Shmorky: The Lost Collection – is a series of nearly-lost artworks commissioned from Shmorky beginning around the year 2001. It has been found and made available to collectors here as NFTs.
Shmorky was a webcomic artist and animator known for his work with SomethingAwful.com’s Flash Tub series, among other works. He also maintained a (now defunct) personal art blog at Butthug.com.
His commissioner, who goes by the name “Dr. J”, ordered the art in this collection for her business. She preserved these pieces of artwork for nearly two decades prior to being offered as NFTs in Shmorky: The Lost Collection.
Here is her telling of the story behind the art and its artist:
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In 2001, when I was too old to get hired by anyone, I started a company, an LLC, to develop and commercialize some intellectual property. I had very little idea how to run a company, but was good at getting people to volunteer. An out-of-work sales guy tried to help and finally asked me to make something he could use as a calling card. I already had a website and other typical things, but they really didn’t represent the ideas I had, which were about helping teams actually work. Paying attention to reality had a lot to do with it, which apparently I got across when I met Shmorky.
“Ms. Blaze”, a character from the collection inspired by the likeness of Dr. J
Like almost all of the other uniquely interesting people I have met, we were introduced by my late son, who had also introduced me to the coder who has worked with me since the beginning. And, a lot of very nice people who, because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or people of “fur” status, had been rejected by their own families. They were always welcome at our table and I would give and get a lot of hugs with the not unexpected wishes that I were their mom. Shmorky was not like them in that respect.
I was a therapist for many years, so I will try to explain Shmorky in a less dense way than I would ordinarily be wont to do.
He was a roommate, which meant that he was supposed to pay my son an amount toward the rent, utilities, and food. Because he didn’t have a real job, nor family to help, he was generally late or broke. My son didn’t really make enough to fund the entire project, so I knew I would be on the hook either way, since I’m pretty sure I co-signed his lease. My late husband and I took them to Chinese buffet so I could meet him, since my son had mentioned maybe I could hire Shmorky to do cartoons for my presentations. (I mostly did training and consulting, which involved PowerPoint. I hated clip art, and could not draw.) It was not even close to My Dinner with Andre, in case you were wondering.
The meeting place, Grand China Buffet in Philadelphia.
Shmorky sat opposite me and might have mumbled a greeting or sign of recognition that I was a sentient being, but I cannot be sure of that. I’m pretty sure he wore the kind of watch cap some men wear when they are not happy about their hair, but he gave off the ‘please don’t look at me’ vibe so I tried not to notice. He had a small pad and drew through the whole dinner. No, I don’t remember what he ate, but this was a Chinese buffet. I’m pretty sure it was the opposite of what I chose. (That is, vegetables and low carb stuff for me, everything else for him.)
Shmorky (aka Dave Kelly) in different styles throughout his life.
What struck me most was his lack of strong characteristics. He was amorphous. Sort of a shapeless blob, not in a physical sense, although I doubt he had much muscle tone, but in his aura. (Not a mystical thing, I mean like what he gave off. Normally people attract other people in some way. You are either attracted or repelled by another person – sometimes you are confused because they are sort of a pushmi-pullyu – but you have a response to them which is dependent on both you and them. I am a high-valence person. People generally either really like me or really dislike me, usually a sign of fear. I rarely encountered someone with no apparent externally-focused energy.)
I knew I would have to handle him gently or he might dissolve, like three day old lime green jelly-like non-food on a left out institutional tray. Not my usual style, which was to order people around. Well, maybe not that bad, but pretty much tell them what to do. (Which I actually hate to do. I like people with integrity, initiative, and curiosity, pretty much in that order.)
He showed me (with a lot of prompting) what he was drawing and it was a Purple Pussy sort of creature. Pink, like a bunny shape, as I remember. Still, he obviously could draw and I could not and he needed money and I had very little. So I asked him if he could make me cartoons of people if I described them. He mumbled he would and I agreed to pay him $5 or $10 a picture.
“Purple Pussy”, an early Shmorky webcomic
These were used in various projects over the ensuing years, but at one point, some of the people associated with the company I started made it clear they freaking hated them. You would wonder why I didn’t keep the art and dump those people. I didn’t only because I couldn’t. They were wrong. And worse, they did all manner of bad things. But I was stuck with them, so the art reverted to me alone, with my agreement to not use them in conjunction with the company’s name, in exchange for my not getting paid.
One example of the works in the collection.
I did reprint my favorite story in a book, copyrighted to me, which is out of print and off the market. The printed version had the art in black and white. Mainly the book sold to the company so they could give it away. I did get asked to do a TEDx from it, but the people involved were still jerks, and my husband of over 30 years was dying of a horrible neurological disease, so with all the work, I forgot about the art. It stayed in a file on my computer, though, and you know that means pretty much forever. I recently found the trove of digital art, the very end of 2021.
And so, at this point having filed the copyright and made some copies, I had myself an artist-sort-of-in-residence. That is, he showed up at Chinese restaurants when we were taking the kids out. My daughter was probably there at times, but says she has no memory of him. This is, I believe, completely understandable, unless you are into his productions. This has to do with the science of relationships.
Grand China Buffet’s food selection.
Most people want relationships in their lives, no matter their identity, desired partner(s), and/or additional desires, needs, or what people often misname – fetishes. These should more properly be termed preferences or (if no relationship is possible without them) essential preferences.
In order to understand Shmorky, it’s useful to understand that when people can’t sustain the stress of in-person relationships, they may resort to either or both of completely internal fantasies (which are completely under the control, conscious or not, of the individual, therefore they include the type of online fantasy that is with someone they do not know, perhaps someone they rent by the minute, and with a bot or similar non-human) and consensual but distant relationships. These often start online, and may live out their lifetimes online. However, at the insistence of one of the parties, the interaction may migrate to the real world, in person.
An early Shmorky fetish art, believed to be a self-insert
What leads me to believe that Shmorky was vulnerable to that type of relationship was that he did express some desire to have one (not to me, to my son) and that he had great difficulty navigating in the real world.
His presence was extremely diffuse in nature, like the bands of hazy light that are on the outer rings of light from a weak flashlight. This quality can be measured, and I am the inventor of the technology, but Shmorky was not going to be a willing participant so I had to rely on my own feel for what was going on inside him. (At this point, I had been a therapist for a couple of decades and could get a decent enough sense after a few encounters.)
When people who have this low a level of coherence, they are easy to push around, both in business and personal life. This does not mean that they will not push back, but they are often led by the last person who was nice to them. If they encounter someone with whom they develop enough of a pleasurable relationship, there is a good chance that person will interact in a rather rigid manner, and will thus tend to cut the partner off from other relationships. They may even become abusive (in an undesired way.)
What is often a weakness is one sense is a strength in another. It was that way with Shmorky. I was always careful not to compare his work for me with the other work of his which was on the web, at that time mostly on Something Awful as I recall. In fact, I didn’t bring it up. I just marveled at his ability to do even better than I had asked for. Sometimes I gave him some extra money because he obviously needed some positive reinforcement and nothing else seemed to have an effect. I realized he had the ability to reach people with his own art in a way that I never could do.
Daisy, Shmorky’s drawn avatar.
So, I am not exactly sure when his troublesome girlfriend hit the scene, but Shmorky was becoming more of a problem. Although my son never complained, I suspect he was tired of picking up after Shmorky, and likely so were the other roommates at the time. All I remember was my son asking me what could be wrong. It sounded like she influenced him in a negative direction, but since I never met her it would be unethical of me to even guess at a diagnosis. As for Shmorky, I have no idea if he is alive.
When my first business book came out in 2014, I tried to contact him but do not have evidence he replied. Emails change – memory fades – and it would not be surprising to find out that he lives completely off the grid. I gave up, because he was not entitled to royalties or anything. I just thought he would like to know that the characters lived on.
