s affections.

Love can be strange when you’re torn between two lovers and feeling somewhat like a fool. Poor Margaret has to make up her mind this Valentine’s Day. Who, or in this case, what does she prefer? Will it be surf or turf? Whose heart will she break?

Illustration by Kim Harris

Bigfoot and Chupacabra Celebrate Cinco de Mayo

Bigfoot and a Chupcabra are drinking beer

Bigfoot and Chupi Chupacabra quaff a cold one to celebrate Cinco de Mayo

To celebrate Cinco de Mayo, Bigfoot and Chupi Chupacabra met at a bar at an isolated location in Mexico to share a cold beer and tell spellbinding stories about their adventures frightening tourists, hikers and bird watchers.

Para celebrar el Cinco de Mayo, el Pie Grande y Chupi Chupacabras se reunieron en una cantina en un sitio aislado en México para compartir una cerveza helada y contar cuentos apasionantes de sus aventuras asustando a turistas, excursionistas y observadores de aves.

The Birth of Bigfoot

Boticcelli's Bigfoot stands in a clamshell surrounded by extraterrestrials

The Birth of Bigfoot

Art historians in Florence, Italy call an impromptu press conference to announce a shocking discovery regarding an image found to lie underneath a famous Renaissance painting.

Earlier this year, museum curators at the famed Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, Italy removed 15th century painter Sandro Botticelli’s masterpiece, the “Birth of Venus” from public display so that it could undergo routine cleaning and maintenance. At the museum’s art restoration laboratory, a team of highly experienced conservation and restoration experts employed three-dimensional infrared technology to look beneath the original layer of paint in order to help determine the cause of the 15th century painting’s slow deterioration. What they found shook the foundations of the art history community.

It is not unusual in the case of historical works to find an earlier painting or sketch by the artist underneath a well-known masterpiece, as was the case with Da Vinci’s “Virgin on the Rocks.” However, in most instances, those images were revealed to be sketches that were the basis of the final work, or occasionally, simply a painting that the artist was not satisfied with, leading him to recycle the canvas for a future project.

However, the experts’ scan revealed a shockingly different image that immediately gave rise to centuries-old conspiracy theories and suggestions of a Renaissance era cover-up. For more than five centuries Botticelli’s masterpiece concealed a sinister secret. The image that appeared on the restorers’ computer screens was not a fantasy with Greco-Roman roots, but rather depicted a creature that is all too well-known by present day enthusiasts of cryptozoology and the paranormal: Bigfoot.

Historians speculate that this image may potentially lend credence to the long-held theory that Bigfoot, the Yeti, the Chupacabra and other creatures of legend and folklore may in fact have otherworldly origins. Most students of art history are aware of the abundance of images painted over the centuries that would appear to depict UFOs and their extraterrestrial occupants.

Fellow Florentine painter and Botticelli contemporary, Domenico Ghirlandaio painted his “The Madonna with Saint Giovannino” which clearly shows a mysterious glowing object suspended in the sky above Mary’s shoulder. Also from the same period, “The Annunciation” by Carlo Crivelli, shows an airborne disk directing a focused beam of light right through a building onto Mary’s head. Could visitors from another world have brought strange creatures to live among us, and to what end?

Scholars agree that Lorenzo de’ Medici ordered Botticelli to paint the canvas over because he feared that Savonarola, the Dominican monk who was at the time campaigning vigorously for the destruction of immoral art might denounce it as an act of heresy and order its authors to be punished.

Illustration by Kim Harris

Implausible yarn by Don Rudisuhle