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MERRY CHRISTMAS

PaulEberhardt

on Dec. 23, 2010

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Coloured panel as a Christmas goodie. Please don't get too used to it, though, because I will have to reserve that for special occassions. It simply takes up too much time the way I do it at the moment.

This is my very own version of Santa Claus, just as I imagined him when a child. He basically looks like Santa traditionally used to look in our parts, even though the one known to children nowadays is of course the one you see on TV all around the world. (When I come to think of it, there isn't actually any real difference except for the cap). Also, I've always figured that Santa must talk with a Turkish accent, because St. Nicholas (which is his other name) originally was a bishop in Antalya, South East Turkey - yes, Virginia, that's where Santa really comes from! ;)

I had many good sources for the Turkish vocab, so there may be some hope I got it right. "Aslanım benim" means something like "my love", "my darling" or "my dear", while it literally translates as "my lion". I've known for quite a while that I just had to use that in some way - Turks are the most important minority in Bremen, after all.
"Hadi!" means what he says: "Get going!" or "Let's go!"

The last panel is partly inspired by a print I saw on a wall in a Chinese restaurant. I don't really know if tigers can climb as well as cats, actually, but if you ask me odds are that they not only can but are damn good at it, too. Anyway, I know to what extent a cat can surpass itself once it found a worthy plaything. I'm still with the squirrel, though. I like squirrels (even though they raid birds' nests in spring).
However, our cats managed to get them when they were young - I don't know to this day how they did that, but they did.

Guess we'll just have to wait and see.