A Christmas Gift

Hope you enjoy this heartwarming Yuletide tale...

Simple as ABC... (+ a Large Amount of Chagrin!)

Are you sitting comfortably boys and girls?...Then I’ll begin!

Once upon a time, there was a man called Mr. A. He did a picture (let’s call it Painting 1) that, at the time (although not now), he thought was pretty cool. He therefore put it where a lot of people could see it. Mr. B (who was something of an artist) saw Painting 1, presumably liked the idea, and so used it in his own picture (Painting 2). Now, some years after doing Painting 1 (4 years, in fact), Mr. A remembered the idea that inspired Painting 1 and did a similar picture (Painting 3). He then had the following conversation with Mr. C (who had seen Paintings 1, 2 and 3):

Mr. C: Your Painting 3 is kind of similar to Paintings 1 and 2, isn’t it?

Mr. A: Yes, I did Painting 1 a while ago. But I didn’t know about Painting 2 until you just showed it to me. Mr. B must have liked the idea and copied the design, which is…err…OK, I guess.

Mr. C: Ooooh! You big fibber, Mr. A! You know perfectly well you copied the idea from Mr. B's Painting 2! He showed me his picture ages ago (3 years ago, in fact)!

Mr. A: *Grrrrrrrhhhhhhh!!!!! 

*(Indicates extreme irritation and chagrin)

With the above sad story in mind, let me show you a picture (I tell you what, let’s also call it Painting 1!):

(Incidentally, Mr. A would be the first to admit that it’s not very good. He wouldn’t have let me post it here if it weren’t for the purpose of proving a point…)

Next, here’s Painting 2: …No, wait a minute, I can’t show you Painting 2. Apparently, Mr. B gets a bit upset if you post his pictures (he charges people to see them, you know) without permission—even when the idea involved was “acquired” from someone else.

And here’s Painting 3:

Now, in order to clarify a few things, let me draw your attention to this link which is one of the places where Mr. A originally posted Painting 1 (under the username “Tempit”). If you’re watching, Mr. C, please note the date of the post: 10-22-2012.

And just in case anyone has any doubts about the authorship of Painting 1, Mr. A let me have the following screenshot showing the working file (.rif file) for the image loaded into Corel Painter (which was his software of choice at the time). You might notice that the priestess is slightly different because I (or…ahem...rather Mr. A) subsequently experimented with the position of her head. In any case, you can see that the picture consists of a large number of separate layers—rather difficult to fake if you only have the final jpg image.

Well, boys and girls. I suspect you may already have guessed the identity of Mr. A (actually guys, Mr. A is me, you know, Lamivex—you got that didn’t you?) But if you want to know who Messrs. B and C are, you could do worse than wander over to the comments posted here.

I'm told by Mr. A that what would really make him happy is an apology from Mr. C for implying that he’s a liar, and that an honest word of acknowledgment from Mr. B would also be nice...

Mr. A: What’s that winging its way across the evening sky? It looks like...it couldn’t be!...but it is! It’s a Sus scrofa domesticus!!!

THE END

The Adjustian Ranger

This first piece is fairly subdued, but I hope you'll agree it also has a piquant 'nasty edge' to it! I had the idea quite a while ago, but never got round to developing it. Note that the story makes reference to Adjustia, and "snappers".