Here’s a little preview of Young Clave’s latest comic, entitled, “Baggs ‘n’ Me.” We brainstormed ideas for it last night and jammed up a couple of pages. Speaking of Clave, his blog recently changed URLs and can now be seen at http://clave4e.tumblr.com/
Methinks the kid draws me a little too well . . .
According to Clean Cartoonists’ Dirty Drawings by Craig Yoe, Dr. Suess, who was born Theodore Geisel,
[. . . C]ut his cartooning teeth on the humor magazine at Dartmouth College, the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern. Geisel eventually became the editor-in-chief. A prohibition-era drinking party thrown by Ted got him thrown off the magazine, and banned from all extra-curricular activities. Ted started using the nom de plume of Seuss to circumvent the administration from prohibiting his cartooning.
So if anyone starts using the good doctor’s name in vain, remind them that the Seuss got his start fighting for your right to party.
And if you think that’s interesting, check out Craig Yoe’s new book, Secret Identity. To be released this April, the sub-title explains it all: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-creator Joe Shuster.
Here’s the Christmas card I got from my student, Clave.
I think that’s the ugliest drawing of me I’ve ever seen, although it does capture our friendship nicely. You can’t make it out at this size but my shirt says, “Artoonist.” To see a larger version of the card, visit my MySpace profile.
“[… He was] a cynical hayseed with pretensions of urbanity […].”
Daniel Clowes, David Boring, page 4, panel 6. New York: Pantheon, 2000. Another quote that sums up how I see myself.
Amanuensis –noun. A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.
I haven’t had a chance to post anything recently, so here are three new comics from the random jammin’ department. The first is my latest “Directed Jam Comic” with Clave based on the directions in Jessica Abel and Matt Madden’s Drawing Words and Writing Pictures (our first two jams can be seen here). This time we created an “Imageless” jam, in which “you can use words, sound effects, etc., but no representational images.”
For my birthday, Clave also created this card for me. Not really a jam, but hilarious nonetheless!
The handmade presents usually are the best presents, aren’t they?
Carolyn Main and I also recently finished our contribution to The Bridge Project. Carolyn went all out and added tones to the whole thing, which not only made our story look great but also gave the art a very unified feel. The book should be out soon; I’ll post more details as they develop!
I’ve been quite pleased with my student Clave’s progress as of late. Not only is he putting together some truly awesome pages for his soon-to-be-released mini-comic The Intern, he’s also completed one of the most important tasks for any aspiring artist: a photo of the artist as a serious young man:
These days I’m not giving Clave as many specific lessons; instead we’re having fun creating jam comics based on suggestions from Jessica Abel and Matt Madden in their great book Drawing Words & Writing Pictures! In our last meeting Clave and I created an “Icons” jam comic, in which “Word / thought balloons can only contain images or icons, no words.” We used the eponymous character from Clave’s soon-to-be-released mini-comic The Intern and his mentor-from-hell:
Clave liked it so much he created a final color version he’s considering for use as the cover of his soon-to-be-released mini-comic The Intern (on sale soon!):
Tonight Clave and I created a “Panorama” jam, in which “The backgrounds on the entire page must depict a continuous landscape, while the comic still tells a story.” To make things easier I made the relative flatness of outer space our background, the Death Star at its center. The comic can be seen in all its rough, unedited glory here; unfortunately, its size and layout make it hard to read, so I rearranged the panels in a very unpanoramic way to be viewed here in the blogg:
Finally, while I drew my panels for the Panorama jam Clave took it upon himself to edit a photo of me with my new niece, Carrissa. Not really a jam comic, but still fun:
In my recent post about The Bridge Project anthology I neglected to mention another cartoonist whose work I admire that is also contributing to the book: Greg Means. Creator of the long-running mini-comic “Clutch McBastard,” Means’s work is a nice mix of the pleasantly mundane (autobiographical details about normal life) and the ridiculously absurd (one of his friends is drawn with a peanut body, a gum drop head and toothpicks for arms, one of which is always holding a doughnut). After encountering his work for the first time back in 2003 or 2004, I drew and mailed him the following, which is based on a page from his comic and drawn in his style:
I never heard back from him, so I’ve always feared he seethed at seeing his characters shown in such a shameless shilling. But here I am, posting it on my blogg anyway. Sorry Greg!
I haven’t blogged for a couple of weeks, but with good reason: I’ve been busy working on print projects for the upcoming Alternative Comics Expo! God willing, I won’t fall off the wagon and start playing video games again, thus eliminating any chance of finishing everything in time.
One major project I’m working on is a story for Matt Leunig’s new anthology The Bridge Project, which teams an artist from San Francisco with an artist from Portland to “create a ‘bridge’ in which [artists from] both [comics communities] can work together,” as Matt puts it on the book’s web site. I’ve been talking to Matt about contributing for a while now but haven’t said anything publicly for fear things wouldn’t work out. And with good reason: my first partner went AWOL and my second partner had to drop out due to time constraints. However, Matt finally teamed me up with the very talented Carolyn Main, noticing a tendency toward inappropriate potty humor in both our work (check out Carolyn’s blog; her willingness to cross the line for the funny puts me to shame!). We’re finishing up the rough draft of our contribution; a sample page can be seen below. Hopefully we’ll have everything done in time for Matt!
All joking aside, I feel very honored to be a part of The Bridge Project. I’m a huge fan of Matt’s psychedelic poster art, and I’m not just saying that because he’s the book’s editor. And besides Carolyn Main’s great work, the book will also feature the graffiti-influenced, grammatically-impaired styling of my friend Noir Amador, plus a couple of celebrities: Shannon Wheeler, creator of the famous “Too Much Coffee Man,” and Graham Annable, one of my favorite cartoonists. So keep checking this space for updates!
2008. This adorns the cover of my little pocket notebook, in which I write down ideas, quotes, to-do lists and little missives of self-hatred.
As he describes in his blog, young hardpressed protégé Clave recently drew a portrait of local Punk band The Secretions (see below) and emailed the band a copy. They returned the favor by using it as their default MySpace photo! Congratulations Clave!
It’s always nice to be appreciated, and speaking of …
