The First Sketches That Inspired This Stupid Site, Billionaire Beheaded
Rough, crude sketch of a guillotine using a modified Pilot parallel nib fashions in a ruling pen and shoved in an Opus 88 fountain pen.

Id and Ego Babble:

I'm proud of me for attempting things I'm uncomfortable doing like the ruling nib pen. It is frustrating, yet fun, which helps me get over the "you suck at this" inner voice that can shut the Hell up. Yes, these sketches are rough, crude. Is okay. The process, the struggle and dopamine hits from spurts of improvement are why I do this, right? Right. I still suck at fists and hands in general. Yes.

Image Created:

Front Matter

  • Title: The First Sketches That Inspired This Stupid Site, Billionaire Beheaded
  • Meta Title:
  • Meta Description: The sketch and article that inspired this silly site: a crude drawing of a head in a noose. And an article about a beheaded billionaire.
  • Meta Image: /assets/images/ruling-pen-guillotine-abf-sketch-20251221-600x.jpg
  • Meta Image Alt: The image that started it all: a rough sketch of a couple of faces with a ruling nib modified Pilot parallel. One head has a noose, some fists in the foreground with a 'Billion Fists' sign held in one hand.
  • Layout: art.njk
  • Date: Sunday, November 16, 2025
  • Modified: Saturday, November 15, 2025

Previous Versions

The image that started it all: a rough sketch of a couple of faces with a ruling nib modified Pilot parallel. One head has a noose, some fists in the foreground with a 'Billion Fists' sign held in one hand.

Id and Ego Babble:

I gave up on the pencil figures and switched to the ruling nib because I suck at that and it's more fun to suck at than the pencil. Sure, I can understand how I went from a cartoon frog with a knife to a couple of faces and a noose. It's a common artistic progression. I'm not very good with fists and hands in general. I see that.

Image Created:

Inspiration

Students Excited About Their Guillotine, Billionaire Loses Head

ABF Newswire: November 16, 2025, 15:30 UTC

STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA, November 12, 2025 (ABF Newswire) - "It worked!" shouted Russ Cromwell, when the blade fell and cleanly severed the head of the billionaire. "I think we'll try a trebuchet next," a confident and elated Steven Walton said while high-fiving the small group of onlookers. "The 'A Trebuchet, You Say' festival is held in Nevada. That might be fun."

The functional guillotine replica was built by Stanford engineering majors Russ Cromwell and Steven Walton for the "Marie Antoinette" play held by the school's theater department. They planned to test the device on a couple of watermelons and a pig's corpse for the grand finale. A group of about 20 students and faculty came for the display.

The billionaire, a tech investor from a prominent startup incubator, was on campus to pitch his firm's "Drop College, Come Startup with Us" message to an auditorium of first year computer science majors. He came to see the guillotine after his security detail mentioned they overheard some students talking about its trial run in a field close by.

Police were called to the scene and, after interviewing the witnesses including the deceased's security detail, have ruled the death an accidental death by guillotine.

"This is great timing," mused Nancy Schloss, a theater major who helps manage props for the play. "Once cleaned, that blood might leave a nice patina of authenticity on the guillotine in time for the performance."

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