Master satirist tackles the contract everyone agrees to but no one
reads
"Mischievous, pastiche-heavy artist Robert Sikoryak...upped the
difficulty level for his long-term conceptual project: Instead of
abridging a book, he lifted the complete text of Apple's mind-numbing
corporate boilerplate, which users must agree to before accessing
iTunes, and mashed it up with art invoking more than a century of
comics."--New York Times
For his newest project, R. Sikoryak tackles the monstrously and
infamously dense legal document, iTunes Terms and Conditions, the
contract everyone agrees to but no one reads. In a word for word 94-page
adaptation, Sikoryak hilariously turns the agreement on its head--each
page features an avatar of Apple cofounder and legendary visionary Steve
Jobs juxtaposed with a different classic strip such as Mort Walker's
Beatle Bailey, or a contemporary graphic novel such as Craig
Thompson's Blankets or Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis.
Adapting the legalese of the iTunes Terms and Conditions into another
medium seems like an unfathomable undertaking, yet Sikoryak creates a
surprisingly readable document, far different from its original, purely
textual incarnation and thus proving the accessibility and flexibility
of comics. When Sikoryak parodies Kate Beaton's Hark A Vagrant peasant
comics with Steve Jobs discussing objectionable material or Homer
Simpson as Steve Jobs warning of the penalties of copyright
infringement, Terms and Conditions serves as a surreal record of our
modern digital age where technology competes with enduringly ironclad
mediums.
