Animated Dan Shaughnessy

Wander over to the Boston Globe’s Columnists and Critics page, and you’ll notice that they have animated head shots of almost everyone who marches, swords brandished, under the banner “Boston Globe Columnist and or Critic.” I assume they do this in an effort to appeal to the younger generation and its pompadours and ghetto-blasters and unpressed blue-jean pants. I also assume this initiative has been successful beyond anyone’s hopes.

But that’s not my concern. No, my delight and privilege is to introduce you to what appears when you scroll down just a bit …

There’s hail-fellow-well-met Dan Shaughnessy. But whereas most of the Globe opinion-shapers could be troubled to mug a bit for the artist and his sketchbook, Shaughnessy, who hates everything more than you hate anything, could not. But is that a look of … diffidence? Resignation? Wearied apathy? A half-smile of the decomposed?

No, it’s the look that Shaughnessy has on his face at all times, from upon waking until the soft death of sleep takes him each night — a look that implies a vague desire, yet an equally vague inability, to vomit. The look is called, “A Quiet and Frosty Disgust.”