Pieter Wuille: The Zen Master

This cartoon was commissioned by Coindesk for their year-end Most Influential People in Crypto 2017 feature. Check out their writeup on Pieter Wuille here.

With many of my cartoons, I spend a lot of time staring at an empty canvas, for minutes, sometimes hours, without doing anything. I’m not much of a doodler, I don’t have notebooks full of roughs and unused ideas. I often won’t draw a single line until I’ve already got the whole idea fleshed out in my head.

My friend Juan Llanos caught me working on this piece at LABitconf in Bogota 😛

Pieter’s portrait was not one of those times.

As soon as I saw the nickname “The Zen Master” in the editorial brief, the concept and layout came to me in an instant. I mean, of course he has to be floating above the floor with his eyes closed, right? There’s a minor Dr. Strange reference here, but that material was also obviously referencing even older takes on meditation in popular fiction.

The original pitch I emailed back to the editors was as follows:

Pieter is contemplating the universe in his hidden dojo in Kamar-Taj. As he meditates, he begins to float slightly off the floor. His eyes are closed, his breathing is slow and rhythmic. On the floor next to him, a pot of tea awaits.

And that’s exactly what I drew.