Timotei Drob’s comic strip Salariatul Azi / The Salaryman Today is a treasure trove of contemporary culture. His iconic character comically encompasses the trials and tribulations of the everyman, caught in a dead-end job, striving for a better life in a neoliberal world that he understands less and less each day, and never really getting a break. Despite this, he remains rather optimistic, preferring to focus on the minutiae of everyday life and revel in its apparent absurdity.
Whether complaining about his wage or striving to take out another loan to make ends meet, the Salaryman seems to be perpetually at odds with his surroundings. Perhaps that’s why we don’t see him ever in context. The whole series consists only of a close-up shot of his ever-changing mechanomorphic face, accompanied by a catchphrase or two. Sometimes it feels too close for comfort, his affect on display for all to see. In this way, The Salaryman is a mirror through which we can glimpse at how history might remember us: small, scrawny, self-absorbed, at all times defiant in the face of time itself, but also blissfully hopeful, calm and composed in the face of the utter chaos of existence, and willing to buckle down and save up some money for that new layer of tiling (the third one’s the charm).
When the Salaryman is abducted by aliens, he finds himself suddenly decontextualised; his world bracketed. While in a holding cell en route to a galaxy far, far away, he continually asks himself if his new home will have all those things dear to him. From hot dogs with mustard to The Champions Cup, and even anti-corruption or power tools. His list could go on and (and it does).
Taken from his home and grafted onto an alien spaceship, what of his humanity will remain? The obvious answer is: Every bit of it! And that’s the truly hilarious part.
(Text by Cristian Drăgan)