If you haven’t been reading a web comic/blog called Zen Pencils, you really ought to check it out. I discovered it this past summer — you may recall that I reposted one of its cartoons back in July, if you can really apply such a pedestrian term as “cartoon” to these wonderful works of art — and since then it seems like it’s only gotten better and better. The artist is a chap named Gavin Aung Than, and what he does is take a quotation or a poem or some portion of a great speech, and then he illustrates it. The results are usually charming, occasionally brilliant, and often deeply moving. Here’s one that brought me to tears: I’ve never before encountered this poem, never heard of Charles Hanson Towne, but the lines about life being “a swift and terrible race” and “now we are busy, tired men” resonate terribly with my own preoccupations and resentments. Add in Than’s simple, evocative, and beautiful art… well, I thought this piece was one of the truest and most heartbreaking things I’ve ever run across. I’d seriously consider buying a print of this if (a) I didn’t already have scads of artwork needing to be framed and hung up, and (b) I thought I could look at this every day without feeling cold fingers flicker across my heart…  absolutely devastating.

Original source here.