It’s Friday. I have a long to-do list. And so I will skip right to the point of things.

I drew this fellow.

And, as requested, you attempted to guess his identity.

This week’s results were terribly gratifying. There was near-consensus about his identity (if somewhat less agreement about how is name should be spelled).

Actually, there were two schools of thought: Jimi Hendrix and Prince (or, to be more accurate, “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince”)

• Jimmy Hendrix!
• This is pretty spectacular. Jimi Hendrix, for sure!
• TAFKAP!!!
• Jimi Hendrix
• The artist formally know as Prince
• Jimi “Excuse me while I kiss this guy” Hendrix
• I’m going with Jimi Hendrix. I hope. Unless it’s a bad rendition of Prince. Which would be sad.
• Jimi Hendrix
• Jimmy Hendrix
• Jimmy Hendricks
• It’s Jimi Hendrix. The better question is, what on earth is that around his neck?
• Jimi Hendrix
• Prince! Unless this was during his “artist formerly known as” period, then it is Love Symbol.
• Jimmy Hendricks as a backup dancer in the “Thriller” video.
• Jimmy Hendrix
• Jimi Hendrix!
• Jimi Hendrix
• Jimi Hendrix
• Prince
• Prince
• Classic Hendrix!
• Hendrix?
• WOW! HENDRIX! You are awesome. I knew it would happen – you would accidentally get better at drawing. This fun is time-limited.
• This is, dare I say it, pretty good. Jimi Hendrix.
• Mick Jagger
• Prince after a three day bender
• Prince or Jimi Hendrix
• Little Richard
• Jimmi Hendricks! He spells his name “Jimmi,” right?
• The artist formerly known and Prince

 

I am shocked and pleasantly so by the number of you who correctly identified this person. Before I reveal the correct answer, let me share the range of speculations.

• Oh dear. Harriet Tubman? Unless it’s a man. Sorry Harriet Tubman! Or Mr. Non-Harriet-Tubman!
• Amish Amy Sedaris
• Emily Dickinson
• Betsey Ross
• Yes. 1640’s Boston. It’s Hester Prynne, of Scarlet Letter fame. Very clever to cut off the drawing just above her blouse where the letter would be
• Holly Hunter in The Piano. Unless you’re doing an ode to Grant Wood….
• Kelly McGillis in Witness.
• Holly Hunter in the Piano
• The woman on the wall at Shrewsbury Church
• Ada Lovelace, in her gambling period.
• Emily Dickinson
• Whoa. Harriet Tubman?
• Helen Keller? Wait, she seems to be staring quite intensly at me…or should I say through me…straight into my soul. Yea, def Helen Keller.
• Jane Austen. Or possibly Jack White with a neck kerchief.
• Emily Dickinson!
• Emily Dickinson
• Oscar Wilde
• E. Dickinson?
• Susan B Anthony
• Mia Wiasowski in Jane Eyre … After she ran into a glass porch door and squished her nose
• Emily
• Sookie. Anna Paquin.
• Wow. That is one pissed off colonial broad.
• Adele Nazeem
• the gothic farmer’s wife (who I think was actually his sister in real life)
• Kate Winslet
• An Amish woman (perhaps inspired by your trip to Dutch Wonderland)
• One of the Brontës. Charlotte? Emily? Also, I just learned how to do accented letters on my iPad, so thanks for the learning opportunity, Matthew Draws!
• Maybe Susan B. Anthony?

And now we step forward a few decades, with this sassy thing.

It is often the fetching young woman who proves my undoing, stumping you and leaving me hollow inside.

• I am stumped…
• A peacock with a really big face.
• Pink?
• Do you believe in miracles? Hilary Swank does.
• Kelly Osbourne
• Jennifer Lopez
• Christopher Walken
• I kind of want to say this is Pink, but those eyes . . . those eyes . . . they keep following me . . . Pink is a nice lady; she wouldn’t want to hurt people the way this lady clearly does.
• P!nk?
• Joan Collins from her Dynasty days. Those earrings are straight up ’80s.
• Homage to Joan Rivers pre-collagen-lip-implants, post-facelift? ‘Twas an unbalanced periold in the history of her cosmetic surgery
• Elizabeth Taylor. Or Dennis Rodman with a hairpiece.
• Oh, good lord, I have no idea, but those earrings look heavy.
• QVC- & meth-addicted Erma Bombeck
• Beyonce????
• Carmen DeLavallade
• Sarah Jessica Parker
• Don king
• The scary stepmom in every horror film?
• Ann B. Davis (I had to google her name of course – Alice of the Brady Bunch!)
• Megan Fox
• Beyonce doing her best RuPaul impression
• Joan Cusack
• I know it’s not Jennifer Anniston, but now that I have Jennifer Anniston in my head I can’t seem to see anyone else.
• Beyonce

I ended with a drawing of which I am truly proud. I’ll be curious to see if the rest of you agree that I captured the essence of this fellow if not his actual likeness.

And though many of you were stumped…

• A cross between Saul Bellow and Samuel Beckett. Or someone else with initials SB….
• I hope this isn’t James Franco in a very dramatic role.
• You know how in those Saturday morning cartoons, every so often they would have ‘cameos’ by old 1940’s actors, like Laurel and Hardy, or Humphery Bogart, or Groucho Marx? This looks like one of those characters. Growing up, I had no idea who they were supposed to be, and I still don’t know who was who. So, I’m going with Humphery Bogart. But it could be one of the others.
• A hungover Anthony Bourdain.
• Humphrey Bogart
• It is all of the above. It is everything. (Also, John Travolta.)
• Someone in robert downey jr.’s age group, and of his style.
• Jean Paul Sartre
• Bart Simpson
• Eric Begosian?
• Poor guy! Must be Robert Downey Jr.
• Christopher Walken
• Chris Noth

…about half of you were not.

• It’s not easy being Rodney Dangerfield.
• Middle-aged Rodney Dangerfield applying pressure to one of his notorious ‘ear bleeding episodes’. Geez, whats with all the deceased Jewish comedians this week?
• Rodney dangerfield’s young son Buddy
• Rodney Dangerfield getting no respect!
• Rodney Dangerfield. Or maybe Robert Downey Jr.
• Rodney Dangerfield cuddling a blankie
• Oh shit. This is actually quite good. That is, so long as it’s Rodney Dangerfield!

Please write a limerick dedicated to one of these fine examples of Matthew’s artistic prowess.

I fully expected that most (if not all) of you would balk at this challenge. After all, you are smart, busy, good-looking people with better things to do than spin verse on this blog. I was prepared for a long list of responses like these:

• Why you gotta go there?
• Limerick, really? You have to be kidding me! It took too much brain power to come up with my guesses. I have nothing left to write a limerick.
• Sorry. I got nothin’.

And I bear no grudge to those of you who chose not to wax poetic.

But let me state my delight to find this trove of incredible limericks waiting for me this morning. You people have outdone yourselves. Truly. Let it be known.

There once was a voodoo chile from Amherst
Her poems most certainly weren’t da worst
Her Verse was alive
And that ain’t no jive
At a poetry slam she’d have come first

Is it a kerchief or tie?
And what the hell’s wrong with that eye?
The giant duck nose
And colonial clothes
Make me think that this dame is a guy.

There once was a singer named Prince
His songs rocked, but they made parents wince
He could fit in a thimble
Changed his name to a symbol
And we’ve called him TAFKAP ever since

Alas the poor man is in pain,
An aspirin he needs for the strain.
When an artist inept
Drew him, he wept.
Rodney’s been disrespected again!

Number three is wearing a wig
She holds it on with a twig
There is nothing finer
Than her scary eyeliner
I think i’d rather kiss a pig

There once was a man from Nantucket
Who caught lobsters and fish in a bucket
He loved Matthew Draws
And fresh lobster claws
But he couldn’t find an appropriate rhyme for his limerick that could be published on a family-friendly blog such as Idiots Books, so he just submitted his guesses and waited for the inevitable disappointment when he found out that only one of the four was right after all

My comedy seems very direct
Social normals I often reject
But I’m not mean
I maybe a little obscene
Just my luck, I get no respect

There once was a woman called Ada,
who never had her family’s favour.
She wrote a book on wings,
designed algorithms and things,
and refused to listen to haters.

Emily Dickinson didn’t need rhymes
She slanted most of the times.
Jimi Hendrix was good,
If nearly misunderstood.
But the other two drawings are crimes.

There once was a one liner king.
White shirt and red tie were his bling.
He would oft pause to reflect
“I get no respect.”
Self-deprecation was his funniest thing.

There once was a rock musican
who ODd and was brought to the taxidermi-tion.
Brought back from the dead,
he turned his life on its head
And became a zombie-obstetrician.

There was once a great author named Jane
whose appearance was really quite plain.
Matthew’s skillful representation
makes me think without hesitation
that she and Jack White look the same.

There once was a frustrated comic
Adjusting his tie was his hallmark
He got no respect
His suit was a wreck
And his bug eyed condition was chronic

There was once a rock god most electric
Both metaphorically & literally pyrotechnic
But the flames from his Strat
Scorched that poor cat
Now he looks like he was hit w/ a brick

There once was a belle from Amherst
Who truly had a great thirst
Which she couldn’t quench
Not with words, not in French,
But – oh – she had hope So she didn’t mope.
She came out of her room evench.

There once was a man who was a writer
whose wife was a fantastic illustriter
He got it into his head
That he should draw instead
But he couldn’t have been any unrighter.

There once was a young man named Jimi
Who took to guitar with a shimmy
He came from the heart
Exuded his art
and his albums made listeners cry ‘gimme’

There once was a college of moo cows
Which taught all its students some know-how
But Williams aside,
Jimi looked quite fried,
After Watchtower brought down the hizz-ouse.

The Matthew Draws readership is the single most enlightened and talented group of blog-reading people the world has ever known. And you can quote me on that. You people make me smile. Thanks so much for making this so fun.

Here’s a little sneak peek for you. The next Idiots’Books volume (to be sent out within a week or so) is none other than history’s first-ever gloriously bound copy of Matthew Draws favorites.

This is our press proof (full of pink sticky notes to mark the places that needed adjustments). The corrected files have been returned to the printer, and a large crate of finished copies should arrive any day now.

Which is to say, if you are a Matthew Draws enthusiast who is not also an Idiots’Books subscriber, there is no better moment to join the fray. You can also preorder a single copy if so inspired.

Thanks again, you beautiful poets, you. I am inspired to keep drawing.