If you've not yet heard the buzz, Mel Gibson is starring in an upcoming movie called The Beaver. It's a film about a "guy who walks around with a puppet of a beaver on his hand and treats it as a living creature." Mel Gibson plays Walter Black, a depressed man who finds a beaver puppet in the trash and believes it's real and is able to give him advice. When I saw the disconcerting photos of Mel running around yelling with the beaver puppet on his arm scattered across the internet, I was instantly hooked.
However, I wondered if the film would become a tad more interesting if it was the Beaver who found the Mel Gibson puppet in the trash and once sliding his arm inside the filthy and threadbare puppet, he could never get it off. To make it more improbable, perhaps the Beaver could be a recently unemployed, but highly educated and distinguished butler from London. Since there's no way to remove the Mel Gibson puppet from his arm, he has no choice but to be in service to it. The film follows the life of the tortured Beaver as he gracefully endures the tequila-guzzling exploits of the trash talking Mel Gibson puppet as it wreaks havoc across Malibu.
I even took a stab at revising the script, but apparently Kyle Killen's screenplay is brilliant and my version will never see the light of day. Oh well, back to the ole drawing board. Medium: Graphite on paper, digital color. An explanation of the artistic process is posted here. Much thanks to Amy for including Gallery of the Absurd among the list of 50 Excellent Graphic Design Blogs.
