The opening party for our comic cookbook/gallery show Just Add Ink is this Friday! I can’t wait!
Click on the image for details.
Please consider using the above image to help promote the event!
Some recent press:
Opening Reception
Friday, August 5, 2011 – 7pm-10pm
Artists’ Discussion
Saturday, August 20, 2011 – 1pm-3pm
Altered Esthetics
1224 Quincy St NE, Mpls MN 55413
612.378.8888
I haven’t updated in a long time, I know. One thing I have been up to is organizing an event called Mini-Comics Day, which is happening tomorrow.
On Mini-Comics Day, participating cartoonists from around the world will write, draw, and print copies of a mini-comic, completing the entire process from start to finish in a day or less. Anyone in the world can participate.
We currently have sixteen sites listed around the world planning events for Mini-Comics Day. If you are interested in hosting an event, let me know… email me at webmaster(at)cartoonistconspiracy.com.
Here is the scoop about the Minneapolis event which I will be participating in:
As with all our events, it is free and open to anyone who wants to participate. Table space is provided on a first-come, first-served basis. We hope to be getting started at 10:00AM sharp.
The copier on site, provided by our generous hosts at The Minnesota Center for Book Arts, will be available for use for a $5 donation… however, Big Brain Comics is giving us $50 to put towards this fee, so the first 10 people to use the copier will have their fee covered. Obviously, there will be a lot of demand for the copier at certain times of the day, so please be courteous of others and don’t bogart the machine. You’ll want to bring a $5 bill if you plan on using the on-site copier.
Wet Paint will be providing some free supplies, and will have useful items for sale for part of the event.
Big Time Attic will be donating some paper.
The Cartoonist Conspiracy will be providing some copies of our How to Make Mini-Comics mini-comic for folks to assemble and refer to.
We’ll be having an after party, where we will be giving out the prize for the Best Local Mini-Comic of the Day. This will be a block away from Book Arts in the side room at Grumpy’s Downtown (1111 Washington Ave. S.) from 5:30 to 9:00PM. We’ll clear out of the side room at 9:00 (a band will be taking over the space), and the fun will continue until whenever in the main room of the bar.
There will be a prize given out for the Best Local Mini-Comic of the Day. The prize will include a copy of the book Newave! The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s, courtesy of Big Brain Comics, a Lutefisk Sushi box set and a copy of BIG FUNNY courtesy of Altered Esthetics, and probably some other goodies.
Obviously, only comics made entirely on the day of the event will be eligible for the prize. To enter your mini-comic, drop 4 copies of it in the box we will have at the Book Arts event, or bring it before 6:30 to the side room of Grumpy’s Downtown. Make sure to include your name, address, email address and other contact information you think is pertinent with your submission. All submitted comics will also be included in a reading rack at the upcoming Art? show at Altered Esthetics in May.
The submitted comics will be read and a winner will be determined by three local non-cartoonists; author of Superheroes, Strip Artists & Talking Animals: Minnesota’s Contemporary Cartoonists Britt Aamodt, Big Brain Comics proprietor Michael Drivas, and Altered Esthetics founder Jamie Schumacher.
Please do spread the word to everyone you know who likes to make comics! If you use facebook, you may want to check out the Mini-Comics Day facebook page.
The Minnesota Center For Book Arts
1011 Washington Ave S
Minneapolis, MN
April 9, 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
(in the Flexispace and Gallery Space)
Copier will be available on site.
Table space will be provided on a first come, first served basis.
We’ll also be having an after party, where we will be giving out a prize for the Best Local Mini-Comic of the Day. This will be a block away in the side room at Grumpy’s Downtown (1111 Washington Ave. S.) from 5:30 to 9:00PM. We’ll clear out of the side room at 9:00 (a band will be taking over the space), and the fun will continue until whenever in the main room of the bar.
Contact: Steven Stwalley
webmaster(at)cartoonistconspiracy.com
The comic I have featured in Lutefisk Sushi Volume D bento box (opening Friday… more info here) is a collection of dinosaur comics I drew for my daughters called EEK! DINOSAURS! It features a 3D cover, which you can see below.
The Lutefisk Sushi Volume D bento boxes include work by over 50 Minnesota cartoonists, have a hand-silkscreened 3D cover by featured artist Danno Klonowski, are limited to 150 copies, and sell for only $25. Hard to believe we have put together four of these monsters already.
3D and dinosaurs are like chocolate and peanut butter to me.
Here is a version with the art moving to give a glasses-free 3D effect.
I’ll also have a 2’x3′ digital print of the piece hanging on the wall at the gallery (there will be plenty of 3D glasses around to view it with, and there are glasses included in the boxes). In the event anyone wants to own one, I’ll be selling them for $40 (frame not included).
In addition to this, I printed six issues of little funny up for the show, which will be in the small boxes from the vending machine along with comics by many other artists (I’ll have a gallery of photos of all of them up sometime soon). The ones I printed include one by my oldest daughter, two I made with my good friend, Lutefisk Sushi featured artist Danno Klonowski, and three that are solo books. The little funny boxes each include a dozen or more micro-comics by different artists, and sell for $4 each… there are around a hundred of them this time around, and they will go very fast, I think.
Hope to see you there! Please tell your friends!
I have work in the Lutefisk Sushi Volume D show opening up this weekend (on the walls, in the Sushi bento box, and in the little funny boxes)… more information about the show below. It was just written up in City Pages here… I was excited to see the print edition included the above image from my Sushi comic, EEK! DINOSAURS! Hope to see you there!
Lutefisk Sushi Volume D opens this Friday! The show features a limited-edition (150), hand silkscreened, 3D bento box full of mini-comics by over 50 Minnesota cartoonists for only $25! See original art and other work by the cartoonists all over the walls of the gallery, including a bunch of work by featured artist Danno Klonowski (Manly Tales of Cowardice). Also, don’t miss little funny Series II, small boxes of micro-comics sold out of an old cigarette vending machine.
The show has been included in the A-List in this week’s City Pages.
Please tell your friends, blog readers, social networking website compadres, co-workers, parents, cousins, casual associates, and random people on the street of the opening this Friday, August 6th from 7 – 10 PM at Altered Esthetics!
Altered Esthetics • 1224 Quincy St NE, Mpls MN 55413 • 612.378.8888
Promotional materials below.
Postcard Resources!
Misc Show Sites
We got another review for BIG FUNNY today, from Susannah Schouweiler at minnpost.com.
As I look through “The Big Funny,” it strikes me that this collective elegy for the newspaper comic strip intends more than mere nostalgia for a fading form; its artists are sounding an impassioned call to action, too, aimed at both readers and artists who love the medium. “Let us not mourn the death of the newspaper comics,” the editors write, “rather, let us have a wake to celebrate what they once were, and to perhaps build something new.”
Note that if you are in the Twin Cities, the show is up until the 29th… and if you are not in the Twin Cities, you can order a copy online here.
ALTERED ESTHETICS
1224 Quincy St NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413
SHOW RUNS AUGUST 7-29, 2009
GALLERY HOURS:
TUESDAY & THURSDAY 1pm-7pm, SATURDAY 1pm-5pm
We have had some more reviews of BIG FUNNY recently…
Note that if you are in the Twin Cities, the show is up until the 29th… and if you are not in the Twin Cities, you can order a copy online here.
ALTERED ESTHETICS
1224 Quincy St NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413
SHOW RUNS AUGUST 7-29, 2009
GALLERY HOURS:
TUESDAY & THURSDAY 1pm-7pm, SATURDAY 1pm-5pm
Pictured above: two of my BIG FUNNY co-editors, Danno Klonowski and Bjorn Rolvaag in full newsie garb… image purloined from Danno’s blog.
The BIG FUNNY opening was a full house on Friday night… BIG FUNNY again is an oversized all-comics newspaper I recently co-edited with my collaborators from the International Cartoonist Conspiracy, Big Time Attic and Altered Esthetics gallery. I forgot to bring my camera, but fortunately other folks took some great pictures…
Danno Klonowski (Staplegenius)
Tom Kaczynski
Terry Beatty (you old comics fans out there will want to give Terry’s blog a good look for all the old comics scans he has posted over the last number of weeks as well)
Also, here is a photo gallery of the issues of little funny, an ongoing series of mini-comics that premiered at the show. They are only sold out of the little funny vending machine, a cigarette vending machine that has been re-purposed to sell mini-comics. Each box contains six different mini-comics. There are 29 issues so far by an international group of cartoonists… I’ve drawn three of them so far. If you are interested in participating in this project, watch the Cartoonist Conspiracy blog for information on getting in on the next round.
Note that if you missed the opening, the show is up all month! If you saw the opening, the numerous antique pages that were up on the walls have been taken down… so you can now browse both sides of them in the gallery. You can also still buy copies of BIG FUNNY online here… or for five bucks each in the gallery if you don’t want to pay shipping.
If you enjoy this site and you live near the Twin Cities, you won’t want to miss the BIG FUNNY show my friends and I have been putting together over the last number of months. It opens this weekend, and it is going to be spectacular.
The show premieres BIG FUNNY, an oversized 48-page newspaper of comics by 45 different artists, inspired by the funnies sections of yesteryear. The gallery show features original art from the publication, numerous antique comic strips (some over 100 years old… many which have been featured on this site… they all look better in person), a retrospective of unknown cartoonist William Ede, and an old cigarette vending machine rigged up to sell small boxes of little funny mini-comics. Hope to see you there!
THE NEWSPAPER INDUSTRY IS COUGHING blood and gasping on its deathbed. Newspapers lost their relevance a long time ago, and with internet media blossoming they can no longer compete. Readers and advertisers have moved on.
Unfortunately, newspapers are taking their beautiful bastard child, the newspaper comic strip, with them.
Today’s newspaper comics are much-maligned… and deservedly so. Today’s small strips, with mostly predictable, safe themes and bland characters are a pale shadow of what newspaper comics were in their wild and colorful youth.
110-or-so years from their birth, it’s been a good run. Let us not mourn the death of the
newspaper comics… rather, let us have a wake to celebrate what they once were, and to build something new.
The International Cartoonist Conspiracy, Big Time Attic, and Altered Esthetics gallery are collaborating to produce an oversized newspaper comics section like they would do it today if they still did it like they did it in the old days.
It will be called BIG FUNNY, and it will be both.
The paper will premiere at a show at Altered Esthetics in August, featuring some of the original art from the paper, along with historical comics pages from the dawn of the last century.
Amy Crehore’s Little Hokum Rag review
Photo gallery of the little funny sideshow
Can’t make the gallery show? You can buy copies of BIG FUNNY here.
Opening Reception
August 7, 2009 7pm-11pm
ALTERED ESTHETICS
1224 Quincy St NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413
SHOW RUNS AUGUST 7-29, 2009
GALLERY HOURS:
TUESDAY & THURSDAY 1pm-7pm, SATURDAY 1pm-5pm
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:
I’m participating in and co-curating the Lutefisk Sushi Volume C show, which opens tonight. It features the work of over 50 Minnesota cartoonists, including the previously mentioned Kevin Cannon, who is premiering the limited print edition of Far Arden. If you can’t make it tonight, it will be up all month, with special events during Art-A-Whirl May 16th-18th.
The box set includes a copy of the first collection of my Rogues’ Gallery strips. A number of other rare and obscure mini-comics I’ve made will be available for sale there as well.
Hope to see you all there!
Lutefisk Sushi Volume C Opening, Friday May 2nd, 7PM-10PM
Altered Esthetics (alteredesthetics.org)
1224 Quincy St. NE
Minneapolis, MN 55413
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION
