The Consumption

A dark, funny, twisted, awful and strangely compelling video from animator David O’Reilly, The External World reminds me a lot of Don Hertzfeld, only even more blatantly offensive. It falls somewhere between Hertzfeld’s Rejected and his most recent mental illness trilogy on the ridiculous/profound continuum — there are moments of genuine slapstick as well as some pretty shockingly bleak images, and a melancholy that’ll probably linger with you for a few days. But if you’re looking to spend 20 minutes today on something that’s as close to diametrically opposed to all the Valentine schmaltz out there as possible, you could do worse.

Not kidding about the “not safe for work” bit, though. Consider yourself warned.