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Purpose

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Explorer man tricorne hat cartoon. Comic cover. Valley trees cliffs drawing.
Man axe chopping wood cartoon. Logging fallen trees drawing. Forest dead emu. We are here to replace nature. To settle the land and tame the wild.
Kangaroos forest clearing drawing. Explorer man gun aiming cartoon. We must stop the chaos of nature and it’s useless wastes of our resources!
Dead kangaroo farmer sheep cartoon. Man walking through wheatfield drawing. Sugar cane rows, gridlines field. We choose the animals that can stand on our land. We choose the plants that receive our sun’s ray. For we are the ones chosen to lead this world!
Logged forest cartoon. Man with axe forest trees eyes drawing. The conquest must not rest! Our job is still to be done.
Nature into farmland cartoon. Deforestation drawing. Turning chaos into order. Nature into food. And food into people.
Wombat kookaburra drawing. Extinction environment humanity cartoon. Turning nature into people. That is our purpose.
Explorer man tricorn hat cartoon. Comic cover. Logged trees field horizon. Grid hills pollution drawing. We are here to restore nature.
Picking fruit cartoon. Fruit bat drawing flying foxes. Orchard netting. To share the land and respect the wild.
Kayak mangroves drawing. Man in canoe near bird lizard crocodile and cassowary. Barramundi fish crab underwater cartoon. We must value the chaos of nature and it’s constant creation of our resources.
Australian outback thorny devil lizard cartoon. Bush echidna man drawing. Learning from the strategies of other animals. Understanding the secrets of the plants. Discovering how to live successfully. Forever.
Logged forest, fallen trees drawing. Cartoon explorer hopping wallaby. The conquest must end. We have a new purpose now.
Mining nature cartoon. Nocturnal animals possum wombat drawing. Monoculture to polyculture fruit. Turning linear into circular. Uniformity into diversity. Creating a home for us. But not for us alone.
Outback tower drawing. Flying birds cockatoo cartoon. Australia explorer trees. To witness abundance. That is our purpose.
Outback tower drawing. Flying birds cockatoo cartoon. Australia explorer trees. To witness abundance. That is our purpose.Outback tower drawing. Flying birds cockatoo cartoon. Australia explorer trees. To witness abundance. That is our purpose.

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Humanity’s attitude toward nature. How did we get here? Where can we go from here? A comic by Stuart McMillen about nature and our civilisation’s mindset.

Read some reflections on my motivations for drawing the Purpose comic in the blog section of this website.

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Comments

Julian Acuna

20 November 2023

I love how he replaces nature (that’s me being sarcastic

Andre

20 October 2023

Is it possible to get the pdf so i can read it in papper ?? Thank you !! Great work

tin

6 March 2018

This comic is simply wonderful. Thank you!

Luke Keen

1 June 2015

love it!!!!! How can we make it possible though?

Thomas Cherian

9 December 2014

:)

julio

10 October 2014

Gracias! Son muy buenos!!

Samantha

22 September 2014

This was great - wonderful comics, all of them! I guess it might have been an distraction -and perhaps too much of a dig - to have the first 'conquerer' carrying a bible in his hand as he tamed the wilderness? ;-) As it turns out, according to Joseph Campbell, it was the forebears of the jews - the desert tribes who became the jews and then the christians to whom we owe our 'conquest of nature' cultural paradigm that the west inherited, as they were the first patriarchies who set about destroying the female-centric,nature-worshipping goddess religions...

Owaiz

26 August 2014

Refreshing perspective with brevity of comic art and intelligent treatment. Thank you, for I feel aware.

Saket Singh

19 July 2014

These are legendary comics.

Fabrice Vanegas

13 March 2014

Great work! Well done. This is a refreshingly creative way to look at an urgent topic.

Luke Keen

7 January 2014

Love this!!! we need thousands of Stuart McMillens to educate the world and share the love!

Han

21 September 2013

Absolutely love the comics! I was amazed to see in the comments so many references to Daniel Quinn, I had no idea that his books were so well read.

Adam

13 December 2012

Very cool!

Миллионы, подсевшие на клик

5 October 2012

Woah this weblog is great i love reading your posts. Keep up the good paintings! You recognize, a lot of individuals are hunting round for this information, you could aid them greatly.

Purpose reflections - Stuart McMillen blog

16 September 2012

[...] Purpose originally inspired by Ishmael (new / used aff), it was great to get a compliment back from Daniel [...]

Supernormal Stimuli reflections - Stuart McMillen blog

16 September 2012

[...] completed via graphics tablet and handwriting font. My earlier comics such as St Matthew Island and Purpose were drawn with pen and ink, and handwritten [...]

Sourpus

16 August 2012

I think this is great! Quinn made an excellent point: People need a new story to be in. Stories, mythologies, cosmology - it matters. We can be the first species to have a crazy experiment with a suicidal way of life and still pull back from the edge of mass extinction, and join our kin in a vibrant world of interaction and coexistence & interplay. I any chance this will be published for distribution, perhaps selling bundles of a print version?

tim

28 July 2012

Awesome. Couldn't agree more...

Carl Paola

28 July 2012

These are awesome Stewart. Very Very Good. C.

Owen

28 July 2012

My comment seems overly harsh when I read it back to myself, and that doesn't sit well with me. I am hardly one to discourage the type of discourse that stories like this comic initiate, and I will gladly admit that at first reading I was delighted by the comic. It was only after considering it for awhile that I found Mother Culture's lies embedded deep within. Upon further consideration, it will be impossible to create the "new minds" Quinn writes of without the work of people like the author of this comic. So I applaud your effort, Stuart. You did something that I could never do, and I do not want to discredit you. This is truly an eye-opening comic- for the uninitiated it could be pivotal in unlocking the secrets lost in the Great Forgetting. It was only through cynical eyes that I found fault in what is, undoubtedly, a beautiful comic.

Owen

28 July 2012

I think that we all need to check ourselves and think about the lies we were fed by Mother Culture. More specifically, consider how this story perpetuates those lies while appearing on the surface to contradict them. We do not need to reverse the "evils" that our culture has wrought upon the Earth. Evil is a human term; it does not exist in Nature (and, therefore, does not exist at all). To think that humanity has a "purpose"-- to ensure that life on the planet is restored-- is absurd. Chimpanzees do not restore life on the planet, nor do ants. Do these creatures have a purpose? No, of course not- any purpose we create for them, or for ourselves, is purely fictional- the only "purpose" of life is to exist and, by existing, evolve. Humanity needs to stop living in such a ridiculously unsustainable way before we all die (because we certainly will die well before we do anything at all that can alter the course of life on this planet), but to think that humanity's purpose is to "restore the earth" is just a naive as thinking that humanity's purpose is to rule it. They both betray the underlying belief that the earth is made for humanity and it is up to us to make it right again. "The world will not be saved by old minds with new programs, but by new minds with no programs." This comic, to me, represents a new program. A clever program, yes, but still only a program.

Frank

10 July 2012

As a big Daniel Quinn fan and advocate on reversing "Civilization" and creating balance, diversity, SOMEthing that will not devour and destroy life on this planet, I applaud your cartoon!

Cities of Light blog

3 July 2012

That panels at the end of Purpose #1 remind me of an idea i am working on: that the cities at night, lit up across the planet like a hive of fossil fuel burning activity, are an example of culture trying to turn all of nature into itself... very similar! Good work Stuart, love the turn around in Purpose #2. (And the Aussie critters.)

Dawn

2 July 2012

I love this! So powerful and shory and simple!

CarrotChasing

2 July 2012

I agree that "purpose" is a problem. We assign ourselves purpose and thus believe we are superior. Once we believe that it's easy for us to continue to objectify and compartmentalize the world....which leads to our destructive choices. After all this place is for us...right?

Jake Simon

2 July 2012

Absolutely incredible. For years, I have read and re-read Daniel Quinn's books, parable, articles, etc. and have always run into the wall (I had created) of "okay, I understand better how things got to be this way...we can't go back; so what now?" You have put this in to perspective for me so succinctly that I feel kind of dumb (and extremely happy and hopeful). Thank you!

Daniel Quinn

27 June 2012

You pack a lot of valuable messages into just a handful of drawings. Well done!

Leon Kolankiewicz

29 May 2012

You have a very effective way of translating profound concepts into simple, elegant drawings, Stuart. Much appreciated. Your thinking pretty much matches my own on this particular topic of "Purpose." I really enjoyed your St. Matthew Island reindeer cartoon strip as well--it, like Easter Island, is a parable or warning of the predicament and peril of ecological overshoot, which I believe we humans are well into, beguiled by the ready availability of non-renewable fossil fuels and other high-grade mineral resources. BTW, I used to be a wildlife (fisheries actually) biologist in Alaska. The story of the St. Matthew Island reindeer introduction and die-off is pretty well known among population biologists as a cautionary tale. All the best from the USA and keep up the great work! Leon Kolankiewicz

Sam

23 May 2012

Love it! Loved the drawing of the thorny devil! I would say 'to witness abundance', except with regard to the human population ;-)

Paul & Deb McMillen

28 April 2012

As thought provoking as ever Stuart. Reflective images and a sobering message.

Behold! The new Stuart McMillen comics website (please update email/RSS subscriptions) « « Recombinant Records Recombinant Records

26 April 2012

[...] sustainability. It went live today. Right now it features one old comic, plus two new ones (Purpose and Supernormal Stimuli). More are in the pipeline right [...]

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