Asphalt Watches II at Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects by Gary Michael Dault Globe and Mail, Saturday May 5, 2007 A DVD of Asphalt Watches II costs $20. Until May 12, 1086 Queen St. W., Toronto; 416-537-8827 This 40-minute, flash-animation DVD - Asphalt Watches II - by multidisciplinary artists Seth Scriver (who lives in Toronto) and Shayne Ehman (who lives in Vancouver) is not only ingeniously drawn, caustically satirical and very funny, it is also, perhaps unexpectedly, extremely charming. Building on the tried-and-true trope of two pals lighting out for the territory - Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Huck Finn and Jim, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Jack Kerouac and Neil Cassady - Scriver and Ehman posit themselves as fearless, cross-country travellers (one looks like a nebbish in a sportsman's cap and the other looks like a little white ghost that floats - and carries a black umbrella). When the film begins, the two are sitting on a reach of emerald-green grass (the colour of the film is dazzlingly rich and saturated), steadfastly perusing a 1988 copy of a Train-Hopping Manual in preparation for their long trip. It's a wise picaresque journey - full of richly inventive characters (like the guy with the knife in his belly who plaintively tells them he needs a ride to the hospital) and gloriously implausible situations. And words to live by like "Watch out for white pickup trucks." There are even moments of great lyrical beauty - such as a twinkling constellation of stars shaped like a hamburger, winking in the midnight sky.