Who Says They Can't?

A bit of common 'wisdom' in our society is "Those who can - Do; Those who can't - Teach."

This notion is born out of our society's one true religion - Wealth*. Obviously, they'd be somewhere making more money than the ridiculously small amount the caretakers of the next generation are paid. Nobody in their right mind would be wasting their life making less money than was possible for them, right?

I mean, it's not like the education and future of our children is something that we consider any sort of priority. In fact, in today's world those both are considered resources to be mined and exploited for immediate wealth at the expense of future generations.

So, of course, those who Teach can't Do.

Allow me to offer a counter argument -

This lovely painting of Doctor Strange comes from the cover of Rocket Blast Comicollector, a fanzine from the 60s & 70s that featured a great pool of talent and the print equivalent of the dealer's room from conventions of later eras. I've been digging through old issues hunting for some of Grass Green's work from the time, but so far it's mostly been his contemporaries like Ronn Foss and Biljo White that have turned up.

Along the way, i stumbled across this painted cover to RBCC #80 and was reminded of the artist - John Adkins Richardson. Odds are, you're not familiar with him, eh?

Here's some of his comic work from the same year, coming to us from Wally Wood's magazine, Witzend #8 -

 From the following year (1972) in Fever Dreams #1, here's the tale of The Unicorn Quest.

As we see above, the man can Do, but the reason you likely haven't heard of him is because he chose to teach. Last i knew, he was the Professor Emeritus of Art and Design at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. He's got a few books out on the subject, too, including Modern Art And Scientific Thought (published the same year as the story above), The Complete Book Of Cartooning, and Art: The Way It Is.

We really need to drop a lot of silly, counterproductive notions like this from our collective thought.
And, y'know, invest in our children's future like any rational society would do.

art by John Adkins Richardson from RBCC #80, Witzend #8, and Fever Dreams #1 (1971, 1972)

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*(People may talk religion and teach children morality but, on the societal level, all that goes out the window and into the trash as soon as "real world" decisions need making. The one thing we truely worship is Money and, despite the frequent misquotes, it's Love Of Money that is the root of all evil. (Though that's not quite true - a great deal of evil is born of mere indifference and casual disregard, too))