so, apparently there are these people who study these things called "oceans"...

i have this ongoing thingy-thing with the oceanography department of halifax's dalhousie university: they have a decades-old tradition of honouring students who are defending their theses with caricatures of themselves. the backgrounds of these caricatures are generally full of details and visual puns referring to the topic of the thesis in question. they've had several different artists over the years doing them, and i'm the current one (since late 2008, if i remember correctly). i don't claim to understand any of the visuals. i just draw what they tell me to draw. don't try to "get" these. you'll hurt yourself. but here are just a few of my particular favourites: