Kind of feeling like the HTML Giant Grim Reaper. James Greer’s blog mentioned the death of cartoonist John Callahan.

When Callahan was 21, he was in a car accident that left him a quadriplegic. He was, as the video above illustrates, a drunk. He and a friend were bar hopping when the accident happened.

He held his pen between both his hands to draw his cartoons. His drawings were, because of that, simple and crude. His humor, too, could be crude—sometimes juvenile, sometimes a little (or a lot) discomfiting. He poked fun at his disability, and at the 12-step recovery process that pulled him out of his alcohol addiction. He was, way back when the phrase meant something, politically incorrect*. And because of that, he was kind of brilliant.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztSuZK7Hiu4&feature=related

Bye, John. Thanks for making me squirm.

A documentary about Callahan:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7dMBCB3t70&feature=related

QUADS!:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88Kj3H2R8P0&feature=related

* Maybe it’s just me, but now when I hear someone talk about political correctness and political incorrectness, the individual railing against our “politically correct” culture is just some bigot trying to justify the fact that he said something stupid and bigoted. Maybe it’s just me.