What a delight to see my homage to Larson going viral on the interweb. It’s something I did for a few friends but it escaped and has a life of its own….
What’s the story? The British Violin Making Association ran a professional development restoration course at West Dean College for years, but we discovered that there were no photographs to help promote the course to other makers, so I brought my camera and did a photoshoot during the 2019. The workbench belongs to the college and there is a fine Lockey Hill Cello (London, c.1770) that incidentally belonged to my friends at Philip Brown Violins. It was undergoing restoration and that they brought with them to the course.
I’m not sure what came first, but I love Larson’s rocket scientist gag… it has to be one of his best, and so the homage was born, but somehow I reckoned that I could superimpose the cello onto the rocket. It had to be expanded to cover everything, so it’s about the size of the double bass – although, its a cartoon; when does scale really matter? I did a tiny bit of photoshop cleverness to extend the nail into the right place on the cello belly for the sound-post. Last of all I had fun with the blackboard, changing it from rocket science to cello setup (the same thing, really) and added my initials discretely, B.H. at the bottom of it. That was a wise thing to do as it seems to have gone around the world dozens of times.
I like this kind of montage when the mood takes me, and I like to leave them a little bit crude, so that they pay homage to the original cartoonist rather that taking (too much) credit for myself. I hope the internet continues to let this give a little bot of joy around the world. Happy Christmas, whatever day it may be!
