"My dear Sherri, education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught..."

I am bored. I answered all messages in my inbox and I do my best to response and answer each message and, therefore, I don't have anything else to do. Therefore, I'm going to upload another drawing from the old GMD profiles early this week, so I can relax and get a clean-up for Rorschach in Gotham ready.

This is Sherringford Basil and Oscar Milde as carefree undergraduates at Oxford University. They went to separate colleges — Basil at Christ Church and Milde at Magdalen College. They had heard of each other long before they met. Milde "peacock-ed" his way from obscurity to notoriety in a few short weeks due to his eccentricities of behaviour which seem to know no bounds. Basil, himself, was an unconventional celebrity of his own by means of his brilliance. And they may have went through Oxford without ever knowing each other, if it wasn't for an curious turn of events during the middle of Michaelmas Term (or first term). Milde had visited out of college to Christ Church for a party with his fellow æsthetes. While walking to his rooms at Peckwater Quad late that night, Basil saw a group of hearties (or jocks) snatch one of the party-goers, Milde, and throw him in the Mercury Fountain. This "traditional" prank turned sour when the victim did not surface from the water, where he was rescued — half-drowned, half-conscious — by Basil. From there on, these two became inseparable. Oxford was much more innocent time for these two: This was the closest time that Basil has ever experienced anything close to a "happy childhood" — and a lot of that credit goes to Oscar.

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Understand, this picture is old — I mean, OLD — I drew this back before Google and Wikipedia existed, at a time where little information was readily available to me about Oxford and its culture in America, so a lot of my research came from British films. In Britain, particularly in the old universities, students are required to wear academic regalia. In Oxford, students were subfusc (Latin for "dark-coloured clothing"), which is consists of a gown, cap, black suit, and white shirt, collar, and bow-tie, which is worn for matriculation, examinations, collections, commemorations, chapel, formal hall, etc. When you attend classes, lectures, and common rooms, students can wear the gown over ordinary suits and/or ties.

Here, Sherringford and Oscar are outside wearing the gentleman-scholar's undergraduate gown — which is a black short, less voluminous lay-type gown with streamers, instead of sleeves, which the arm does not pass — over their subfuscs, with their own informal cravats, hollering a response to a friend on the other side of the River Cherwell. Students, by tradition, wear their mortarboards (which are black square hats with a black tassels) outside, but must remove them when inside (just like a hat). It's a common misconception to say they wear these only for graduation because they have to be worn practically everyday. Not to wear a hat on his head, particularly in the Victorian Age, while outside is considered rude. And not to take it off when you enter inside is also considered rude. I found that a lot of Basilians (from America, where this tradition has died out over a century ago) get confused by their outfits in this drawing, thinking the mortarboards are only wore by graduates only:  It's not true!

Models - Oscar Wilde, Peter Egan, Stephen Fry | Models - Barrie Ingham | Costume - Subfusc

Medium - Col-erase blue.

Basil of Baker Street © Eve Titus/Walt Disney.
The name "Sherringford" © Diane N. Tran.
Oscar Milde © Diane N. Tran.