Parody of TTC’s Sketching the Line posters pasted on subway

Imitation is said to be the sincerest form of flattery but that wasn’t exactly the intent behind the work of a local artist whose parody drawing of the TTC’s Sketching the Line posters actually made its way onto the subway.

“I find a lot of the TTC branded subway posters to be rather absurdly self congratulatory and I felt like it would be funny to make one that went the complete other way,” artist Joren Cull told CityNews.

“I think we’ve all experienced a lot of negative experiences on “the line” so I felt like it would resonate with people to see them included too.”

Cull’s sketch, which shows commuters waiting in the snow on a bus platform while a TTC bus labeled ‘Sorry Not In Service’ passes them by as the driver gives them the middle finger, was originally drawn a year ago.

“I drew it about a year ago actually, and shared it around with some friends and on the internet,” he explained.

“I made some postcards for the people that liked it back then too and gave them for fun. It was mostly done to amuse myself … I thought it was funny and thought others might too.”

As the city faced record snowfall this week, the sketch was spotted on Line 1, pasted over another poster. And it wasn’t long before images of the work was shared to social media.

But Cull said the sketch wasn’t meant to be malicious against anyone in particular.

“I don’t want to seem like I’m dissing the drivers or anything specifically, I know there are a lot of good ones and their jobs are difficult,” he explained.

“The man driving is meant to represent the TTC as a whole, not specifically the driver. The TTC flipping off the public in the cold.”

Cull even changed the name seen on the bottom of authorized Sketching the Line posters – Patison – to Fartison.

And despite the TTC logo appearing on the parody sketch, the work was not commissioned or approved by the city’s transit system.

“I wanted to have them look as much a like as possible and didn’t want to have any lawsuits or anything like that. Just something silly I put on it.”

This isn’t the first time Cull’s art has caught the eye of the internet. Over Christmas he and his cousin, musician AJ Ing, recorded what they say is the longest Christmas carol ever. The 179 Days of Christmas has a run time of nine hours.