{Good Work}

The Death Of One Blog, The Birth of Another

2008-10-20T18:26:00.001-07:00

I'm pleased as punch to announce that my new site and blog are finally up, thanks to the supreme efforts of Matt Glaser. Check out what the new hip young kids are doing these days: www.joealterio.com.

Also included in this rejiggering is a blog move from the slow corpulent giant that is Blogger to the sleek, svelte sexxxy Wordpress.

My new blog can now be found here:

http://joealterio.com/goodwork/

Update your bookmarks, re-subscribe your feeds, and see you on the flip side, friendos. Leave your comments about the new home on there, too.

Adios, Blogger. It's been real... educational.

Call Me Ahab

2008-10-08T15:55:00.001-07:00

Call Me Ahab
Originally uploaded by JoeAlterio

Self-portrait for the 'About' section of my new site. I find self-portraits to be awfully pretentious (I suppose by their nature), but I've never been able to do one of myself and feel good about it. I think this comes close enough, either because I need to hide behind on eyepatch, or because this is basically an exact replica of my dream-self.

I'm not thrilled about the line work, but I think for a slapdash color job, the quick color work is a pretty good approximation of that those heavy, yellowed clouds that make their appearance in most baroque oil paintings of the day.

Concept Art for Robots and Monsters Book

2008-10-07T15:50:00.000-07:00

I've been hammering away at a pitch for a Robots and Monsters graphic novel, and I created this for another round. I won't let the cat out of the bag on plot details, but suffice to say, it has a lot of robots and monsters.

Security Envelope Patterns

2008-10-01T10:48:00.001-07:00

Above is one of many samples from the Flickr group Security Patterns, which documents the patterns designed to prevent ne'er-do-wells from peeking at the contents of envelopes. It's like orgami patterns, but designed to be willfully obtuse. I love it.

Robots and Monsters RELAUNCH

2008-09-25T15:09:00.000-07:00

From our little press release:

"Joe Alterio is proud to announce the reopening of Robots and Monsters: A Charitable Menagerie. Launched in 2007 in order to help raise funds for a marathon to benefit the SF AIDS Foundation, Robots and Monsters is an effort that trades original commissioned art for donations to a good cause. Last time, we had outstanding success due in no small part to postings on blogs like Boing Boing, Drawn!, and Uncrate, which helped us raise over $10,000 in the space of 36 hours. Besides the amazing amount of money raised, almost 200 Robots and Monsters were drawn by Joe, with some help from Special Contributors Adam "Ape Lad" Koford, D. Emory Allen, Michael Gabriel, and Lawrence Yang.

We had so much success, in fact, that – well – we got a bit overwhelmed, and had to close down, so we could fulfill orders.

However, Robots and Monsters is now re-launching, and we're excited to announce our new beneficiary of heady, creature goodness: the Electronic Frontier Foundation. For almost 20 years, the EFF has been on the good side of 1st Amendment fights on the web, and considering that R and M couldn't happen without this amazingly wonderful and scary tool that we all use now, we figure we owe them one.

Fifty dollars gets you a custom-drawn and painted robot or monster, defined by three words or phrases you provide, sent to your door. What's more, your creature will get added to our ever growing menagerie, for everyone to enjoy.

In a few weeks, we'll also have some great merch, like a cool teeshirts and a limited edition poster of 48 robots and monsters from the the first wave, so be sure to check back regularly.

Thanks for all your support, everyone."

Hooray! We already have orders pouring in. Even in the face of The Greatest Depression Evar, people are stilling willing to donate money to a good cause. man. You know, humans may just make it off this planet and into our monkey-piloted space zeppelins, yet.

Paranoia 1

2008-09-19T16:54:00.000-07:00

(click to enlarge)

The above is my first study I've down on paper of my first planned solo show, in 2009. These are images and ideas that have been rattling around in my head for about 9 months now, after a particularly intense and heart pounding dreaming I had, that left me in a cold sweat and terrified.

The odd part was how much of this is really straight from my dream, especially the skeleton and ghost boxes: those sprung, fully formed, from my mind one night, and I don't really know where they came from.

I'm trying to work out exactly what this all means. The show and pieces in it are, clearly, going to be devastatingly lonely, which is weird, because I'm not really a lonely guy. Upon further introspection, I notice now much of the imagery is child like, and bringing in some old school computer game imagery into it makes me think this is my brain burping up a very lonely period in my life when I was younger.

I've always found the scariest thing to be the absence of anyone at all: a recurring nightmare I have is finding that no one is around anymore. Not by nuclear apocalypse, or zombies, or murders: just gone. I wander from room to room, house to house, field to field, and everyone has just vanished. That, to me, is the ultimate terror.

Stay tuned with me, as these studies develop.

Japanese Kamikaze pilot survives but then grenades himself

2008-09-18T12:59:00.001-07:00

Whoa!

Not There Anymore

2008-09-15T13:22:00.000-07:00

Amazing set of photos of New York City by Bruce Barone, from what looks like the late 70s through the early 80s.

(Thanks, Luc!)

Quirky and Fun!

2008-09-07T17:45:00.000-07:00

I was at the video store with Molly last night, and I saw this:

It's a DVD cover for a new indie flick entitled "The Go-getter", and allow me to point out a few things.

1.) This movie is clearly aimed at the 24-40 year old This American Life-loving, Decemberists-listening, vegan-eating, guiltily-two-car-owning yupster set.

2.) The car apparently so prominently featured in the movie is an 80s Volvo 240DL, a car which I not only owned and loved for quite a while, but a car that speaks to a greater truth about the owner: that s/he has parents that bought the car, and gave it to them to it's waning years, which pretty promisingly puts the family into the East Coast/West Coast liberal leaning college- educated electoral demographic.

3.) Hollywood's decision to appeal to that (my - oh, god, so embarrassingly so - my) demographic has revealed a pretty steady formula. To wit:

I'm kind of torn about this: as an illustrator that would love to do a movie poster, I'm encouraged to see comic-style drawings and hand lettering on a poster. But, for the love of Tom Brady, surely we're in a rut. It looks like there's a InDesign plug-in for this type of design now. So, it is with a heavy heart that I say:

You designers, STOP IT. STOP using blockhead font, stop using slightly sloppy hand drawn illustrations, stop using bearded motherfuckers to portray to the potential audience that this about people who read Sarah Vowell and wear tweed jackets. STOP IT.

Please, surely there's another way.

In other news, you can see why I'll be launching a new look for my website next week. I'm guilty of the same design crimes above, and someone's gotta say something. It might as well be me.

Koko the Clown and the Cures

2008-09-03T15:15:00.001-07:00

We Wuz Robbed

2008-09-03T10:02:00.000-07:00

Yo, check out the comic I just finished for Mark Kingwell's new book on the public space, tentatively titled 'Open Spaces', and due out to 2009. I also uploaded an alternate last page in the photostream, if you're interested, and care give your feedback. Thanks to Glaser for the copy-editing, and to Mark, for giving me such a great opportunity.

Buy Me, Buy Me, Buy Me

2008-08-28T21:08:00.001-07:00

Just noticed that French nuclear energy company Areva features a new web ad that clearly has either ripped off or hired H5, the French motion graphics company that produced, most memorably, the original Royksopp video for "Remind Me", before it was all sullied up with cave men. Gotta love that site design, eh?

Their other videos are pretty rad, too, check 'em out. Extra points is you can find the Volkswagon video that rips off their own, earlier, Goldfrapp video. Meta!

idol

2008-08-24T13:58:00.001-07:00

Post-modern statement upon educational materials? Lucid, dream-state channel of claustrophobic fears? Free-form absurdist rant? You decide. I don't even know if I like it or not, but it sure is worth a blog post.

Red Hot Riding Hood

2008-08-15T21:01:00.003-07:00

I found my old animation instruction book by Preston Blair in my stack of reference books today, and it reminded me of what an amazing talent he was ; I was sent to YouTube, which landed me at one of my old favorites of the golden era of cartoons, like this Tex Avery cartoon, directed by Avery, but designed by Blair. Where some of Avery's other wolf cartoons fall a little flat, this one sings, mostly due to Blair's keyframes. Check out that moment at the end, where the wolf considers the knitting needle: what a moment.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Mad-Cow Disease

2008-08-11T17:59:00.000-07:00

My buddy Steve Lohse, impresario, gourmet chef, Master and Commander, Alaskan fisherman, championship drinker, and last but not least, writer and playwright, just landed his first piece in McSweeny's lit. journal, which is a huge coup. Nice one, boy-o.

Now take that damn smirk off your face, and go take out the trash. Goddammit.

The Love Is Strong In This One

2008-08-01T17:28:00.000-07:00

Damn, dude.

Here's a little secret I'll let outta the bag for my loyal blog readers: planning a wedding sucks. You got your food, your booze, your decorations, the accomodations for the guests, and all the other crap. But whenever I get down, I think to myself, "At least I don't have to coordinate who's going to be Rebel, and who's going to be Empire."

Peep professional photographer Justin Winokur's Flickr set of this all Star Wars wedding he shot in LA.

Oh, that Uncle Dave: always drinking too much, hitting on the young girls, and wearing the wrong shoulder insignia on his Imperial Starfleet uniform.

Finally Done

2008-07-31T10:56:00.000-07:00

Robots and Monsters is finally done: above is the last one. Almost 200 drawings by myself, plus 35 by some fabulous contributors. Thanks to everyone who donated, devoted time to it, and helped out, be it blogging, drawing, helping mail or just looking. I, and more so, the people helped by the 12 K raised for AIDS support and research, very much appreciate it. Thanks.

So what's next? A bunch of stuff, most of which I'd rather not talk about for fear of jinxing it: let's just say this isn't the last you've heard of the project. One thing I can say is that the site will reopen soonish...as you or may not know, I am getting married in a few months, though, so if it takes a little longer to get back up to spped don't be surprised (note the lack of blogging for evidence of the awesome timesuck this seems to require.)

Thanks again, everyone!

Sketchblog: WInter Hook Logo

2008-07-16T10:09:00.000-07:00

Above is the progress from initial sketch to final for Red Hook's new Winter Hook character, whom I've dubbed The Winter Dude, as well as a comp approximating where it will appear on the six pack boxes. I like how it turned out: I'm disappointed that they decided to move away from the "dudeish" aspect, because I think that this zen-like guy riding around on a winter-y cloud is a funny twist on a rather worn archetype, but I think it looks good regardless. Now go drink some Winter Hook!

When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going

2008-07-09T22:39:00.001-07:00

Today, our Democratic majority congress eviscerated the Fourth Amendment, because they're weak spineless cowards that would rather lap at the piss-pool of power and political expediency than let an inconvenient pebble of Constitutionality cause a dimple in their corpulent, pasty asses. I'm disgusted beyond belief.

Take us home, Billy.

Costs Of War

2008-06-24T14:38:00.001-07:00

Effing brilliant.

2008-06-13T13:02:00.001-07:00

That'll do 'er right.

Amos Goldbaum

2008-06-12T08:25:00.000-07:00

I ran across this guy selling prints in the Embarcadero art faire: he was basically the only person that wasn't selling unbearably crappy and treacly stuff. I love his line work and the restrain it takes to allow the lines and negative space to speak for themselves. It reminds of Shel Silverstein. I always have trouble reigning it in: given the chance, I'll over ornamentalize something until it looks like an Italian-American wedding. Slowly, slowly, I'm learning. But Amos has it down.

The Truth

2008-06-11T22:28:00.001-07:00

fuck art, let's be hedge fund managers
Originally uploaded by Marc Johns

I feel euphoric over the potentials of the internet.

2008-06-08T20:23:00.000-07:00

We Feel Fine: a novel web exercise at it's worst,and at it's best a brilliant art project that engages the interconnectedness of us all. I spent, no joke, an hour and a half observing the spiraling emotion.

Yet another unfortunate sign that the brick and mortar art world is increasingly the last stop in the life span of an art movement, not the first. Sure, you can see a computer set up at a MOMA to watch this, but, if you've stumbled across this in the modest, intimate environment of your home computer already...why bother?

(Via TTBOOK)

I Met The Walrus

2008-06-06T16:00:00.001-07:00

I'm not the 'ugest fan of the cult of the Beatles, but both John Lennon and animation are pretty damn cool.

History Shots

2008-05-31T17:33:00.000-07:00

I'm probably a little late to the game here, but I just stumbled upon History Shots, through an ad on Daily Kos that perked my interest (there you go, maybe the first recorded instance of someone actually admitting to click on one.) It's a company that makes these lovely graphic representations of data, a la Charles Joseph Minard. I want them all. Especially cool is the one above charting the history of the efforts to reach the Moon.

Microfiche Poster

2008-05-29T07:29:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announce I've done the new silkscreened poster for Microfiche's next show at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco. Microfiche's bassist is Tim Lillis, contributing illustrator to MAKE and CRAFT Magazines, and also a wicked good friend of mine.

You can see the originally-conceived 4 color poster here, and then with the colors available to us from the silkscreener. It's interesting how a little palette change can completely alter the tone of a piece. I like 'em both, though.

An edition of 50 hand numbered posters will be available at the event, which is Friday, June 6th at 8:30 p.m.

The Biggest Drawing In The World

2008-05-24T14:00:00.001-07:00

This guy sent a briefcase around the world via DHL with a GPS device inside: the GPS device recorded and sent back it's exact coordinates, which was plotted on a map of the world, creating the drawing above. Cool.

That's the Whole Story

2008-05-17T20:06:00.000-07:00

I was on the East Coast last week, to celebrate my Mom's 60th birthday in Boston, and see my dad in New York. Traveling always screws up my ferocious media consumption schedule: stuffed into my proverbial dog carrier, I'm forced to subsist on a lean mixture of cable news kibble and the occasional internet gruel. Being denied my usually over-the-top levels of wonkish political inspection is a forced starvation diet that's good for me, I think: during this interminable primary debacle fuckshow, I've actually spun out of the newscycle, exhausted, and then come back in...twice. It's the same reason I refuse to get a smart phone: I think if given the opportunity to be connected all the time, I just might drive myself insane. Like every good New Englander, I believe in a healthy dose of denial.

However, not having a completely and totally dissected political view was a boon to me in at least one regard: I was able to see the broad swath of the media narrative in much cleaner sense (er...not "cleaner" in the Joe Biden way.) As with any long, involved subject, being close to it sometimes allows the serrated edges to get in the way, and you lose track of the general direction. And the direction I saw was pretty obvious.

Let me state for the record, for whatever it's worth, that I'm a Barack Obama supporter: but I found it fascinating how the media turned off Clinton's chances like a light switch. For all intents and purposes, Hillary's chances pretty much tanked in early March: even after Pennsylvania, the math just wasn't there for her. The media allowed the horse race to play out because it was good news filler for the 24-hour stations and blog heads, and because, well, that's the way the nominating process works. But something weird happened after North Carolina and Indiana. They just sort of...shut off the switch. Even after Obama took a drubbing in W. Virginia, the NYTimes gave it a blurb below the fold at the bottom of the page: no picture, even.

This isn't a political blog, and I'm not to about blame vast media conspiracy for anything for than following the dog the richest smelling shit. But the fact that it took a bit of distance for me to see the full scope of a media arc was informative, and it began me thinking on a subject that dominates a lot of my mind: who is the taste maker, and where does the influence come from?

Narrative arc, be it for someone's career, political fortunes, or a cause, is a fickle and powerful tool, and is often times disturbingly close to innuendo, rumor, and hearsay. Going green is cool. Bill Clinton ruined his political fortunes. Lindsey Lohan is a drunk, Gary Busey is insane, George Clooney is a cool guy. The Iraq War was the right thing to do until about 2005, and now it was totally the wrong thing to do.
The conventional wisdom, and it's accompanying narrative arc, confuses and titillates me, because it seems such a ridiculous and arbitrary thing, that if harnessed, results in awesome power and riches; I 'spose it's kind of like the Cool Stock Market. The Tao Jones. Heh.

The tastemakers these days, much to the MSM's chargin, now lie firmly in the blogs and netroots, and for that, I'm glad: as someone who's tasted the brief power of a few BoingBoing links, I can attest to the new market's force. I'm not a political expert, and as I said, I didn't follow the web rumble up to the moment that the MSM turned out the light's on Hillary's campaign. But I wonder: what happens when the two don't work in concert?

This gets back to a more germane concept in regards this blog's theme, which is design and art and cartoons and everything in between, and wonder out loud whether there is a push or pull in design and identity, and how that works: does a preconceived notion of Obama as winner cause photographers to photograph him more heroically? Does the prevalence of zombie movies influence our scares about viral diseases, or do the disease scares cause the movies popularity? It's all a very tricky and interconnected labirynth of influence and confusion that I'm not about to pin down definitively. I don't pretend to have the answers. But it sure has been rattling around in brain a lot.

Design Sausage Factory #3: Done Got Hitched

2008-05-08T08:06:00.001-07:00

As you may know now if you're invited, we finished our Save The Date about a week ago. We're both really happy with it: as you can see from the above, I went back to the original look for the back side, and let the art on the front side speak for itself. The art is actually done by my mom. After weeks of scouring hundreds of images from the San Francisco library (kind of a crappy library for such a big city, if you ask me), wiki images, and bookstores, I finally appealed to my mom to create what I was looking for, and it's perfect. To suddenly be on the otherside of the equation - trying to art direct an illustrator about the vision in my head - was an enlightening experience. In any event, she did a great job, and these things look amazing. Thanks to my dad, too, for the printing. Sometimes it pays to have a graphic family, you know?

Looking at the other posts about this, I think the thing I take away again is that I sometimes have a tendency to get too tricky: too many cues, influences, and signifiers of the feeling I'm trying to impart. As a long time illustrator but less experienced designer, I just need to trust my audience more, and not let my illustrative instincts get in the way. The reason the first version didn't work, and this version does, is because the single theme is uncluttered by competing, subtly different messages. It really is true what they say: keep it simple, stupid.

Big Man Japan Trailer

2008-05-06T09:43:00.001-07:00

I'm not exactly sure what the best part of this trailer is: the scratchy, extremely well done 'archival' footage at the beginning, the flagpole-aided underwear applique, or the weird mole-flower creature. Long story short, exhibit #394,039,107 that Japan...is...weird.

My New Favorite Awesome

2008-05-01T12:33:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I feel pretty good about myself. You know, what I've done, the plans in my mind.

Then I see something like this, and I'm all the way back at the bottom again.

(Via Drawn!)

A Lesson In Message Control

2008-04-28T23:48:00.001-07:00

God, don't you hate it when you're a wealthy white guy with an MBA, but all these overweight, bald, slovenly poor people get in the way of your success? And if it's not fat poor schlubs, it's old people! Or, jesuseffingchrist, WOMEN! Why can't these peons keep to themselves and their little Craig's List, and leave the nice jobs to us?

(Thanks to Molly for the tip.)

Tom and Jerry - The Rocketeers - 1932 Cartoon

2008-04-27T10:12:00.001-07:00

I love the Moon's face in this early Van Beuren studios cartoon: note that these guys aren't the ancestors of those OTHER Tom and Jerry fellas.

Food Fight

2008-04-23T14:37:00.001-07:00

My Space Marine Chaplain Failed His Fear Roll

2008-04-15T08:27:00.000-07:00

A recent post on basically the greatest blog on the planet had me reminscing about the Good Ol' Days, and by the good ol' days, I mean the Days In Which Hot Pockets and Busty Drawings By Frank Frazetta Were My Main Partners In Crime. My friends and I, who for all intents and purposes look like regular Americans now and actually have girlfriends and wives and stuff, were all a bunch of drooling Warhammer Universe fan boys. Sure, we played our fair share of D & D (with Ben "luckily" rolling all 19s for his Paladin), GURPS (I got a 1d20 to the head after accidentally sinking someone's flying pirate ship) and even Champions (with Derek, a "DL" emblazoned on his chest that stood for "Dark Lightning", forever after known as "Dirty Laundry")...but something about those miniatures got to us.

With the fresh breeze of a more prosaic life invigorating my mind, I can step back see the Warhammer Universe for what it is, which is, namely, EXTREMELY complicated. Check out out this page: let me note for total neophytes, that none of these words affect how you PLAY THE GAME at all. They are just exposition, a mere background to give your game more context and texture. This is, in a word - and I say this in the full blush of fanboyism - a bit insane.

Or is it? I've been thinking a lot about cohesive community: my (very mild) success with Robots and Monsters has opened my eyes to a large and lusty community of people that just love robots and monsters: I've gotten emails that ask how a robot would work, or whether two monsters knew each other, or which are "good guys" and "bad guys". This is a bit amazing to me: these...things...are just the random blips in my brain when I put pencil to paper. Born into existence, they are suddenly imbued with people's presupposed notions, prejudices, imaginations.

It's around these Collective Imaginations that societies are formed. Stroll into any TV-show, comic book, or movie specific Con (I recently saw an ad in a trade for - I swear - Arrested Development Con), and it is a vast sea of humanity, all related by a simple common knowledge. It's actually quite charming, that humans seem to just need the tiniest bait of something in common to become fast friends. And the more complicated the back story, the more varied and textured that community is allowed to become. Fan Fiction is a growth industry precisely because the members of the community have outgrown the original mythology, and in order to grow as a community, they need more fodder to chaw on. It is in this fertile intellectual froth that a community shapes and supports itself: a place of belonging, which, as pack animals, we so sorely need. One excuse is as good as any.

IIt is not confined to the otaku set amongst us, by any stretch of the imagination - a full throated football game is a transcendent experience - but I argue that the geeks have a special relationship. A fantasy football team is the palest shade of role playing I know: to truly create a character, a world, a space marine squadron - this is truly the flush feeling of creation. And the the glow of creation is like no other. Allow me a bit of my secular humanism to come through, but frankly, The Bible? Totally God fan-fic.

Which brings me back around to Warhammer: I can't fault those kids ( and adults!) for being so into it. It is a unifier in a way not many things are in this Cold Cruel Modern World, and the background story is an enhancement for such imaginations. There have been moments ( more often than I would like to admit, besides to you, dear blog audience) that I have upbraided myself for not being the next Dan Clowes or Gary Baseman. I lie awake at nights, cursing myself for every failure, begrudging every success of a competitor. These are the nights I am ashamed of the most. It takes a moment like this- that people enjoy the creation, regardless of me, that my egosim fails me: I am but a creator, truly the most humble of roles. It's not me that matters, at all. It's what I make. That is what speaks to people, not myself. It's then that I truly feel thankful. The creation succeeds where the flesh is weak.

Maybe I should start my Space Marine squad back up.

The Whitest Boy! Golden Cage! by Geoff McFetridge

2008-04-14T22:04:00.001-07:00

I've been invited to work towards a solo show, my first, which is super exciting, but also weirds me out a bit: I have been nothing if not a bit mercenary my whole professional life: I am much comfortable with the term "illustrator" than "artist".

I asked my colleague Eric Fredericksen if he had any advice in bridging this hard psychological gap: there's nothing worse that seeing a wonderful cartoonist or illustrator get into an art gallery and screw everything up by trying "art" up what they do, ruining what made their original work so charming. Eric recommended Geoff McFetridge's work at Olympic Sculpture Park as a good barometer, and I Googled him and got this video.

I love it so much.

Sketchblog 4/4/08

2008-04-04T10:46:00.000-07:00

Another poster for Blue Flavor, this time for Skydeck, which protect your info from prying hands and corporate mailing lists. I really like the many-handed monster, especially that rich red: it's a very Gary Baseman color, and I won't say I mind being associated with him. The robot is not as dynamic as I would have hoped, but I'm trying to think less about what I draw these days, and just DRAW it. Early in my career, I was bothered that I didn't have as distinctive a style as I would have hoped for. Now, as I get older, I see that style - and being known for that style - often comes from just letting your brain go a little bit. As a bit of a neurotic, I find this difficult sometimes, being full of self-doubt about my instincts. But I'm getting better about letting go. If this means that right now I draw a lot of craw-grappling robots, well, so be it. I may have done it before, but at least it comes from my subconscious.

Chromophobia

2008-03-31T11:22:00.001-07:00

One Hour Comix

2008-03-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

I've written about Colin White here before. He's a comic artist and illustrator out of Canada, and he's got a great style and ease of line-work that belies how sharp his gesture work is: all around, a great talent. Like most comic artists aspiring to make a living, he found that he was, in fact, doing very little actual comics in lieu of paying work, something I can relate to. So, over the past few months, he developed a project called One Hour Comix, in which he devotes one hour each day to his craft. Now, the idea, dedication, and goals behind it alone could be lauded; but Colin has actually managed, with just one hour a day, to actually make compelling work, which is all the more impressive. It's very bizarre, stream-of-consciousness type of content: feuding, AK-47-wielding, broom-riding deities, masturbating bunnies, sun-eating turtles: all at once he manages to create a surrealistic yet very personal comicscape on which he scribbles his life. It's really, really cool.

Then, the other week, expectedly, I showed up in the strip, in the form of a talking mouse: Colin and I often debate the nature of art and the artist's role over IM, and in keeping with his personal nature of the work, my comments in his Flickr gallery metastasized themselves into a character. It's turned into a running gag/experiment (read through the rest). Besides the flattering nature of putting me in there, I like the unexplored territory this trods: it's audience-aided content, with the creator responding to the audience in ways that wasn't possible before. It's all very web 2.0 wonderfulness, and in response, the least I thought I could do was respond with my own contribution. I'm not exactly sure where this is headed, but I like it, it's exciting...and, Hey! I'm doing comics again!

Little Panel, Big Screen

2008-03-29T14:47:00.001-07:00

During my interwebs surfing , I've come across two little chunks of comic-to-movie adaptation newslets that seem to beg some kind of comment: I don't have to remind my 4 readers how I feel about the whole comic-book to movie thing (Why...are...you....doing this?!), but I feel like the announcements are large enough to at least recognize.

The first is Zac Snyder's adaptation of Alan Moore's The Watchmen, something that I (and many others) would argue is the comic book that matured comic books: even Maus, since it's basically a biography, doesn't carry the heavy narrative weight that Moore's and Gibbons opus does. The Watchmen is basically the first movie released as a comic book first, which is why I actually have high hopes for it: unlike other comic books that are too fantastical or too intimate to make a good movie, The Watchmen reads like a movie from the beginning: the pacing, the framing, even the action, all seems made from production stills. I loathed Snyder's 300, but here's a (admittedly old) transcript of his talk that seems to show he at least has a lot of respect for the material. Below is also a rad graphic showing the casting options for the last two times The Watchmen was considering for Hollywood, as well as the most recent iteration. I personally think the casting of Ron Perlman as The Comedian would be brilliant (second only to Mel Gibson), but that's just me.

The second little piece of "Holy-shit-it's-really-happening" news released this week is that Spielberg has seemingly found his Tintin.

(sounds of shotgun being removed from gun rack)

The movies are slated to be all original scripts...

(sounds of shotgun cartridges being loaded into shotgun)

...with a lot of money attached to them; Spielberg is slated to direct the first, Peter Jackson the second, and as-yet-to-be-determined hot young director to helm the third...

(click-CLACK!)

and they will all be motion-captured CGI films. Hooray!

(BLAM!)

Stop Motion Tron

2008-03-28T08:17:00.001-07:00

Tron
Video sent by freres-hueon

Oh my. This made my day.

Sketchblog 3/18/08

2008-03-18T10:22:00.000-07:00

The above is another poster in the series I've done for Blue Flavor, advertising some of their software and projects. I've got a huge response from these posters, which brings up a rather interesting idea that we're dabbling with here: album art for programs. I considered this at first just advertisement, but the BF guys have been great, as usual, and given me complete creative freedom. I'm basically allowed to do whatever the word makes me think of. Which brings up an interesting new venue for illustrators. In a world in which albums are released digitally, and software and video games sometimes have a big and feverent a following as music ( see Firefox!) who's to say that software packaging needs to be all boring swooping blue lines and staid san serif fonts? I hope this is the beginning of a big trend... in any event, thanks again to the BF guys for being on the side of the good guys...

Toutes les autos de Tintin

2008-03-17T16:30:00.000-07:00

This is an online gallery of every single car, along with a picture of it's real life counterpart, when possible, to ever appear in a Tintin book: some Tintin nutcase has a lot of time on his hands. Herge was known to be a religious collector of reference art for the books, especially in his later years. While the early books, like Tintin and Land of The Soviets, and Tintin in the Congo, are the slapdash work of a kid with a lot of things on his mind, as he got older, Herge began making sure everything in his books was accurate, going so far as to redo panels from books twenty years earlier because the objects that Tintin interact with isn't accurate enough. This gallery is a true monument to Herge's dedication to making the world that Tintin lived in as real as possible, and yet another reason he is one of the greats.

Found via the Musesum of Online Museums.

Kid Koala- Fender Bender

2008-02-29T12:41:00.001-08:00

Brilliant Kid Koala video found by my boy and old skool DJ Extraordinaire Garret, aka DJ Bruce Leeroy. When I moved up to Seattle, one of my first nights there Garret and I went to see Koala at a tiny venue that's no longer around. This video is a great approximation of what that show was like: innovative, artistic, and most of all, bumpin' as all hell.

Sketchblog 2/28/08

2008-02-28T08:06:00.000-08:00

Above is another poster in the series I'm doing for Blue Flavor. You can see the first one here.

I like this one quite a bit: the palette reminds me of some late 60s children's books I used to pore over as a kid: heavy, red-influenced blues with some orange-reds, a seemingly popular color scheme at the time and one that I still can't get out of my head. I often wonder how much one's visual aesthetics is influenced by one's very early development window of colors and shapes. I love (and always use) that type of bright sky blue: did I have a crib that color at some point? I have to ask my parents...

Sketchblog

2008-02-20T16:55:00.000-08:00

Kevin asked me to create a logo for his video company: Quoth Kevin:

"...something a little more baroque/russian futurist/steampunk - like a blueprint for a redesign of an alternate-future video camera with a lot of swoopy curves and stuff. Hell of a lot more work, I know."

It's cool, Kev. You're shooting my wedding.

Above is my first stab, and then out of boredom, I put it in an environment. I kinda like how it looks. And I want one.

Sausage Factory: Done Got Hitched, Part 2

2008-02-18T23:12:00.000-08:00

Molly's out of town this week, so it's just me and the cats and the Mac, which leaves ample room for some real nerdly design work. I've got some great paying stuff coming up that I'm looking forward to, but right now I've got the looming project that is far more pressing: figuring out how our wedding in November is going to be graphically represented. This is the second part of a series. You can see how we got to this point here.

I don't have much to say except that this is harder than I initially thought, and I'm not sure whether it's because it actually is a challenging project, or that because it's so personally important to me, I'm hyper self-aware. In any event, I think I'm getting closer to where we want to be.

Diving right in to what I did tonight:

I like this, because it gives a nice feel of that beeeeautiful Haeckel etching that I've latched on to, and it also brings an element of art nouveau wallpaper in the background, as it feels like it's being pinned up on a wall. It's way too busy though, with too many colors.

I like this one more because it brings the elements together, but again, while I love the design, the pinks leaves me limp. Next.

This is the choice for the understated fan that likes to let the art speak for itself, and I can see that point of view, I really can. To me, it seems a little snoozely, but then, I'm also a guy who likes a lot going on in a design.

NOW we're cooking with gasoline,, baby. This sucker jumps right off the page, and seems to be modern while at the same time hewing very close to the design of yore. I like this one a lot. But I'm only half the deciding team, so who knows what The Boss will bring down.

I like this one a lot, too: with the addition of the red pitcher plant, it suddenly takes on a vaguely Spanish feel for some reason, which I'm not totally against, though neither Molly nor I have anything to do with Spain at all. I like that is starts to recall art nouveau moving into more stylized form, and is hence historically accurate for the time period we want to evoke. The drawbacks are that it's kinda vaginal, which might come off as weird. But, hey! Everyone loves vaginas!

Like I said, I'm alone all week, so there will be a ton more of these being cranked out. Stay tuned...

The Conquest of Space

2008-02-18T13:02:00.001-08:00

I just bought the DVD today on Amazon of these old Wonderful World of Disney information cartoons. I love the atmosphere of this thing: it's part Wagnerian grandeur, part Kennedy-esque optimism, with just a dash of magical realism thrown in for good measure.

Coffee Poster

2008-02-11T16:44:00.000-08:00

(Click to enlarge)

Above is a new poster I did for Blue Flavor: they're asking different artists to do posters that relate somehow to the work they've done for various clients, and I'm the first artist they asked, which is totally cool. The client for this poster is LiveMocha, a site that joins people together into a community for learning languages, via Web 2.0 (ugh) concepts, etc., usability, etc. The upshot is that I got to do this totally cool poster, and they loved it. Apologies to The Perrystag for totally stealing some of his thunder.

The Troubles

2008-02-07T14:43:00.000-08:00

While searching Flickr for copyright free shots for comps for the agency I work for (dirty little internet secret), I stumbled upon this brilliant photoset by a photographer, Peter Denton in the UK who, for a time, worked as the still photographer for the UK program "This Week", documenting the upheaval in Ireland at the time. Besides the lovely framing, the quality of the images, somewhere between post-apocalyptic and magical realism , is only enhanced by the heavy red and yellow tone of the film and the overcast sky. Red vans, pink berets, coats of arms, blue graffiti, yellow banners. Sometimes, a set of images taken together carries a weight the one alone can't.

Sausage Factory: Done Got Hitched, Part 1

2008-01-30T22:55:00.000-08:00

So I've decided to start doing something on this blog I'd like to call The Design Sausage Factory, because I like the sound of that, and I've had a little wine and it sounds totally fine to me right now. I thought it might be cool to document how a design or illustration that I'm working on starts out when it's first concepted, and then update it with various installments until the final product comes shooting out the gristle-caked slough onto the slick factory floor below, glistening with fatty design-y residue of another concept hog butchered in the name of an idea . I'm always really amazed at how certain design projects and tones can change over the course of time, and I never really save different iterations, so I figure this is as good a venue as any. Not only do I get see myself how it progressed, but so do all seven of my readers. (Hi, Dad!) So strap on your company-issued hard hats, folks: the factory floor calls!

The project in question is actually one of a rather personal nature, which is great because I actually care about it more than most (just kidding, paying clients!). As you may know, the lovely Molly and myself will be getting married this November, and such a big event of this nature always is in need of some serious design direction. Without a cohesive identity, defined themes, and a sensible pallette, the whole thing will spiral out of control, we'll break up, and the building we're getting married in will probably set on fire. I really, truly believe this. This is what happens when a visual nerd gets married.

(...and for those of you guys out there who think that I'm being a sissy for caring about the visual identity of my wedding: turn your back on your girl for a second, and you may end up wearing a pink bowtie. Heed me now!)

In all seriousness, though, there were certain tones and themes that both Molly and I talked about wanting to evoke, and so the closer we hit to our mark, the more success we feel the event will be.

So.

Step One: Themes

Luckily, I happen to be marrying a girl who is with me in firm belief that there is nothing worse than this or this or whatever. So let's just wipe that crap right out.

We're both rather nostalgic for times past, we both really enjoy a certain early 20th century iconography, and we both think the saccharine sweetness wrapped around some weddings is, well, kinda gross, so we want to pull it more to a quirky, esoteric, and nearly DIY feel. We're also having our wedding very close to Halloween, so we'd like to encapsulate *some* of that feeling (ornate decreptitude, interesting foliage) with out most of the traditional ridiculousness (Hot Topic, goths). As you can see, the target we are trying to hit from a visual point of view is very narrow, and hence takes a great deal of focus.

Step Two: Influences

- 1893 through 1925, and the associated themes
- Art Nouveau
- The White City
- Traditional book binding
- Scientific etchings
- Taxidermy
- Pre-Edwardian typography and patterns
- non-traditional flora
- Perhaps even Art Deco, if we feel like stretching the time period.

(Thanks, HC!)

Step Three: Palettes and Font Options

So, having throughly processed all the images we pored over, I came with a set colors that seemed to recur many times:

...and the best I could do with my current set of fonts that seemed time appropriate, though I'm not really thrilled with any of them.

I have, however, just been turned on to a set that seems kind of perfect.

Step Four: First Attempt

So this is what I got from just kind of screwing around:

Neither of us are thrilled with it, but we agree it's going in the right direction: the colors seem right, but there needs to be more wedding and less wallpaper. Stay tuned...

New work

2008-01-29T10:59:00.000-08:00

Just quick note to update you of some of my most recent projects:

The first is the aforementioned skatedeck I worked on for a show at Space Gallery a few weeks ago. Tim Lillis of Narwhal Creative and I both created a deck, and they both rule: I think mine is about halfway there in terms of what was in my head versus what actually came out, but my next piece in this same scheme will be farther along, I think. Also, Jesse, of Subhead Grip provided some incredible griptape work that really took the piece to the next level, so thanks to him for all his help. More here.

The second is something I mentioned before, but I actually received the cardpack that I created for the Ignite agency, and they're great: nice printing, excellent stock, beautiful packaging. It's always nice to see your work in physical form, too.

And lastly, more damn Robots and Monsters. As usual.

*UPDATE*: We got blogged by Brainiac again. Sweet!

Printing's Alive

2008-01-27T10:12:00.001-08:00

Amen, brother. From Design Observer.

Cardboard is Murder

2008-01-26T10:47:00.000-08:00

Damn, this is cool. Molly found this the other day out of a duel headed desire to support independent artists, and also somehow put a stop to my obsession with having dead stuffed animals in our house. Rock Paper Scissors out of Virginia, what looks like a small DIY shop, sells cardboard laser cut into puzzles you can assemble to mock taxidermied heads of elk, moose, and yes, rhinos, among other things. We bought the big one just now.

Pretend you live in the Ernest Hemingway's house, but without the guilt!

Tractorbot

2008-01-25T16:15:00.001-08:00

Tractor for experimental lifeboat at Dungeness
Originally uploaded by Whipper_snapper

I love this thing. It looks like a character out of a children's book. Soooo cool.

I added this with the new Flickr - Blogger App. Why, oh, why have you place the image all the way on the right hand side, oh, Flickr. This thing stinks.

Sketchblog 1/19/08

2008-01-21T13:03:00.000-08:00

(Click to enlarge)

Above is a last minute poster I did for my friend Scott, in support of a benefit show for the Tia Foundation. Knowing that I'm a total sucker for good causes, he knew I'd jump at the chance, the rat bastard. I ended up only having a small amount of time to do it in, so the above is actually a bit of recycling on my part; a few different pieces from sketch books, brought together in Photoshop and then layed out in InDesign. I'm pleased with the result. Reduce, reuse, redesign, my brothers and sisters.

Your Monster Is Leaking

2008-01-06T18:14:00.000-08:00

The above is the debatable leaked concept art of the main antagonist monster in the new film Cloverfield, to be released in about 2 weeks. Filmed in the faux-verite style so popular with the kids in recent years, there's been internet chatter back and forth about whether this is just fan art, a ruse created to throw off the fanboys, or the actual good stuff, but regardless, I like the illo a lot. Look out! Walking whale!

Now, all we have to wait for is to see whether is actually going to be a cool movie that will live up to the hype, or yet another in a series of disappointing movies that could never replicate the excitement generated by their art direction and pricey ad campaigns. It may be that my advanced age of almost 30 has made a cynic out of me, but I ain't holding my breath.

*UPDATE!* Turns out it's not real, just some guy's stab at it. I still like the drawing, though.

How To Draw A Face

2008-01-04T15:32:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while, The Internets come through and actually fufills the promise of bringing us all closer together, as one people. It's in these bright and shining moments when I actually allow myself a glimmer of hope that humanity may actually not totally screw things up beyond recognition. This story is one of those moments.

It will make you laugh. It will make you cry. It will teach you how to draw a face. It's like a mytsery and a buddy movie and feel-good family drama all in one.

Dig it.

(via Drawn!)

Year's End

2007-12-31T07:45:00.001-08:00

Above is some of my most recent advertising work that I've done for Golden Lasso, up in Seattle, which I'm happy with. Once again, it looks like I'm solidifying my rep as "that robot guy". Also, I'm pretty sure I worked with one of those robots at a temp job once.

As the year draws to close, I like to think about projects I did, weird events that occurred, and people I met that left an impression. In that vein, the run down:

This year I:

- Hooked up with Richard Salzman as my agent, which has been nothing but a great
experience.

- Got invited to Seoul to present at SICAF about mobile comics.

- Launched RobotsAndMonsters.org

- Ran my first marathon.

- Got a totally awesome new apartment.

- Got mugged at gunpoint.

- Saw 2 friends get married, and wished well 2 more from afar.

- Spent an awkward Christmas with both my parents at once, the first time in 12
years.

- Actually got most of my income by drawing for money, a first.

Which makes 2007 kind of a gorgeous year, in retrospect, besides the mugging part, and even that, once could argue, is informative in a Bukowski-would-have-dug-this-life-experience-kind-of-way. So I'm nothing but pleased.

Every single year, I write down things that I'm going to do in the next year on a piece of paper, and I keep it in my wallet. It's a constant barking reminder of all the stuff that I still want to get done, and there is no better sense of satisfaction than to cross one of those bad boys off the list. The problem is, I really have no one but me to keep me honest. So this year, I thought I'd post my list. That way, there's more incentive to not write a check my drawing hand can't cash. So, consider yourself witness, dear reader. You are now a part of this.

Next year I'm gonna:

- Get hitched to the greatest girl on the planet.

- Get a publisher for Robots And Monsters: The Book.

- Assemble the pieces for a solo art show.

- Get some comics in a few newspapers.

- Finally do something constructive with The Basic Virus.

- Fix my motorcycle.

Also, I'll be in a show next Friday at The Space Gallery in San Francisco, in which I did a custom skateboard , but I'll give more updates on that later. Stay tuned.

Happy New Year, y'all. Be good to one another out there.

Lurvely Spam

2007-12-16T18:24:00.001-08:00

Back when The Internets was a mite fresher than it is these days, without the foetid stank of 2G1C mingling with the smoke of a billowing BMW Pain Olympics, my friends and I used to have a good time emailing back and forth some of the more poetic passages of text in the spam we received. Often culled from online sources, patched together in a completely random way, these little pieces of web wisdom would fall onto our collective plates and occasionally produce a real gem. We often bandied back and forth that someday someone (read: one of us) should do something with these things. Someone did.

Linzi Hunter illustrates spam subject lines in that beautiful, Ward Kimball mid-century style so popular these days, and they are, in a word, wonderful. Damn! One of us should have done this. Oh, well. Throw it on the pile with Apocalypse Insurance, Guerrilla Dogs, and Google.

(via the Hermenautic Circle)

The Sum of Our Years

2007-12-14T11:46:00.000-08:00

Living My Life Faster - 8 years of JK's Daily Photo Project from c71123 on Vimeo.

From the Times today, an unbelievably fascinating project from Detriot Artist Jonathan Keller.

Besides the obviously cool, if slightly pedestrian project theme ( "Like...life, totally move faster than you think, man!"), I'm more impressed by the technical aspect of the project. You'll notice that his nose tip is in the exact same place every time, which makes me wonder what his method is: perhaps using the previous day as a 50% overlay? A laser guide? Tape marks and shot through a one way mirror? It's impressively consistent.

The other part I really like about this project is his plan is also to keep this project going for the rest of his life. Considering the projected age span for folks of his ( and my) generation, there's a possibility of what would end up being about a half an hour film of a man aging to 90 years old. What an incredible send off once he actually dies: way better than your average wake.Talk about life's work.

Rest On Your Laurels

2007-12-12T17:00:00.000-08:00

I was informed the other day that my dad, Brian Alterio has had some of his photographic work from the 1970s entered into the Government Art Collection of the United Kingdom. I understand that this is akin to having your work added to the Smithsonian National Art Archive collection here, so it's huge honor. Most notable among entrants is the image above, the irony of which is that my dad doesn't have a print of this image anymore, or even the negative. I had to email the GAC and beg them for a scanned file, which at 150K, is the biggest file size I could get out of their greasy little hands. So it truly belongs to The State now, I guess.

As a part of the neo-verite school that was bubbling around Britain at the time, alternatively called the Young British Photographers and the Romantic Realists, my dad was but a small cog in the upswell of recognition that photography was an art form best taken on the fly with little fuss, moving away from the staid tired images of previous generations and into more visceral iconic images. From my dad's blurb:

"I was first introduced to photography while trolling the stacks at the library as an under grad at the Mass College of Art in 1966. I happened across a book by Alfred Stieglitz the seminal figure in American photography in the early 20th century. Struck by the power of his images, I urgently set about buying a cheap, rudimentary, yet effective, range finder camera.

From that point onward the trajectory was steep and powerful until I found myself in England in 1972. Coincidentally, the precise point in time when British creative photography was about to make it's second mark in history other than the obvious and great historical figures that populate the books in our libraries and bookshelves today.

At that time I always carried my trusty Lieca everywhere I went day and night every day 365 days a year. Inspired by my predecessors and stimulated by the now famous cadre of young British photographers that would hang out at the offices of Creative Camera in London, I would shoot dozens of rolls of B/W per day and return home to process them.

That period was one of great influence and inspiration in both directions. I had the pleasure to meet and befriend one of the great yet here-to-fore unsung giants of that time Paddy Summerfield in Oxford. Paddy's approach was so unique and powerful as to be the undiscovered avante garde of that period. We shared many hours of hotly debated topics that ranged from Herri Cartier Bresson's "decisive moment" to and including the purity on the frame edge at the precise time of exposure."

I'm gratified at this turn of events of multiple fronts, not the least of which is that I'm really happy for my dad. Once I was born, and then later my sister, my dad stopped shooting and actually got a real job and career. When we were growing up, he would occasionally take us out shooting, but it wasn't as often as probably he would like: he had a lot of his plate at the time, from sustaining a family to managing a crumbling marriage. I can't help but feel partially responsible by my mere existence for my dad not being more renowned than he is. But that's enough Psychology-by-Blogger; I'm just glad he actually is getting some recognition for his vision.

My dad's mention of Paddy Summerfield lends me to add one more link, Paddy's photographic site. He's still shooting, and some of his work is truly amazing, especially the 'handheld' series under 'portrait. It's visionary work, check it out.

Congrats, pop. I love ya.

Jazz's St. James Infirmary Blues

2007-12-11T13:24:00.001-08:00

...And then this is just weird.

St James Infirmary Blues

2007-12-11T13:20:00.001-08:00

People always ask me why I'm such a grumpy old man and hate on most modern cartoons. This is why. If you're an old hand, enjoy again. And if you've never seen this, gird yourself.

Fever Dreams

2007-11-25T20:42:00.000-08:00

Los Angeles' cool thin tendrils slip their sticky coils around me for a few nights this weekend, and all I can think of is the electricity in them that used to be thrilling, but now is static discharge to my frontal cortex. We all assume mantles at a certain point, if only because it's easier: sometimes, your three sentence rundown of how you are in your brain keeps you from going over the edge with self-doubt or, even worse, a booze-fueled existential slip up. Part of my Cliff's Notes involved being the Consummate Los Angeles Defender. My stock lines are familiar to anyone who has gone abroad and felt the need to defend their home country as a place of decent human beings. "It's misunderstood, there's wonderful parts about it, it's so damn trendy to hate it". But for some reason on this particular visit, Madam Angeles kiss feels cold and clammy.

Out in Sherman Oaks, and something strikes me that I could never put my finger on before, maybe because I was too close, too complicit. There's no people here. The abstract of complaining about cars is something that naturally leads people to think of traffic, smog, and delays. But my epiphany is of a more natural sort: looking around, the human form is nary in sight. Tucked safely away in their flying vehicles, funneled onto the city streets where everyone is behind tinted glass, sunglasses, air conditioners. The sight of a human being is rare from the window of a car here. And that, combined with the bright newness of the malls and and streets signs make it look like a place where something just happened for which you were a little late, and now everyone's gone.

But I'm here with Kevin, which is gratifying. We talk projects of all sorts, and as usual when I'm with him, I get excited all over again for my various ridiculous hair brained creative schemes. We flit from location to location like purposeless bees, carried by Santa Anna winds from a production studio to the Tee Yee Lounge for Knob Creek rocks to Canters for Lox and capers. We talk about robots and monsters and comics and films and merchandising and how can rest on our laurels and still make rent. It is a infinitely futuristic web 2.0 existence we lead, joining the other sort-of employed college educated professionals who haunt coffeeshops and exist on their Macbooks and are allowed to be nowhere at 2 PM. Our perfect lucky states are enviable.

Los Angeles breaths. We breath with it and hope it all lasts for a little while longer. The tendrils keep their buzz.

Sketchblog 11/14/07

2007-11-13T08:24:00.000-08:00

My new and very belated present to to my friend Rebholz, for his and his wife Catherine's wedding in 2006. Click here for a larger view.

It feels good to get back to comics. Illustration feeds my face. Comics feeds something else inside. Like that weird multi-headed worm that showed up on those medical scans.

Dreams of A Rarebit Fiend: The Movie

2007-11-09T10:54:00.001-08:00

Above is actually my first introduction to Rarebit, when I was still in film school, comics weren't in my mind yet, and my animation teacher was blowing my mind every day with more and more obscure early animations. Once again, McCay was decades ahead of any of his contemporaries. I couldn't bully stupid YouTube into including it in the last post, so...enjoy.

Dreams of A Rarebit Fiend: The Book

2007-11-09T10:36:00.001-08:00

Over at the Boston Globe Brainiac blog today, Josh Glenn has a really cool and enlightening slideshow about Winsor McCay's early comic (predating Little Nemo in Slumberland), Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend. True to McCay form, the comic's loose pretense, the wild imaginings of restless sleep after ingesting some rarebit, is a close ancestor to Slumberland. The McCay mandate insisted on any excuse to draw the strange and surrealist imaginings going on in his head, and both Slumberland and Fiend offer as much freedom for odd imaginings as possible while still keeping a modicum of plot continuity. He was the world's first pop surrealist, to be sure.

In his slide show, Glenn examines a (unfortunately rather pricey) new self-published book by German scholar Ulrich Merkl, which gives Rarebit a close examination and makes the argument that McCay, and Rarebit in particular, influenced a great deal of popular images in our culture. You won't hear any dispute from me that McCay remains one of the most important artists of the the 20th century, though some examples, like the Buñuel film Age D'Or, carry the argument much more robustly than others, like Mary Poppins. Regardless, it seems like a great book, and the slide show by Glenn is a joy to watch.

Sketchblog 11/7/07

2007-11-08T20:34:00.000-08:00

(Click image to enlarge)

Above is the wrap-around album cover art I did for the new Edisyn album. I think it turned out well, if I may be so immodest. I had another idea originally which was rejected that I think I may still ink and color anyway. I worked a little bigger this time on both of 'em - this is 15 inches long - so I think it'll make a good piece for my upcoming show, when I actually get around to planning it.

All Dressed Up

2007-11-07T07:17:00.000-08:00

Oops. I forgot to post these on the Day of Days, but better late than never, I guess. As evidenced below, and from previous precendents, these are all homemade. I love my friends.

Dangermouse, Wingman, That Katmari Damacy king-guy, a rubber duckie, and JonBenet Ramsey

Bumblebee (tragically, sans mask) and a giant Tootsie Roll.

Hall and/or Oats. I can never tell which is which.

Also, more R and M. As usual.

Back In The Saddle

2007-11-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

I actually have a studio now! Swish!

It seems like a subconscious cycle I must perform every three months, much like how dogs unwittingly circle before they lie down: blog a lot for a spurt, stop blogging because something time-consuming happens, come back and apologize and resume. Well, I'm done apologizing. I moved, goddammit. And that takes a lot out of you. As you can see from the image above, we still have a lot to do before the house is fully functional, but we're getting there. I will apologize to everyone that's been trying to reach me, whether personal or professional: I have a huge backlog of unreplied-to emails and uncompleted projects, so bear with me over the next few weeks. Suffice to say, our new place is lovely, spacious, and waaay too expensive. C'est le vie.

Luckily, I haven't had any lack of huge projects to distract me, one of which of course is the constant sword over my head Robots and Monsters: there's new members up, with more coming (project of the day today), as well as the first of our Special Contributors submissions, which are all fantastic. Thanks to Lawrence Yang, D. Emory Allen, and Adam "Ape Lad" Koford for showing up so big and donating your immense talents. You all rule.

I also had the good fortune of being hired by Ignited LA to illustrate their set of holiday cards that goes out to all their clients and friends. The job took a long time, but I think the results are worth it: the images above is just one of many images I made for them, and I'm happy because it pushed me stylistically, and but still ended up looking great. I'll definitely be posted photos of the actual cards when I receive my set.

With album cover as well as snowboards on the to-do list, I'm gonna be plenty busy, but again, if you've contacted me and are waiting for a reply, be patient: I'll get to you all, I promise.

Just...as soon...as I can find...my mouse....

A New Member of the Fleet

2007-10-11T20:42:00.000-07:00

Firstly, apologies for my blog absence, dear readers: a long life is a busy life, and all that that entails. The blogosphere exhausts me, but also emboldens me. I only hope that, on the balance, I give as much as I take.

I'm proud to announce the long awaited web portfolio site of my great friend Matt Rebholz, at www.mattrebholz.com. Any one of you that are on the web and a Rebholz fan will know that this was a long time coming, and is sure to enrich the web art community in untold ways.

I have a complicated relationship with Matt: I met him during play auditions in 8th grade. I was up for the role of a young Christopher Columbus (the older iteration of which went to this chump), and he was drawing manga before manga was cool on the auditorium floor. I rudely told him I thought the arms on his character were too long, he rightly rebuffed me haughtily, and we're still strong friends today.

Let me riff for a sec on Rebholzian art, and say that it is, unto itself, a very organic beast. Rebholz' obsessions with teeth, penises, liquids, scales, fur, and hair, parlay an animalistic and raw notion that is constantly attempting to break through a constructed fabrice: even buildings, structures, and mechanics all have an organic tilt in the world of Rebholz. It is a monstrous menagerie of imagination, deviancy, and nightmare-ish illusions that (at least my take on the) art has little seen since Maurice Sendak. Besides being one of my best friends for more that 15 years, I also inhabited the great City of Angeles with him for a period, and that too comes through: the raw, heretical, beastial notions of existence that Los Angeles proffers up to it's profane gods. Rebholz' artistic vision, still in it's early stages but already frighteningly good, captures with outrageous poignancy the obsessions of our obsessed culture, ranging from drugs to conspiracy to the commodification of art itself.

Clickwheel relaunch

2007-09-25T10:46:00.000-07:00

As some of you may remember, I'm part of an online webcomic and mobile comic group, Clickwheel, that hosts some of my comics (about 2/3s of 365, the first few episodes of The Basic Virus, as well as a few comic-casts). A while ago I stopped uploading for a few reasons, namely, that I got a lot of web traffic but little restitution, it had poor marketing, and that process of and design of reading comics was unintuitive, and frankly, kinda lame. I'm happy to report, however, that in subsequent 6 months of furlough, it was bought by 2000 AD and that it is trying to reinvent itself as a destination again, an effort which I heartily applaud.

Part of their effort is (gasp! shock!) actually commissioning exclusive content for Clickwheel. The above panel is part of the second chapter of Colin White's fantastic series "Comics on Small Screens", an experiment of his in which he tries to tell stories by pushing the envelope of how many panels a screen can handle before it stops making sense. Loyal readers of this blog may remember that Colin and I were both invited to South Korea to talk about mobile comics, but Colin couldn't make it: nevertheless, I consider him my (somewhat more talented) brother-in-arms when it comes to trying drum up support and discussion about possibilities of mobile comics. I'm also totally flattered to report I make an unexpected cameo in his new series. Thanks, Colin. Go get it!

My main issue with CW, and one unfortunately that still hasn't been addressed, is
the actual physical process of getting the comics on your phone or iPod. It's tough to be in the tech biz these days: things move so damn fast, what used to be a project about comics on iPods (hence the name, "Clickwheel", already outmoded) has now necessarily turned into a project about comics on iPhones and iTouches. The duct-tape and bubblegum patch that was first initially proposed - just providing customers with JPGs they can download and put onto their mobile device - is unfortunately still around, and feels as caveman as ever. However, I have been assured that a CW reader app is in the works, and with iPhones now having not only wifi capability but WAP push, one has to assume that a smoother process - like just subscribing to your favorite comic and having it show up on your phone every day, a la RSS - is right around the corner. One has to assume. Fingers crossed.

Nevertheless, check out what CW has to offer anyway: its definitely light years ahead of what most other big slow stupid media companies are doing with content, it's cool, it's now more community oriented, and it's run by really nice guys. I'll go back to uploading new work too, and maybe develop something for them: the potential for instant comics to you wherever you are is just too great.

Faster Than A Speeding Bullet

2007-09-18T13:22:00.001-07:00

I just bought the new DVD of the Fleischer studios Superman series from the 1940s, and to my delight found that they've just been made Public Domain, which means that, in light of all the other locks put onto to seeing work on the web, here's a few precious gems that you don't have worry about be caught about. I could go on and on about how amazing the framing is, that all the backgrounds look like they're shaded with chalk and airbrush, or that even the animation, for a weekly serial, is fantastic. But I don't need to. Just watch them all, and enjoy. Lookee them robots! Wowsa!

Silhouette Maker

2007-09-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

I've discovered my new favorite comix artist: Tom Gould, of London. Check out his whole site, it's all very phenomenal work, as is his client list. He's like a unholy hybrid of Edward Gorey, Steven Beistey, and R. Crumb. Agh...I'm swooning because I love all of it so much. I'm gonna try and get him for Robots And Monsters. Fingers crossed!

"A slime draws near. Command?"

2007-09-10T12:10:00.000-07:00

Future Systems on London has just won the contract for building the new national library for the Czech Republic, on the strength of their kinda outside-the-box design, picture above. Now, I ain't no prude, but frankly, I'd love to see a return to a little classicism one of these days when it comes to destination building design. What's the matter with dentals and dorics? Having recently lived in a city with a very weird and newsmaking library, I know I'm bucking the trend, but screw it: stuff like this just seems dated immediately out of the gate. Czechs 20 years from now are going to walk past this thing and roll their eyes and say "Ugh, that's SO early 2000s."

Let me just say this: the buildings pictured below also were viewed as "groundbreaking" by some circles at some point in time, too:

Nuff said.

Don't Get Too Comfortable

2007-08-30T16:21:00.000-07:00

Via Digg:

The site for Alan Weisman's new book The World Without Us is a trip, and knows exactly what it needs to do to get hits, science be damned: give us pretty computer generated images and little Quicktime clips of what that subprime hunk of real estate that we're sweating over so much will look like in a billion years or so. Like all the best forms of pop-sci, if the site is any indication, Weisman's book uses the guise of 'science' to give us the vicarious thrill of reading about our probable end game. Futurism seems to come in waves, and the combined forces of the millenium change, 9/11, and the Global Warming® Brand Social Concern place us firmly in the Apocalyptic cycle, not that I'm complaining, mind you. The last time we saw this merging of science and culture to scare the bejeezus out of us was the 1970s, was of the best decades, in my humble opinion, for art, film, and music. With great fear comes great imagination, I guess. Check it out.

Oh My Freakin' God

2007-08-29T09:56:00.001-07:00

This one is for Rebholz: after the unbelievable let down of Reign of Fire and the false promises made on it's movie poster, finally, finally, there is a movie that gives us exactly what we need: army guys vs. dragons. Only slightly less fantastic than this trailer is the comments on the YouTube page debating whether these are dragons or wyverns.

I heart The Internets.

(via Techsploitation)

Obey the Orb

2007-08-29T07:03:00.000-07:00

From Wired, a piece about The Orb , a "glanceable" (chuckle) ambient information object that, instead of shouting data at you, is more passive in it's presentation.

"That's the power of "ambient information," which tries to combat data overload by moving information off computer screens and into the world around us. The Orb was originally sold as a tool for monitoring financial portfolios. You could set it to shine a serene sky blue when your stocks were going up or pulse an alarming red when they were tanking. Studies showed that people were two to three times more likely to actively manage their investments, selling off deadbeat stocks and buying better-performing ones, when they used the Orb. This is the psychological paradox of ambient information: We're more likely to act on a subtle but continuously present message than an intermittent one we're forced to stare at."

Great idea, cool object, and what a way to see the power of numbers when it comes to energy saving. But what I really love is that diagram above, from The Orb's site.

Worst. Movie. Ever.

2007-08-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

Back sometime in 1987 or 1988, a tattered manila folder with KFC stains on it made it's way from DC out to glamourous Burbank, CA, onto the desk of some producer at Warner Brothers. On it was scrawled in child-like script 'Batman: The Movie". A worse thing has never happened to the film or comic world since. Well. Maybe this or this. But that's it.

As someone who is himself in the midst of collaborating on a pitch book based around a comic, I recognize immediately my position is untenable, but a man's gotta eat, and the reality is that comic book movies are big bucks these days. And I mean big bucks. And if you lump fantasy and sci-fi movies in there, you've just about got the big money market cornered.

The rise of the comic movie dovetailed nicely with the rise of CGI: if you ever seen the old Spider-man TV show and it's subsequent effects, you see why previously super hero media felt a little limp. There's only so many times you can run the film backwards before the kids catch on. Suddenly, fireballs and monsters looked really really cool. And everyone knows cool = moola.

The problem is that comics and movies operate in two completely different visual languages.

I won't bore you with some real pencil neck talk, but to be brief: no matter how fresh the effects are, comics always worked on the imagination in ways that made the reader complicit in the action of the comic book. Comics books are an active medium. Movies are passive: you just sit there and receive the cues. So whenever I see a movie translated from a comic book of fantasy novel, no matter how great it looks, a little piece of me dies because it's like watching everyone's imaginations stuffed into the same little box. Anyone that thought juggernaut's charges looked like anything but this, tough luck. That's the way it is now.

Without further ado, this amazing list of the Pulp Secret's Top Ten Worst Comic Book Movies. They're all incredibly crappy, and there's few I have to rush out and rent. It takes a lot to make an even crappier looking Fantastic Four movie. Prost!

We're all so damn smart

2007-08-21T09:42:00.000-07:00

I was sitting in Dolores Park yesterday, on an absolutely perfect day, eating crackers and talking about The Simpsons with Molly. A more perfect way to spend my Saturday, I can't imagine.

We were discussing The Simpsons, abstractly because of the movie (a lukewarm affair), but more specifically because of my friend Annalee Newitz's post about why she hates The Simpsons. Annalee, if you ever picked up a copy of Wired, or happen to have ever been on the internet, is everywhere, and an especially deft commentator on our times and technology. Having said that, I realize my little rebuttle won't get much traction, but I'd feel deficit if I didn't at least give it shot.

Firstly, don't get me wrong: I don't think NewsCorp needs my help, nor is one of Murdoch's most profitable babies above reproach. I'm under no illusion about The Simpsons® brand laughter generating product. Long ago it forfeited any claim to cultural cool, or to subversive appeal. It is now as formulaic as Spacely Sprockets, ring the bell, watch Homer's pants fall down, laugh. Repeat. Rake in money.

But it wasn't always that way, and I think it has to a lot to do with the environment it was forged in.

Remember Pulp Fiction, and that how at the time it seemed so fresh, and it now seems so...Nineties? There's a particular element to The Nineties Cache that demands nothing more than the aggregation and coopting of different cultures and obscure references: whether Tarantino films or Beavis and Butthead, our post-glasnost sense of worldliness manifested itself in the urbane set as a knowingness of all cultures everywhere. The real Cold War was replaced with the cultural Cold War: you just got some Japanese food specific to Hokkaido? Well, we're going to see some Icelandic opera. Pulp Fiction was so groundbreaking because it was, when inspected, nothing more than just an aggregation: Hong Kong action cinema, 1940's noir, Eastern Europe pulp films. The media of the time embraced all that, and I hold that no institution did it, and enshrined it, better than The Simpsons. At it's best, The Simpsons references come so fast and furious that it takes a cultural swami to keep up.

The thing is, that stuff is not just Ninties: I hold that it's just about we have these days. For all it's shiny new hip and coolness, BoingBoing is endgame of that: it's nothing but links to other cool things. There is no creation on Boing Boing. Many posts are even just repeating the text of email tip sent by the tipper directly on the page. To that end, Boing Boing and The Simpsons share a very real commonality: the collection of cool, the currency of hipness, with the more obscure making the higher value denomination.

My thesis stands thusly: Post WW2, the cultural cache belonged to belonging; the status quo was the only route into society. Then, the maturation of the baby-boomers brought about a similar cache for status quo, but one in direct opposite
We are in the Age of Recognition: humor, insight, intelligence, artistic creation, all of it has the highest value when it makes an oblique reference to something else.

In this light, I can't see The Simpsons as anything less than one of the ancesteors of everything we hold up to cool throne these days. So I gotta give it it's props. The humor is old, the drawings are stale, and backgrounds have always been awful: but every time I laugh at Colbert or visit Digg, I'm paying respect. You gotta pay respect. D'oh on, brothers and sisters.

The Big Mutation

2007-08-15T15:23:00.001-07:00

This discussion is a bit long in the tooth, but there's plenty of great sites that give you commentary on things as they happen. This is not one of those sites. You come here for my sublime wit and charm. Sit. Have another mohito.

All glib comments aside, the untimely recent deaths of artists Teresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake have been rolling around in my head like a marble in a tin can. I knew neither of them personally, and I only knew Blake's work professionally; Duncan's was either too high brow for me, or I don't keep up with the art scene (prolly both). I'm not a big fan of notching one person's life above another, even for art's sake. On the day Duncan was found dead, 35 Iraqis were found hogtied, tortured and killed. This doesn't make the loss of Duncan and Blake any less unfortunate, but it also doesn't make it more so. Nevertheless, the story bugged me in ways I couldn't put my finger on, like a popcorn kernel in the back of my throat.

The puzzle piece fell into place a few days ago, on a flight back from Boston, when I was reading the August 13th issue of the New Yorker. Within is a very disturbing article by Richard Preston titled 'An Error in the Code' The article concerns a rare disease called Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, which, besides having horrific symptoms, is the result of a very tiny alteration of the genetic code. Literally a one-letter switch dooms the victims to a life time of self-destructive behavior of Herculean proportions.

What is depression, and more specifically, what is depression when it comes to artistic vision? There's a insistent and hotly debated claim about the link between depression and artistic aptitude, and, truth be told, it's pisses off a lot of serious depression sufferers. The romantic vision of depression is that which Poe called "the insistent demons": the storm that rages inside and forces out the needles that pierce our banal reality. To be linked so closely to ones emotions, it could be argued, is to be closest to that which makes despair as well as joy.

How far away is a meaningful painting away from a suicide note? How much of a glimpse of the dark side do you have to see to write a great novel? And where is that line
between being a great artist and going over the edge? Is killing yourself when the demons go a step too far?

Harper's this month related the story about Hemingway, and a theory, and just a theory, as to why Hemingway shot himself. Norman Mailer, a close friend of Papa, proposed that Hemingway thrived on being close to death to to stimulate his synapses into creativity: thats where all that big game hunting and bull-running bullshit came from. Every night, Mailer theorizes, Hemingway would sit at his writing desk with a glass of booze, put the shotgun in his mouth, and see how far he could pull the trigger: July 2nd, 1961, he went a click too far.

This pleasant little anecdote suffers the same problem as most of the starry-eyed tales spun late at night by Ginsberg wannabes who drink their blackberry wine by the jug: it creates a mythos of romantic desirability around a real disease that tears apart lives and families. Having the additional information now at my fingertips in a battered copy of a New Yorker that a disease with symptoms that, 100 years ago would classified as "straight-up crazy", and is now known to be caused by a few genetic typos: it makes my head spin.

Follow me here - Depression can be classified as a disease, and evidence points to a genetic prediposition. And as depression and art are linked, as apocryphal evidence so strongly suggests, is the creative impulse just a genetic typo, too? Are we wired to blissfully ignorant of some of the more sublime ironies and observations about life? Are we forged to ignore creativity, and it's only by random mutation that we get Chekov, Strummer, and Tezuka?

Man. I need a drink.

Potpourri Wednesday

2007-08-08T14:14:00.001-07:00

So I've been a little latent with the blogging these days, and for that I apologize. One of my mid-years resolutions has been to blog more. But my brain isn't really functioning today, so in place of actually saying anything interesting, I'll pass along some cool stuff which as reached me via The Internets over the past few days.

*GammaRayBots, an art project/online store by Tom Torry, who collects found objects and creates completely kickass robots for sale. He also has a pretty gnarly Flickrstream with some cool altered postcards.

* Williams Gibson: 'The word 'cyber' is going away.' No cybershit, Willie. A few years ago, I worked for someone who's business was based around the word 'cyber': I didn't have the heart to tell them it made the business sound like about 10 years too late. Besides, Nano is totally the new Cyber.

* Oh my flippin' god. How cool is this? Collect 'em all! (Thanks, Rebholz.)

*Continuity Concern: Run by impressario Tim Lillis, CC is your one-stop shop for the systematic destruction of the greatest cultural virus in our modern world: Contin-
uity. Dig it.

*More damn Robots and Monsters are up. Check it out.

Across The Finish Line

2007-08-01T23:37:00.000-07:00

This Sunday, Molly and I completed the SF marathon, all 26.2 miles of it, and for the next 2 days, I had to go down the stairs backwards.

(*Rimshot*)

Except that's not a joke. I really did.

Regardless, I want to thank everyone who came out and showed us support, who wrote us emails and text messages the night before, and especially everyone who donated to our fund raising drive for the SF AIDS Foundation. Thanks to all of your donations, between the personal stuff and the Robots and Monsters efforts, we managed to raise a jaw-dropping $11,890.00 in the fight against AIDS. Thanks again to everyone out there that put in their time, money and love to help us with the project. You guys all totally effing rule.

Speaking of which, as always, there's more robots and monsters. Slowly but surely, I'm plugging away at that list. If you've ordered one, and you want to know where you are on the list and when can expect yours, just drop me an email and I'll see what I can figure out.

Thanks, again folks. I'm off for a soak.

The Virtual Tour of Hell

2007-07-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

I found this site while on a completely random search. It's not really about comics or animation, and just a little bit about design, but I'd feel deficit if I didn't pass it on nonetheless. It's like a handy primer for those of us that don't read The Bible. Find out where you'll end up! I'll see you guys in Circle 6: The Heretics. They have a sweet wet bar.

Warning: The site is a bit hincky in the Flash dept. "Skip" the first page.

Other Magazine Cover

2007-07-24T11:55:00.000-07:00

I just did the cover for the next issue of Other Magazine, which is about Dead Magazines: those publications , that for some reason or another peter out, or never really made it in the first place. And with a failure rate of over 75% in the periodical industry, there's plenty to chose from. This cover was fun to do: thanks for everyone's help finding fave magazines and 'zines that are no longer with us. Keen eyed observers will find my short-lived 'zine, Manifesto, has a pretty good spot in the image. Well, hell, I gotta do SOMETHING to commemorate all that time and effort, right?

Tintin And The Race Race

2007-07-19T11:26:00.000-07:00

In a move that immediately shoots to near the top of the list of Business Decisions Perhaps Performed Under The Effects of Some Serious Drugs, (and there's some serious competition), Little-Brown has just announced that they will be releasing Tintin in the Congo in English, apparently deciding that American won't truly be ready to plunk down 10 bucks to see the new movie until they have a deep understanding of his racist past. Besides the questionable nature of packaging it as they would any other Tintin (I could see it released as a scholarly work for cultural examination, but are they really planning to plop this down next to Explorers On The Moon in the kids section?), the greater question has immediately been raised, which is, does a racist past invalidate a piece of art?

For those not in the know, Herge's second foray into Tintin adventures, (the first being the deeply surreal and anti-Bolshevik Land of the Soviets) takes place in the Belgain Congo, and is a mishmash of uncomfortable stereotypes, cartoonish buffonery, and deep-seated ignorant carictures of the Congolese people specifically, and black folks in general. You don't need too much imagnation to get the loathsome gist: bones through the noses, fear and deference to the white man, and Tintin playing the good European and teaching the locales "manners". It is the worst type of repulsive racism. It was also 1930.

Now, I won't be labeled a defender of Herge's racists proclivities, or for any in the popular media, for that matter: any of you that know me, know my dedication to dismantling of the machinery let allows such odius thoughts to propagate. However, the underlying question proves trickier. Can someone extricate themselves from past mistakes and regain respect, espcially if so much of their art and lifework was for good?

I'm not a big fan of the word "hero", and I think one can appreciate and respect the work without respecting the artist: so many of my favorite works have been created by mosogynists, drunks, abusers, liars, adulterers, thieves, and monsters of every stripe, it's sometimes seems a wonder you can find any artist at that is a stand-up citizen. So I don't let that make me blue: I'm adult enough to separate the creator and the creation.

But what of Herge? Does it matter that he expressed shame and embarassment the rest of his life for those earlier follies? Do mistakes of such a catastrophic nature get forgiven as youthful ignorance? And perhaps even the biggest question: if it didn't become socially unacceptable over his lifetime to be a racist, would he still have renounced the work?

I can't answer these, nor can anyone, they're merely food for thought. But I beg of you, those that will no doubt be exposed to that hateful book in the coming months; let the work, not the worker, speak to you.

"But, man, could that guy paint."

2007-07-13T20:51:00.000-07:00

If there's been a hiatus on this blog (and there has), I can't chock it all up to a huge amount of work, or tireless invention, or even blogger fatigue (though they do take part) - the summer of 2007 has become the Summer of 1001 Engagements: weddings, graduations, bachelor parties, brises - they all have taken me away from the unholy, never-sated maw of The Blog (ok, maybe not the last one). That said, I've been back to my home, in Boston, several times in the last few months, and while there, I usually stay at my mom's place. And therein lies the problem.

First, a few caveats: I love my mom, in all of her glorious weirdness. Normal moms leave me a bit cold; to what other mom could you come home to at 2 AM on a Tuesday from a night of drinking, to find her painting on Polaroids, a pot of tea on, with a Werner Herzog movie on the television? Not many, I would hazard. And secondly, I know my mom will never, ever read this, unless someone prints this page out and gives it to her, because she avoids computers like other people avoid boiled giblet stew and tongue sandwiches (two faves of Mom's).

You'll excuse my apparent immodesty-by-relation or whatever you want to call it, but my mom also happens to be one of the greatest painters I have ever seen let alone met, and, I would hazard, one of the last true romantic painters out there. I say this without pretense to fame, without name-dropping, and without really any askance of someone else to confirm it. I know it is true. I challenge anyone, be they first year art school student or longtime curator at one of the great museums, to come and inspect the piles and piles of jaw dropping working that lays about our home. I can assure you they will come to the same conclusion: she occupies a realm of talent, dedication to craft, and patience, that sometimes seems to have left this world long ago. The one oil we have hanging in our house regularly causes visitors, be they art directors or handymen, to stop in their tracks and gawk. Her work is that striking, and yes, she is that good.

Additionally, I can also assure you she will never be known for it. The history books lie closed to her. For one thing, my mom is the very antithesis of self-promoter. But more than that, the amazing thing is that she doesn't seemingly yearn for that recognition. She does it because she can't do anything else. She paints, because she paints. That is all. In our world of resume advice and marketing seminars, I admire the hell out of that. It seems like such a quaint notion: doing what you like, for you.

I was sitting in what was my sisters room at one time, and is now the guest bedroom, the other weekend, and the subject of painters came up. She is a ferocious Impressionist fan, but not in the gross, sorority-girl, everyone-has-a-print-of-Water Lilies way. She could give a crap about the subject matter. Hers is the eye and recognition of a tradesman, a draftsperson, one who understood what incredible vision, and yes, talent it took to assemble such images out of seemingly random lines. What a deep understanding of visual cues, what a keen way to observe the world: the break down a reflection on a jar with a stroke just so, and just so. Beyond whatever art school claptrap they teach you about the Impressionists, comes through a deeper understanding of what it was they did, each action, each specific mixing of colors, back when paint didn't come prepackaged in 90,000 colors. She appreciates the actual work of it.

I am nervous when it comes to art talk with my mom, not only because she knows so much more than me, but because she so much more of a talent than I am. After her diatribe about her amazement at the great painters, it was my turn to be put on the chopping block. I asked about imagination, that surely the current crop of comic artists and skateboard painters, the printmakers and Pop Surrealists, they had an imagination to the work that made up for the oil painting that took monthes to create, surely the intellectual breaking out would somehow take the impressive place of a nineteen hour sitting with a Pope. She shrugged her shoulders. In a roundabout way, I asked her if she respected what I did, viewed what I did in a similar vein, that I too could be included in her codex of art. She told me she was jealous because my work took so much less time. And I still got paid.

And still, we struggle on.

Yeah, they totally killed the black Transformer.

2007-07-03T22:33:00.000-07:00

Spoiler alert - Jazz dies in the new Transformers movie. They killed the Black Sidekick. Amazing. I'm surprised the Transformer who was good at inventing things didn't have an Asian accent. But the movie? Surprisingly good. I mean, at least they didn't take themselves too seriously. Best line of the night: "We learned that the humans, like us, are more than meets the eye." Booo!

Sketchblog 6/22/07

2007-06-22T13:11:00.000-07:00

Above is another project I had boiling until about an hour ago: a site template for a new restaurant in Chicago called 'Chaise' that wanted a style similar to a French wine poster from the 1920s. Above is my first stab at it, which I like alright, but I thought could have been pushed to be really outstanding. Alas, the client has decided not to do a separate site at the last minute, and have the Chaise site be part of their corporate main site. A shame. I thought this one could have been a lot of fun to do.

Sketchblog 6/21/07

2007-06-21T23:12:00.000-07:00

Some of the stuff that's been sucking my time away from this blog lately: a few illustrations for a text book, geared towards Middle Schoolers. I was called because they wanted "edgy". Heh. I find the whole event a little odd. The images in my textbooks in school always entranced me more than the text or, god forbid, the actual lessons, and probably influenced me in ways I can't comprehend. To be making the images for a new crop of young minds to perhaps be influenced by - well, the whole thing reeks a little too much of the Circle of Life, if you ask me.

Infinite Canvas, Infinite Schmanvas

2007-06-19T09:25:00.000-07:00

The above from the fantastic site Cover Browser. Thanks, Terry.

Sorry I've been dark for a bit: a bout of actual, big time, paying work (shock! horror!) has kept me low, backing up my Robots and Monsters production, my comic work, and fun, too, dammit. I'd be lying if I also didn't cop to a bit of blog fatigue: about two years of being steadily into it, and after a while, a realization creeps into your head.

"Ugh. I just THOUGHT that. I have to WRITE about it, too?"

But what the hell. I've gotta give you SOMETHING to read while pretending to work, right?

I'll start by admiting that not ALL of my non-blogging time is spent working, per se. Some of it is spent "working", while Skyping with colleagues, and the discussion of
web comics and Scott McCloud came up, more specifically, his new (now, old) web comic, The Right Number. I found a discussion of web comics, especially amongst people not in the echol chamber (and also potential consumers) to be informative. Present at the chat are myself, Matt Rebholz, at UT Austin for his Masters in Printmaking, Terry Salmond, a San Francisco film maker, and Rob Ford, Director of Technology for a school dsitrict in Massachusetts, and webmaster for Kaiju Big Battel.

The thread picks up on The Right Number...

Joe:
I want the interface to be an intregal part of the story? Otherwise, it's just a schtick.
Rebholz
I see your point...What if the next panel was somehow integrated into the previous panel?...but that might get even schtickier.
Joe
The teeny next panel just throws me off without providing anyting else than just "Look what I did."
Terry
Yeah...I think if it was integrated a bit more
Rebholz
If he had to put a picture frame or window or something in every single panel
Joe
Plus,if the notion of 'zooming in' is intregal to the story...tell me why
Terry
Right.
Rebholz
Maybe it rhymes with this idea of the guy homing in on his perfect mate via his crazy algorythm phone number thing... I dont have a problem w/ the zoom
I think it does a nice job of approximating the sensation of looking from one panel to the next in a print comic...like your actual focus is fixed, so you cant shift it from one panel to the next...McCloud is much more of a scholar than a creator I think
Joe
Rebholz
Indeed....web comics are hard
Joe
true dat
Rebholz
joe knows that
Terry
This seems like a way of feeling out what works and what doesn't
Rebholz
The great thing about the interface is that it didnt require any movement within the browser window
Joe
True...McCloud goes on and on about "the infinite canvas", but I HATE those type of web comics
Rebholz
It becomes an inconvenience to experience it
Joe
The experience becomes about the creation rather than the story which to my mind...
is wack.
Rebholz
You need to somehow counterbalance or make the audience forget about the loss of the comic as physical object, which is a very important part of the experience....
like McCloud points out, part of the magic of comics is the compression and expansion of time- being able to see a whole span of time in one instant, by surveying an entire page for exaample
Joe
...and also the backwards and forwards flow
Rebholz
exactly
Joe
I like artists that add things you can go back and find later..."How did that fire start?"...
Rebholz
Like Ware
Joe
"Oh, he dorpped the cigar three pages ago."...Damn, I'd like just take this conversation and blog it
Terry
We'll just be outed as dorks.

And on webcomics in general:

Joe
Joe Q. Public doesn't find advertising to be as offensive as paying 25 cents...weird!
Rob
Right, but for the content provider it's a similar idea.
Rebholz
Its no suprise that people are more willing to endure advertising than pay for a product.
Joe
No...but as a sea change, just like having creator USING the web instead of just put print comics online, it is a difference in thinking about "selling" work...
a lot of comic artists still don't feel like real creators until some schlub plunks down 4 bux for a hard copy. Its psychological.
Rebholz
Do you feel that way?
Joe
Sometimes, but im getting over it
Rebholz
I think thats natural
Joe
It's how we were brought up
Rebholz
It goes back to the appeal of a comic AS object, if you value the actual physical comic, than of course youll feel more validated if you can hold something you've made
...I dont think its a bad thing nessecarily.

Beyond the fact that I talk too much, these are all very very smart guys, and what came through in the discussion was the web comics have still not broken through the main stream to arrive as a form worth paying attention to, yet. People can talk Penny Arcade and PVP all they want, but look at the content: it's so niche and concave, you can see yourself reflected in the opposite wall. We have yet to see a real breakout, popualr webcomic, along the lines of a Maus or a Persopolis. Could it be about form?

The chat has two seemingly disparate threads: that the notion of Infinite Canvas is tiresome and not helpful to the enjoyment of the comic, and that the physical comic is desirable, but ALSO that the desire is there NOT just for print-comics-that- happen-to-be-online, which is what most web comics are. To my mind, this all means that comic artists, and especially web comic artists, need to stop bitching about being the underclass of artists, being so 'disrespected' and such, and need to start creating great, compelling ways to view their stories. And while there's been some great experiments, it sure hasn't happened yet.

To round out this talk, I present Dr. Nordten, the fantastic web comic by Thomas Gronle-Legron and Holger Marsielle, two German guys I just so happened to present with in Seoul. These guys may be having the conversation that we in America with all our Scott McClouds should be having. And once I get Thomas to send me a link, I'll be posting their 3D version. Maybe the future of comics...lies in microfilm?

Nerve Comix Issue

2007-06-04T07:24:00.001-07:00

Just a quick note to urge you to check out the new issue of the online magazine Nerve, which is the new comics issue. I often get emails from people asking me about new stuff to check out, but I'm no Drawn: sometimes I'm too busy to actually find cool new stuff, myself. This Nerve issue has some nice introductory strips from some radical rising-but-under-the-radar artists such as Leah Hayes, as well as more established folks like the untouchable Paul Pope. Chynna Clugston has the best one on there (she's like a girl Evan Dorkin!), and even Sophie Crumb's strip isn't half bad, considering the fact that she's busy carrying around that last name like an albatross. On the whole, pretty good stuff. Also, more than half of the artists are women: that's a nice change of scenery. There's also an awesome article comparing TMNT to Sex and The City. Outstanding!

Sketchblog 6/3/07

2007-06-03T20:21:00.000-07:00

After all that rigamarole over the past few months, I finally see nothing but wall-to-wall drawing on the horizon, and that, to use a tautological dialect that hasn't been seen on these pages in many months, is a right hearty sight for these salty eyes, me hearties. Above is a sampling of the new Robots and Monsters additions, with more on the way. Below is an avatar from a project that I just finished, which I'm OK with, considering what They-Who-Shall -Not-Be-Named asked for (don't ask). I'm not usually a fan of this type of made-for-Wacom, GI Joe coloration. I think it looks weak and cheeseball normally, but it's passable here. And with more jobs being worked on, a new episode of TBV in the works, and a super-secret project nearing completion, I'm thinking that for the next couple of weeks, this blog is going to be nothing but drawings, drawings, drawings. w00t!

Tintin in the Land of Hollywood

2007-05-29T12:39:00.000-07:00

The raiding of the temple happened slowly at first. A few keen-eyed grave-robbers here or there: a Philip K. Dick jewel, a Jules Verne bauble. Occasionally done right, more often done terribly, those of us In The Know could shake our heads and scoff, comforted in the knowledge that the true sources lay hidden, wellsprings that continued to delight those that cared to look for them. Then, the onslaught came, starting, oh, I'd say right around here.

I can't fault Hollywood for grave-robbing: I love movies. I went to film school, for chrissakes. And for every unmitigated disaster of a movie adaptaion of comic books or other imaginative stories, there's also some incredibly successful ones that make you love everything about it so much more. Unfortunately, Hollywood has a nasty tendency to recognize the brilliance if imaginative works, and then trying to substitute imagination for special effects. It takes a light touch , and an adding to the artistic effort, not just a rote copying with CGI, to make something like this work. And when it does work, when the creators do care enough to invest their own love and interests into it, it doesn't matter that the special thing you had to yourself now has a huge audience. So what if the douchebag in the next cubicle knows who Harvey Pekar is now: it was a great flick.

But this impending Tintin behemoth on the horizon makes me more nervous than anything that's ever been announced. Unless you've been living under a rock for the past week, you prolly know that Steven Spielberg has tapped Peter Jackson to finally head up the rights he decided to exercise, that of the long-awaited Tintin movies, a 3 picture deal that either has phenomenon or debacle written all over it. And my jittering excitment is tempered by a fear, that seems to harken back to my teen angst days as much as my art snobbery of Herge's mastery.

Here's the rub:

I am a rabid Tintin fan, ever since a very young boy,when I found a battered copy of The Calculus Affair at a book sale at the local branch of my town's library (and I still have it!). Anthony Lane has a rather pedestrian article in last week's New Yorker about Tintin that really doesn't illuminate anyone that has vaguely paid attention to the life and work of Herge. The long and the short of the piece explains away most of Remi's life as an effort to make up for some of his more racist carictures and collaboration with the Nazis by ennacting the indefatiguable wunderkind reporter as a kind of soul scrubbing boy scout, righting wrongs with an innocence Remi lost long ago in 1938. And I just call bullshit on the whole thing. Not just Lane's article, which, while a bit vanilla, is more or less quite accurate with the facts. I call bullshit on the whole Deconstructing Tintin thing.

There are some wonderful books taking apart the books, the characters, the man, the life, the times. Even some incredible comics that do the same. But the thing is, it's just too close for me. It takes the fun out of it. It's like taking a picture of a long lost relative out and going on a four hour lecture about why light turns silver halide into images the eye can see. I guess I can see it's informative: but it doesn't make me appeciate the person in the picture anymore or less. And this is just the beginning.

Within 2 years, Tintin will be on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, and Rolling Stone, that scumbag lead singer from Coldplay will wear a Haddock teeshirt onstage during shows, and Paris Hilton will name her new dog Snowy. And the Tintin that I know and love, the Tintin that is mine and rests on my bookshelves, the books whose spines contain crumbs of crackers eaten over them long ago, the Tintin who prompts puzzled looks when I wear him around, but that gets a look of knowing recognition by 1 out of 50 Americans, that smile that spreads across their face, that wink and nod I get...that Tintin will be gone, and I'll be left to pick up the pieces.

-> As a less curmudgony aside, (finally) check out the Seoul pix here! Woohoo!

Homeward Bound: The Uncomfortable Journey

2007-05-26T18:26:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in the lobby of my hotel in Seoul, waiting out the time until I get a plane to come back home. All in all, a successful and enjoyable visit, I think. The presentation went well: there's wasn't as many people there as I had hoped, but that was kind of the theme of the SICAF this year: the poor chair, the former Korean trade ambassador to the US (super nice guy: we talked a lot about American football, which was cool) had this rictus grin of defiance on his face when it came to the numbers, so I can't blame them too much. The crappy thing was that we were a bit hurried with our talk because we had to make way for the SIGGRAPH presentation, who wants to create a SIGGRAPH Asia. I can understand: the Koreans really want SIGGRAPH in Seoul, so they're willing to rush along the stupid "artists" they invited to talk, but it still felt lousy. I'll tell you, though, these suits were an embarassment to the organization: lame jokes, shouting at Koreans as if louder makes them understand English better, and Powerpoint presentations in which every single they say is written out on the slide. It was like an Edward Tufte nightmare. But I got told by a professor Digital Storytelling at Tokyo University that my talk was "enlightening", so that was an ego boost.

In other news, I dunno if it's just because SICAF is in town or what, but the TV stations here are chalk full of American movie versions of Marvel comic books: in the past three days, after coming home from the bar, I've seen X-Men 3, The Hulk, and Spidey 1. Something struck me about them today, besides the over all lousiness. Jon Favreau, if you're out there, whatever else you do with Iron Man, this I decree: you CANNOT use a sequence of DNA or vaguely scientific macroshots in the credit sequence under goofy music. It just doesn't work. I don't know who's lame idea this was, or if it's next to the Stan Lee clause for all Marvel movies, but this baloney has GOT to STOP.

OO! DNA splicing! OO! Hypodermic needle injecting something green or blue into skin! OO! Some douchebag holding up a test tube to the light! Let's think outside of the box on this one, okee, Jon?

Im n yr Korea, eatin yr Kimchee

2007-05-25T15:13:00.000-07:00

Hullo folks- still in Korea, still eating veeery mysterious food, still can;t gte my damn camera to upload photos to weird Korea blogger, and about to do my presentation today. (Fingers crossed.)

A few observations from yesterday:

•The Engrish here (or, as I was told by a local, Korglish) is pretty outstanding: besides most Western style restaraunts (pictures coming soon, I promise!) being named after English words (no surprise there), the words they choose are especially weird. "Delicious" , "eat", or "Burgerhouse" would be too obvious, I guess. No, the Koreans decided to be a little different and name their Western restaurants after English modifiers: I've seen "With", "Actually", and my favorite, "This". But the Outstanding Korglish Of The Week goes to a young girl spotted walking through a mall yesterday, who wore a tight pink teeshirt that said

"Happy? HIV!"

Marvelous.

•Seoul seems to have an obsession with shopping malls: I can only assume that a burgeoning country, which 50 years ago was not a global economic player, that undergoes such a drastic economic jump is a bit in love with a newfound sense of consumerism. But the tourists maps here neglect temples and museums in favor making sure to list not only the all the megamalls and shopping complexes, but the 7-11s, as well. Huh?

•I was introduced to the practice of "booking" today, in which Korea youth with not enough time look for love in a very efficient manner. We stumbled across a booking club quite by accident, and I have to tell you, it seems to be a pretty smart way of doing it for the busy yuppie. The deal basically is that this club, with music and drinks and the usual accountrements, has a bevy on vested waiters. The guys come in and sit down, the girls come in and sit down, and the waiters are supposed to have a good eye at matching people. The waiters rush around, pulling and push the girls in front of guys, and trying to make matches like a giant game of Memory. Then, the two match-mades get to chat and see if the match is right, or if they pass, and wait for the next victim to be plopped in front of them. Apparently, really good match-making waiters, or bookers, who have a good eye for who is a good match for who, make a good living, and are in very high demand.

And who said romance was dead, eh?

I'll be presenting today and the coming back tomorrow, pictures and all. And then, back to the good stuff. New episode on the way! w00t!

Touchdown

2007-05-23T18:03:00.000-07:00

Hello from scenic Seoul!

Finally landed and settled after a hellaciously long flight, and my first experience with SICAF. The flight was made mildy more entertaining by a bevy of South Korean businessmen. Let me say that South Korea is not a miserable country one needs to forget the plight of. So I really have no idea what these guys were drinking for. But let me tell you: South Korean businessmen (or at least these fellas) are like fratboys after winning the Rose Bowl. To say that they took advantage of the free drinks on flight could be considered an understatement. Suffice to say, 8 whiskeys later, when the guy closest to me fell out of his chair into the aisle and began to roll around and giggle, it was time to land.

I expected someone to pick me up, but due to miscommunication no one did, so it was a hectic few hours figuring out where the hell to go. But I'm here now, and having successfully managed to master the Seoul subway system (a breeze, natch!), I'm feeling better about my situation. I still kinda feel like an idiot American for not knowing another language like everyone else here. That's something to fix. Soon.

I visited the Seoul Expo Center, where they showed me the set-up they have for The Basic Virus, and it's all very professionally done and looks great. Thanks to Hong-Kwan Lee and his minions (seriously: he snaps his fingers and guys go running) for putting in so much effort for it. Also got interviewed by the South Korean blogosphere. I hope I didn't say something that might have gotten mistranslated:

"Seoul, South Korea: Comic artist Joe Alterio sez he puts mole rats in his underpants for fun and profit."

My camera is acting weird, but hopefully it will clear up, and I can post some pix soon. Stay tuned.

bOINGED to death.

2007-05-20T22:56:00.000-07:00

Phew.

What a weekend.

RobotsAndMonsters.org, after getting bOINGed and later written up in the Boston Globe's Ideas Section, took off like a rocket, forcing my hand to shut down donations earlier than expected. It probably also means that we cut off some additional funding, which breaks me up a bit, but I had to stop the insanity sometime: as of this writing, we raised over $8300 (w00t!) for the cause, from over 15,000 hits to the site, which is just stunning to me.

The consequences:

A.) We reached our fund raising goal, and then almost tripled it.
B.) I'm going to be drawing robots and monsters for a very, very long time.
C.) bOING bOING has a power heretofore unheard of when it comes to "underground" interests.
D.) This link gets me misty-eyed in Amelie-esque, sappy, I-guess-we're-all-connected- somehow-kind-of-way
E.) All of the above.

(Turn to next page for answers)

In any event, thank you to everyone for stopping by and donating to such a good cause. Rest assured, your 'bots and 'sters are on their way (Eventually. Those at the back of then line: well, they'll make great Christmas presents!). Check out a continually expanding gallery of them here, and keep in a mind that R and M will be reopening later on as a more expanded project, with different artists, different causes, merch, links, and a whole lot more, so stay tuned. Email me if you want to get put on the mailing list, or know an artist who wants to help out.

As a reminder, I'll be leaving for South Korea on Tuesday, for my presentation about mobile comics at SICAF. I'll be posting photos and updates of the trip when I get chance. Very exciting: I think I may actually get to meet Moebius . My nerd-heart is all a-twitter. 너를 빨리 보십시요!