Tomato's ART studies: Live with yourself as a postmodernism art

Live with yourself is a comic strips made by Shen Comix. It is the story about a guy, who lives with himself, himself and himself. He broke the timeline and now he lives with four versions of him from different timelines. The original character is called Todd (for today), he wears a green hoody. The second character is Tomo (for tomorrow), in a blue hoody, with stubble on his face. He is tomorrows version of Todd, so he kind of knows Todd’s future for one day, and whatever Todd do would almost immediately affect Tomo. There is also Babs – baby version of Todd, and Oldy – the grandpa (old Todd).

So the story tells about their living together and it is full of humour and irony. Self-irony is illustrated really interestingly in the comic strips because the main characters could be considered as one person, and their sarcasm towards each other is basically self-irony, but with several characters involved.
For example, in the 9^th episode, Tomo tells how stupid should be the person to buy something like this (pic.1). And in the next frame, Todd says he bought that exact thing. Tomo should know what he as Todd have done yesterday, so it was defiantly a joke upon himself.

In the 18^th episode, Tomo and Todd are hugging and telling “you suck” to each other (pic.2). They are telling rude words, but at the same time, they are illustrating sympathy towards each other with a sincere hug.

In episodes 28 and 29 Todd has a choice to make, so Tomo split into several exaggerated versions of himself (pic.3-5) representing Todd’s future depending on the choice he would make. Several versions (identities) of Tomo are conflicting with each other because all of them are something Todd could be. There is also a bit of irony when Tomo with red horns says he is the good decision of the future, while his appearance clearly says he is not. This joke was replied two times, but then Tomo discovers there is a third decision and “evil” Todd actually was a good one.

Sometimes the author makes parodies on other popular artworks, such as a classic JoJo reference in episode 32 (pic.6). The strange pose of Tomo which is significant for the JoJo series, and the image of Babs (especially his eyes) makes a clear parody of the main characters of the anime and manga and their stands (pic.7).
In episode 46 Shen makes a parody on the famous Scooby-Doo cartoon (pic.8), changing the proportions of characters making them unusual for these comic strips, and changing the clothes from hoodies into shits main male characters were wearing (pic.9).

Also, some personal musical preferences could be seen, since they are represented in the names of episodes. Episodes 34 and 35 are named “Blood on your Face” and “Big Disgrace” – the lyrics of the “We will rock you” by Queen. Episode 37 – “A Kind of Magic” has the same name as one of the Queens albums. Episode 41 is named “Tomorrow Comes Today” same is one of the Gorillaz songs. Those referrals are representing Shen’s interest in rock music.

Reference list:

Webtoon (2017) Live with yourself! Available at: https://www.webtoons.com/en/comedy/live-with-yourself/list?title_no=919 (Accessed: 12 October 2021)

Webtoon Wiki (2017) Live with yourself! Available at: https://webtoon.fandom.com/wiki/Live_with_Yourself! (Accessed: 12 October 2021)