A t-shirt design I made just was accepted to get voted on to possibly become a Threadless t-shirt. Please go vote on it! Click the link below to go look at it and see a little animation I made for it. Thanks much to those of you who take the time to vote!
I have work in not one, but TWO gallery shows this weekend… should be fun!
First up, tonight (April 17th)! Along with a bunch of other wood-themed art, you can see my Animation on a Stick, pictured below, at the Celebrate AE: Altered Esthetics 5th Anniversary Party. You can even buy it if you’re inclined… it will be auctioned off, with all proceeds going to the gallery. To get the animations to work, you spin the stick by rubbing it back and forth between your palms. Here is what it looks like:
Here are the animations in motion…
Altered Esthetics celebrates five years of serving artists with a giant bash at our home in the Q’arma building in Northeast Minneapolis in conjunction with our annual spring fundraiser.
Friday April 17, 2009 – 5pm-11pm
Everybody that joins us this Friday will receive a special super-awesome commemorative ______ to take home! (Shhh, it’s a surprise.)
Please join us for a celebration and fundraiser featuring:
– A wood-themed art exhibition and silent auction
– A raffle with awesome prizes and goods from local businesses
– Live music
– Refreshments
– Wood themed games
– Awesome company
– And more!Schedule of Awesomeness
5pm: Raffle, Silent Auction, Games, DJ
9pm: Silent Auction and Raffle ends, winners announced
9:30pm: Live Music Begins, Festivities continue, the people rejoice.
Next up, on Saturday (April 18th), you can see “Our Cast of Characters,” a series of paper puppets I made for the first ever show at the new PINK HOBO gallery, The Paper Toy and Pop-Out Show. I saw a preview of some of the stuff in the show last night and it is going to be nothing short of spectacular.
Here is “Our Cast of Characters.”
From left to right we have King Imp, Sir Thud, Yellowtooth the Horrendous, Mervlin the Mediocre, The Grim Jester and Princess Pouty. I may make a printable version of them one of these days if I get around to it… the ones in the show are the original drawings.
Here is what I posted about The Paper Toy and Pop-Out Show on the Cartoonist Conspiracy blog:
Our good friends at Puny Entertainment have their new PINK HOBO gallery opening this weekend… so, with the Altered Esthetics 5th Anniversary show on Friday, if you’re in the Twin Cities, it looks like your whole weekend is planned!
Their first show is the Paper Toy and Popout show… and it looks like it will be quite a show from the impressive and international line-up of artists… they are launching with a big bang. You’ll also want to check out their extremely fun-looking line-up of upcoming shows for the rest of the year.
PINK HOBO’S PAPER TOY AND POP-OUT SHOW
where: PINK HOBO 507 East Hennepin Ave
day: Saturday, April 18
time: 7pm – late
Things are moving fast… we are now two weeks from the BIG FUNNY deadline (May 1st). From the estimates we have received, it looks very likely that we will be able to do the whole publication in full color… so I hope participants will all strongly consider taking advantage of it!
Unless you make posters, there aren’t a lot of opportunities to get printed at such a huge size and in color… I can’t wait to be dazzled by what people do with it. It will be quite a unique publication… please do let all your cartoonist/poster artist/printmaker/designer/illustrator friends know about it, and encourage them to participate.
Specs and other information for the project can be found here on the BIG FUNNY website. There is also a text-only version of the information here.
I urge you to carefully read ALL of the information there before digging in, as the specs are particular… and we would really hate to have to reject people’s work because people didn’t follow the specs.
Here is a description of the project in the words of local hero Kevin Cannon at the Big Time Attic blog:
So I was over at the watercooler today, and a co-worker leans over his cubicle wall and says, “Hey Kev, what’s this ‘BIG FUNNY’ all the kids are talking about?” So I say, “Well, Doug, check the BTA blog in a few minutes and I’ll tell you!”
So here’s the scoop:
Minneapolis cartoonists have a tradition of curating a yearly show at the Altered Esthetics gallery in Nordeast Minneapolis. Last year we mounted Lutefisk Sushi: Volume C, which was a huge hit, had a ton of great contributors, and had an absolutely packed opening night party.
This August we’re doing something a little different: Big Funny, a nod to the glorious & wacky full page (and often full color) newspaper comics of the turn of the century). Where Lutefisk Sushi asked participants to create mini-comics and gathered them all up in a BOX, Big Funny is asking people to draw a 15.5″w x 20″h comic strip (color or bw) which will then be printed in a big fat NEWSPAPER.
The Big Funny gallery show this August will have original art from the Big Funny newspaper, as well as vintage turn o’ the century comics (thanks to collector extraordinaire Steve Stwalley). You’ll also be able to get your hands on the Big Funny newspaper — right now we’re thinking it’ll be 48 pages.
Interested in having your cartoon grace one of those pages? Here’s a quick guide to get you started:
1. Read through www.cartoonistconspiracy.com/bigfunny. That should answer most of your questions.
2. Create your comic. Keep these specs in mind:
* Art should be 15.5″ (wide) x 20″ (high)
* If you’re doing color, make it 300 dpi
* If you’re doing black and white, make it at 1200 dpi
* You can submit more than one cartoon
* All submissions must be DIGITAL
* [This is a truncated list to get you started — PLEASE read the info on the Big Funny website!]3. Content: This show is a nod to the old-timey comics, but your comic can be any style, theme, etc. Just try to be funny (it is called Big Funny, after all)
4. Deadline is MAY 1, 2009Unlike Lutefisk Sushi, this is a juried show, which means that some comics won’t make it in the show. This has less to do with us being art snobs, and more to do with the complicated nature of putting a physical newspaper together on time and on budget.
We’ve already got a few submissions in (which, for a month before the deadline, is pretty outstanding), and they look great, so keep ’em coming!
If you have any questions, please read the Big Funny website. If you still have questions, please leave them in the comments section, and we’ll answer them there.
Here’s a BIG FUNNY chicklet for your website or blog:
TODAY’S FEATURED ITEM:
The cover to Robert Crumb’s much-awaited new Book of Genesis, called to my attention courtesy of cartoonist Cat Garza at The Magic Inkwell… go there to see it at a larger size.
TODAY’S INTERESTING LINK:
Underground cartoonist Skip Williamson (best known for Snappy Sammy Smoot) has one hell of an interesting blog at Salon.com (you can subscribe here). I believe the stories from it are at least partially from an autobiography he wrote or is in the process of writing, although that may not be the case. Note that Williamson has another blog called My Bitter Agenda here as well.
TODAY’S FEATURED ITEM:
Local hero, Kevin Cannon has posted a hilarious account of his attempt at the 288-Hour comic that resulted in his soon-to-be-bestseller from Top Shelf Far Arden (shipping next month!). I have a guest-starring role in the strip… and if you were ever at a Minneapolis 24-Hour Comics Day event, you may be in there too… Go read it here!
Note:
Far Arden is still here online… reading a few pages of it will make you ache for next month when you can buy the Top Shelf book.
If you want to read my introduction to the self-published first edition of Far Arden, you can read it here.
TODAY’S FEATURED ITEM:
Boing Boing Offworld called my attention to a gorgeous new online Scarygirl game by Nathan Jurevicius that I look forward to checking out in more detail.
TODAY’S FEATURED ITEM:
The Greatest Ape has been posting examples of Dick Briefer’s charming Frankenstein humor comics recently here, here and here. Additionally, I recently linked to Again With the Comics when they posted a comparison between Briefer’s funny take and his scary take on Frankenstein, so you might want to check that out too. Also note… I haven’t seen a copy yet, but there was recently a book collection made of Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein work called The Monster of Frankenstein 
TODAY’S FEATURED ITEM:
There is an interesting thread going on The Comics Journal Message Board right now discussing the sad realities of Sea Monkey ownership.
The thread directs us to this article, about how the Jewish inventor of Sea Monkeys (and X-Ray Specs), Harold Von Braunhut, used to fund white supremacist causes with the pennies he had earned from gullible children. I don’t whether Sea Monkey sales still support these causes or not, but I don’t think I will not be buying any more mortality-challenged brine shrimp in the future to be on the safe side.
Things are moving fast… we are now a month from the BIG FUNNY deadline (May 1st). From the estimates we have received, it looks very likely that we will be able to do the whole publication in full color… so I hope participants will all strongly consider taking advantage of it!
Unless you make posters, there aren’t a lot of opportunities to get printed at such a huge size and in color… I can’t wait to be dazzled by what people do with it. It will be quite a unique publication… please do let all your cartoonist/poster artist/printmaker/designer/illustrator friends know about it, and encourage them to participate.
Specs and other information for the project can be found here on the BIG FUNNY website. There is also a text-only version of the information here.
I urge you to carefully read ALL of the information there before digging in, as the specs are particular… and we would really hate to have to reject people’s work because people didn’t follow the specs.
Here is a description of the project in the words of Kevin Cannon at the Big Time Attic blog:
So I was over at the watercooler today, and a co-worker leans over his cubicle wall and says, “Hey Kev, what’s this ‘BIG FUNNY’ all the kids are talking about?” So I say, “Well, Doug, check the BTA blog in a few minutes and I’ll tell you!”
So here’s the scoop:
Minneapolis cartoonists have a tradition of curating a yearly show at the Altered Esthetics gallery in Nordeast Minneapolis. Last year we mounted Lutefisk Sushi: Volume C, which was a huge hit, had a ton of great contributors, and had an absolutely packed opening night party.
This August we’re doing something a little different: Big Funny, a nod to the glorious & wacky full page (and often full color) newspaper comics of the turn of the century). Where Lutefisk Sushi asked participants to create mini-comics and gathered them all up in a BOX, Big Funny is asking people to draw a 15.5″w x 20″h comic strip (color or bw) which will then be printed in a big fat NEWSPAPER.
The Big Funny gallery show this August will have original art from the Big Funny newspaper, as well as vintage turn o’ the century comics (thanks to collector extraordinaire Steve Stwalley). You’ll also be able to get your hands on the Big Funny newspaper — right now we’re thinking it’ll be 48 pages.
Interested in having your cartoon grace one of those pages? Here’s a quick guide to get you started:
1. Read through www.cartoonistconspiracy.com/bigfunny. That should answer most of your questions.
2. Create your comic. Keep these specs in mind:
* Art should be 15.5″ (wide) x 20″ (high)
* If you’re doing color, make it 300 dpi
* If you’re doing black and white, make it at 1200 dpi
* You can submit more than one cartoon
* All submissions must be DIGITAL
* [This is a truncated list to get you started — PLEASE read the info on the Big Funny website!]3. Content: This show is a nod to the old-timey comics, but your comic can be any style, theme, etc. Just try to be funny (it is called Big Funny, after all)
4. Deadline is MAY 1, 2009Unlike Lutefisk Sushi, this is a juried show, which means that some comics won’t make it in the show. This has less to do with us being art snobs, and more to do with the complicated nature of putting a physical newspaper together on time and on budget.
We’ve already got a few submissions in (which, for a month before the deadline, is pretty outstanding), and they look great, so keep ’em coming!
If you have any questions, please read the Big Funny website. If you still have questions, please leave them in the comments section, and we’ll answer them there.
Here’s a BIG FUNNY chicklet for your website or blog:
