I first saw Hugh MacLeod's work at Gangplank -- his "Wolf or Sheep?" print hangs there. I was immediately electrified by the precise beauty of his art and the binary dread of his message. I looked at more of his output online, and golly, it was nearly all as compelling as that first piece. I know that MacLeod's main angle is that his art is good grist for the business-motivation / corporate-culture-adjustment mill (which is true), but to me, his art goes deeper than just a reminder of how not to suck at work.
The thing that zings about MacLeod's art is that he wraps the starkness of his proclamations in a tasty visual empanada that recalls in its geometry and restrained color my very favorite artist, Alexander Calder.
I can also detect reflections of a Bizarro World hyper-disciplined Ralph Steadman in MacLeod's exaggerated caricatures.
I'd sure hesitiate to call MacLeod a cartoonist, but his work brings with it some of the feeling I love best about xkcd, 'Zippy,' and the iller moments of 'Peanuts.' No syrup-coated cheap-laffs BS garbage - just unflinching reality and uncluttered art.
I think we humans need observers like MacLeod to remind us that, even though we're hopelessly adrift in a vast, frozen, and uncaring universe, we're not alone. (42,205)
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