The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

[proto57]

The artist of the Florentine Codex when he simplified the complex shapes of an armadillos hide drew a curving grid.  The theory is that Wilfrid drew an armadillo with wavy lines the way you did.

This reasoning was to determine if it is a common way a cartoonist/artist would represent this animal?  If I had found lots of cartoons drawn the same way, I could say it was a common way to perceive an armadillo (and I'm being overly pedantic) and use that as support that the intention of the drawing in the VM was an armadillo.  Instead this makes it increasingly unlikely that anyone drawing an armadillo would use wavy scale shapes since your cartoon was the only one I could find.

No, not at all, Legit. You have totally misunderstood the purpose of my cartoon. It was, as I said, just a cartoon... meant to be a lighthearted, loose interpretation of the imagined "battle between the Pangolin and the Armadillo" for the place of identification as the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. animal. So the theory is not at all that "Wilfrid drew an armadillo with wavy lines the way you did." I seem to remember thinking of (alternatively) drawing a cartoon scene of an armadillo and pangolin in a ring, boxing. But never with any consideration as to any of the reasons you are thinking were my intent. I mean, last I saw, pangolins don't work in bars, anyway! But maybe armadillos do drink... many animals do. Deer love rotten apples in the fall, they get drunk. 

My cartoon has absolutely nothing to do with why I think Wilfrid drew the armadillo the way he did. For that, I would say it was simply his loose interpretation of how his imagined 17th century artist might draw one, based on his understanding of what a real one looked like, perhaps, combined with how the Gesner armadillo was drawn. That's it.

And the "Florentine Codex" reference is from the work of the good Janick and Tucker, not me. Off the top of my head, I can't remember even if Wilfrid could have seen it anyway... but that is a moot point to my theory. 

When I draw cartoons, as opposed to attempting to draw genuine animals/people/objects, I am not thinking of how others would draw them, or did draw them, they are "on the fly" and loose interpretations of that thing. They are just trying to humorously describe a real situation in an allegorical, fanciful way, and not meant to be "real" in any sense at all.

Here is one I did to send to my daughter years ago, teasing her about contacting me more often, and sending me a picture I wanted... i.e., that I was just "Chopped Liver" to her. No, I don't look like a can of chopped liver, and clams don't have eyes, and she does not look like that, etc...