I Never Met a Morphosis I Didn't Like / Smoke Dreams

Two British comic drawings (c1890s)

As I was growing up, adults used to discourage boys from smoking by saying, "Don't smoke or you'll turn into a cigarette." I never quite knew what that meant. But it was an ancient admonition, of the sort that I grew up on. I confirmed that about ten years ago, when I ran across a Victorian-era cartoon (it's the bottom row in the image above) in which (left to right) a smoking Cub Scout turns into a cigarette. Aha! Exactly as anticipated.

More recently, maybe ten days ago, I ran across another (no doubt British) cartoon, as seen in the upper row, in which a man (not a boy it seems) also becomes a cigarette. It even had a title that read THE EVOLUTION OF A CIGARETTE. No doubt a poke at Charles Darwin.

To me, these are of additional interest because they are Darwin-era examples of comic metamorphosis, which is of considerable interest. I have sometimes tried to write about that subject, not very successfully, and as recently as earlier this year, I gave an online talk about it, titled I Never Met a Morphosis I Didn't Like, as seen in the title slide below.

One might also benefit from my video on varieties of creativity, which is free to view online.

a slide talk on metamorphosis / Roy R. Behrens c2025