The Summer Is Now

Or, I should say, the summer starts Saturday, when I graduate from the Center for Cartoon Studies! “Good times.” Here are two things you should know now:

Between this blog and The Cartoon Picayune blog, I’m all blogged-out. In two days, I will be “entering the world” and for the first time in many years, not returning to an academic institution in the fall. Because of this “turning point,” I’m putting this blog on hiatus for summer, and replacing it with a weekly email list that you can sign up for here.

I think it’ll be a little more informal, and I hope it’ll allow me to honestly address the changes in my life as they come in a more ephemeral format. And yes, there will pictures. I’m just gonna give it a try this summer, and we’ll see what’s what come fall.

Also, I’m very excited excited to share the Thesis Senior Showcase blog, which will feature the art of the Class of 2011 and hopefully make us more visible. There’s gonna be a lot of excellent work posted on here daily, so I hope you’ll check back often throughout the summer. We’ll already getting some love and I think it’s going to be really good.

So thanks, and have a good summer! If you wanna hear from me, these three options are pretty good, but this blog will be quiet.

Sign up for the email list.

Beef Steak 2011

Regular readers of this blog include my immediate family to whom I must first say: please don’t take this too seriously. (These images are safe for work, but somewhat raunchy.)

Earlier this month many of the ladies of CCS got together and made what is really an excellent risque calendar called Peep Show 2011. The images are funny and slightly titillating, and the professionally printed finished product looks amazing.

I was so taken with their calendar, that, well, I thought it was time that the boys got in on the fun too. So, arriving from the printers next week will be…. (drum roll)…..

That’s right. Beef Steak 2011 features not 12, but 24 White River Junction cartoonists of the manly persuasion. Because there are, shall we say, a high volume of dudes here, we were able to get two toonies for each illustration. The calendar is only $6 in person and $7 in the mail or $10/$12 with Peep Show 2011. I’m already taking orders, so email me if you’d like one. And yes, I edited this project, but I also drew for it. Here’s me drawing freshman Jan Burger and him drawing me.

Next week I’ll have a few more images and also links to the creators.

Comics Update

Though I haven’t written about them in a while, comics remains a very big part of my life. Here are some bullet points about concerning comics, myself, and the intersection of both.

• I’m almost through with a new mini comic called “The Black Squirrels of Washington, D.C.” which is in black and white and fits on both sides of an 8.5 by 11 piece of paper. This is the first time I’m actively designing a comic in InDesign and actually spending a good ammount on time on the drawings (the image above is an example). I’ll give it away free and make it available here.
• While I haven’t yet read this, one of my favorite illustrators, Jillian Tamaki, has a new graphic novel called SKIM that she did with her cousin, Mariko Tamaki. It has been reaping awards, but in an almost textbook example of comics not being understood, it is often called a children’s book. Worse yet, the book recieved a Governor’s General Literary Award in Canada, but only Mariko, the writer, was awarded. Check out this star-studed open letter of protest.
• Publications about comics are notoriously lame. Either you’re very high brow like the Comics Journal, or rediculously low brow like Wizard, but never in the middle. Now there’s Comics Foundry, which I’m proud to report is really good. It is interesting, funny, and has great puns. Keep your eyes peeled for that one.
• Jesse Reklaw is another great comics artist worth watching. His weekly syndicated comic, Slow Wave, illustrates his readers’ dreams, and his unbelievably quickly updated comics diary is really interesting and amusing.
• Recently I went to the Small Press Expo, or SPX, in Bethesda, where I met a lot of people I’d heard of, including the artists mentioned above. I also bought a lot of minis and saw great panels on topics like collaboration and indie publishing. Alt comix rulz!
• Several major comics opportunities loom on the horizon for me, not least amongst them the Center for Cartoon Studies, of which I’ve written about previously. I’m going there this weekend for their portfolio day and to decide if I will apply for next fall. Wish me luck; more updates to come.

Buckminster Fuller at the Whitney

Buckminster Fuller was an inventor, a visionary, and above all an eccentric. Fuller invented many fantastic things and most of them were totally impossible, but also awesome and patentable. His triumph was the geodesic dome, of which “Spaceship Earth” (a term Fuller coined) at Epcot is based on. I recently went to see a comprehensive exhibit on ol’ Bucky at the Whitney in Manhattan.

As a choice of subject for a modern and contemporary American art museum, Fuller is perfect. Fuller came from a wealthy New England family but never finished college. Instead, he began prolifically inventing in what he called “4D” and later “Dymaxion.” Fuller came up with some crazy shit, but some things like the Dymaxion Map (pictured folded together above) seem genius to me.

The exhibit gushes on Fuller’s tremendous innovation, but a concurrent New Yorker article by Elizabeth Kolbert is more quick to criticize. It seems that while Fuller’s inspiration is immeasurable, his track record is not that impressive. Geodesic domes have even been known to leak. However, I have a hard time caring. Fuller is a fountain of sci-fi inspiration and was known to have a pop culture knack. Placed at the beginning of the exhibit is a chart Fuller made of his own accomplishments. He charts them against major political events as well as popular dances throughout the twentieth century. Dude knew what was up.

Photo courtesy of flickr user super-structure.

Disposable Europe

We take pictures to supplement our visual memories. Aside from sheer artistic and aesthetic merit, no one needs convincing that pictures we take remind us of people, places, and things. I’ve heard that when we take pictures, it limits and focuses our memories, but it’s easy to give that up for the joy of fondly remembering something from a snapshot. Anyone who has ever had a camera stolen knows what a terrible feeling that can be. More after the jump.

A Paris Journal

Well I’m home. Bigger soda containers and even bigger automobiles. More culture shock reflections to come. Now, the first European post in retrospect. I’m going to try and hit the main places, though I may not go in order. Going to get my three disposable cameras developed soon.

As promised, here are my thoughts on Paris that I jotted down while I was there. I tried to get a “drawing” on each page. Almost. Sorry if you can’t read it, that’s my actual handwriting. Click to enlarge, more after the jump.