Tommy Pickles on acid: 90s cartoon favourites become drug addicts in sinister sketches
Powerpuff Girls, Doug and Johnny Bravo go down a bad route
![Dexter's Breaking Bad Laboratory](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2014/03/14/15/dexter.jpg)
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Louise Thomas
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An artist with an eye for the macabre has reimagined cartoon characters from Dexter's Laboratory, Rugrats, Hey Arnold! and more if they had pursued drugs rather than madcap adventures, in a commentary on the substance abuse problem in his hometown.
The mildly terrifying images include Dexter and Dee Dee cooking crystal meth, Arnold smoking crack and Doug gripped with a pretty serious heroin addiction.
Aside from being simply a deliciously messed up thing to draw, the pictures were inspired by artist Paul Ribera's own experiences of growing up.
![Rugrat's Chuckie and Tommy (Picture: Paul Ribera)](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2014/03/14/15/rugrats.jpg)
He explained to Huffington Post that in Barstow, California drugs have become a way of life, something you are not likely to see depicted on Nickelodeon.
"I grew up in the small town of Barstow, CA (or as my friends and I call it 'Bat Country')," he said.
"I, personally, have been interested in the effects of drugs and what it does to people and, unfortunately, in the town I live in, it’s a way of life.
![Hey Arnold! (Picture: Paul Ribera)](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2014/03/14/15/arnold.jpg)
"These cartoons are what I (and pretty much all kids of the '90s) used to watch and I thought… 'Man, what if these people characters were from here?' I was watching old reruns one day while I was drawing and I decided to go as dark as hell with it and let the popular images the world knows turn into what I've seen on a daily basis for the past twenty years."
He continued: "I want people to know what goes on in the boarded up house and how it’s not all Kim & Kanye and happy stadium proposals the media tends to give off
"Life’s struggle is real and it’s in our own backyard and in this case, it’s in our cartoons."
![Powerpuff Girls (Picture: Paul Ribera)](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2014/03/14/15/powerpuff.jpg)
![Johnny Bravo (Picture: Paul Ribera)](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2014/03/14/15/bravo.jpg)
![Ed, Edd n Eddy (Picture: Paul Ribera)](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2014/03/14/15/ed%20edd%20n%20eddy.jpg)
![Doug (Picture: Paul Ribera)](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2014/03/14/15/doug.jpg)
Check out more of Paul's art here.
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