Those are the Breaks
We have often been asked why we began with Breaking Bad. A better question would be: what show is more of an iconic masterpiece?
Clothes do not make the icon.
Walter White was often as pants-less as Donald Duck; but unlike that other Donald, Walter White, embodied in the always brilliant Bryan Cranston, broke the spectrum of bad.
Unforgettable in every episode.
We loved him, brutal and pitiless. We loved him more. The badder he broke. Cranston’s Walter White will vividly outlast any modern day Ozymandias.
As the balance changed and Jesse broke good … Walter became a colossally evil protagonist armed with science and determination, the deadliest of duos.
Every episode was rightfully a tv event, consistent in its diverting creativity … Five seasons … and a perfectly arced 62 episodes.
Breaking Bad is so involving that fans had to order new edges for their seats.
It was a masterclass in twisted plots and slow burns.
We stay with it because of Cranston’s Walter, who unlike the cancer that is in him, metastasizes and destroys everything around him, the innocent and the guilty, those near and far, the children and the crippled. He is awful. And yet we watch and watch and are left deeply satisfied, wanting more of Skyler, Walt Jr, Jesse, Mike, Hank, Marie, Gus and Walter.
Walter White’s demonized descent into Heisenberg’s hell simply and irrevocably set the standard for streaming early in the millennium for this decade and so many to come.
Thus Xiumei, a much appreciated artist, and I started a family project: — a stained glass tribute to “breaking bad.” We wanted to represent the streaming masterpiece in a free form stained glass with everything from Walter’s underpants to a lethal bike lock. I sketched out the basic idea, inspired by Heisenberg and the cracking of blue meth. Then with a 20” x 24” cartoon in hand, the challenge was there and the challenge was met.
We learned how to cut, to break, to grind, to foil and to solder.
Most importantly we learned how to stop the bleeding. There is no such thing as too many bandages.
The glass puzzle seemed to work. Thus we have our well-deserved tribute to Breaking Bad.