I saw this on Farcaster yesterday and was deeply affected by it, I don't know why.
Maybe it is where I am in life, or in my career, that made it resonate so deeply with a part of me I didn't know (or had forgotten) existed. But that story is for another time. Today I want to talk about my little odyssey to find the creator of this comic.
Part 1: The Cast
The first time I saw it was in a quote-cast.
Oh wow, I thought, this is deep. It is a warning and a reminder and an inspiration to take action all rolled up into a single image. Who made it, and why?
Driven by curiosity, I searched the words.
Part 2: The Quote
I first came across the originator of the quote, Antonio Gramsci.
Okay this is good, but given that he lived in the 1890s ~ 1930s, he is not the author of the comic itself. I read up about the context of the quote, which refers to the transition time between hegemons, where the old order dissipates into chaos before a new order may form. Yes. I keep on searching.
Part 3: The First Tweet
I find an earlier reference to the meme on X, posted at the end of January 2024. Now we are getting somewhere, there is a name: Gerry Canavan. I search for Gerry Canavan on X, but there are too many to make sense of the results.
Will the real Gerry Canavan please stand up?
Part 4: The Blog
I search "Gerry Canavan time of monsters" and I scroll, I scroll and I scroll. Finally, I find it. A blog entry from December 23, 2021!
I take time to read through Gerry Canavan's tweets, which are very entertaining. A talented poaster. I wish he was on Farcaster.
I think I have found it, I think I am done. However, something troubles me. Is this comic his own creation? It's not like it is a recurring style in his tweets or blog entries.
Did I really find the source?
Part 5: The Second Tweet
It's time to pull out the big guns. I open Google Image search and do a lookup with the original image. It reconfirms the earlier tweet, but also pulls up another tweet with a similar comic, and this time, we have a signature!
I cannot make out the signature, so I decide to run an image search using this second comic, hoping to find the artist.
Part 6: The Third Tweet
For whatever reason, this second image search brings me to yet another tweet of the original comic I was looking for. It has the earliest timestamp of them all, but still no indication of who is the artist.
I finally give up. Okay, ChatGPT please help me with the signature.
Thank you.
Part 7: The Artist
I make it to Jeremyville. Yes, the artistic style matches, this is definitely the place.
And I finally find it.
I read the comic. I read it again. And again. While it is a beautiful piece, it is not the meme I had originally searched for. Someone had altered it along the way. The comic artist was not the meme creator. Still, it was liberating to finally be able to know the source.
On Provenance
If there is one thing I was reminded about on this goose chase, it's the importance of provenance. So much of internet culture is based on remixes, and original sources of such creations can be lost in time. On the one hand there is the charm of something ephemeral, an artifact that exists only in the here and now. On the other hand, artists should be credited so that their work is recognized and they receive due credit, visibility, and renumeration.
Blockchain fixes this.
PS, if you would like to know why provenance is important for ancient tea bowls as well, have a read of this article as well 
The Time of Monsters
The stability of the old order giving way to chaos, before the stability of a new order can be established.
Deep down I think I've always had an aversion to chaos, like it was something to struggle against and subdue. In life and work, like building a sand castle as waves crash against it's crumbling walls. And the monsters are at the gates.
But chaos also means change. In times of transition there are windows of opportunity to make things better, to evolve, to improve. Maybe the time of monsters is the perfect opportunity to set out on an adventure.
This meme made me realize this.
