Rocketman-oh-man

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

As I mentioned in the post below, this is one tough cookie to read. Not that you read cookies. Anyways, there are 400+ characters and countless subplots and tangents, so it is basically like reading 15 different books at once. Which isn't the best for a straightforward storyline, but is quite good for illustrating!

The aforementioned Slothrop is rather special: Apparently, whenever he "gets intimate" with a female, a bomb strikes whatever location the action took place soon afterwards. This "ability" sets off a number of things, one being that people want to keep tabs on him. Another is that he gets dubbed "Rocketman" and sort of has a superhero status.

I'm sorry, I don't think I mentioned that this takes place during World War II, and Slothrop is a young (and promiscuous) lieutenant in the British army. There we go; consider it mentioned.

People send him off on various missions. The sketch above depicts Rocketman, in his Rocketmannish attire (a white Zoot suit and a helmet made from the nose cone of a rocket), stealing a bag of hashish for one of his fellow soldiers. He runs into Mickey Rooney there, in a comical scene where nothing is said, and pretty much nothing happens. But how random is that? Imagine stuff like that for 800 pages. I didn't draw Mickey Rooney because I really don't know what he looks like. Or what he looked like during World War II.

All that being said, I think I might have one more Gravity's Rainbow sketch in me. It will be from a very small part in the book (maybe three pages) that made me laugh out loud. Think three stooges, but in fighter planes. Check back soon!