Sketchbook: Alaska

I looked at the landscape. The landscape looked back. WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY PETER MOORE

A GUY FROM TEXAS IS SITTING IN A BAR, bragging about his state. How it has the biggest this. The most of that. The longest whatever.

Two seats down, a guy from Alaska patiently listens.

Finally the Alaskan can take no more, and tells the Bigmouth:

“If you don’t stop bragging,” he says, “we’ll tear Alaska in half, and then Texas will be the third largest state.”

I heard that joke twice while I was visiting Alaska, delivered by tour guides who had identified Texans in our midst. When I got back home, my friend Mark texted the joke to me. It was still funny, because like all great comedy, it was true.

Alaska is indeed huge, as I know after trying to stare it down for two weeks. The landscape was simply too enormous to comprehend. But I did try to stuff as much as I could into my sketchbook.