Volcano of Adversity: A Junior Narrative Illustration by Eric Liu (2012)

In my animation, a person aspires to climb up the corporate ladder to the superior position; for example, in many companies today, young men and women strive to advance in the face of economic and perhaps even social incentives. In the illustration, I represented the common aspirer to glory with a modest mouse, and had the mouse cling to a rope on the side of a mountain. His goal? To reach the top to access and eat the cheese. Unbeknownst to the innocent mouse, a nefarious ''fat cat'' boss holds the prize and dangles it below, teasing the mouse in a sinister sense. The perilous volcano represents the ominous and extremely dangerous toll ascending such an attempted feat takes. The pink smoke shows the bliss the cat is experiencing, contrary to the anxiety the mouse is feeling. The text, wrapped around the volcano, is primarily used to express the feelings of the mouse and its relationship with the boss and corporate ascendancy.