The Death Of One Blog, The Birth of Another

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

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

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

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

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

(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

Whoa!

Not There Anymore

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!

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

We Wuz Robbed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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