La Zona Muerta

Happy “Inoki died for our sins so we could enjoy hard boiled eggs or whatever and oh yeah, there’s something to do with rabbits, I think” day if you celebrate.

I drew this a few years back for fun. I’d do ten times better on a piece like this today, maybe more due to better understanding of the tools rather than a leap in skill, but the robe came out okay, I guess.

I can’t help but think of the Family International cult when I see a friendly little act of crucifixion

My parents made a big deal out of Easter. Not a big religious deal; they were largely agnostic, but more of a “we have a kid and enjoy the hiding the eggs” thing. By the time I was nine or ten, the egg hunt had turned into a strange but compelling riddle quest where I would have to ferret out the meaning of increasingly frustrating and occasionally oblique clues, some they gave me too much credit in assuming I could solve, in order to find treats, comics, even toys. I would sometimes end up with a pretty good haul, running around solving their little scavenger hunts. A simpler time, to be sure, when child and adult alike could be pacified with obscure trivia and clues. Eight or nine year old me, running around the yard and immediate neighborhood like a very low rent Encyclopedia Brown, decoding instructions to look for the next clue in the mailbox or the flowerbed or the neighbor’s fountain.

Inoki really *did* die for our sins, you know. Then he came back, laundered some money resulting from arms dealing, arranged for some tenuous international relations, caused a scandal or two and created a magnificent, floating island where men could fight other men. I mean, what do you think Inoki-ism was REALLY about? The right to fight to the death on an ersatz barge island, obviously. Ganryujima was merely prelude.

As you enjoy your hard boiled lamb eggs, smeared with mint jelly and hollow chocolate rabbit avatars, please think of the real meaning of the holiday. Cheap, plastic trinkets, frustrated parents demanding critical thinking, arms deals and a roast dinner.