Category Archives: CARTOONING

Mini-Comics Day is Tomorrow! (Saturday, April 9th)

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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

EEK! DINOSAURS! and the other stuff I have in the Lutefisk Sushi Volume D Show

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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!

Lutefisk Sushi Volume D Opens This Friday! (August 6th)

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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!

Postcard front, small jpg

Postcard front, large pdf

Postcard back, small jpg

Postcard back, large pdf

Misc Show Sites

Sushi Website

Facebook Event

LSD – Facebook website

CRUMBLING PAPER: Pussy Pumpkin and That Family Next Door

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There are a number of old comic strips that I have scanned and cleaned up a bit that have not yet appeared on this site. I recently shared them with my friend Allan Holtz at his wonderful blog The Stripper’s Guide, and offered to let him post any of them he was interested in writing about. I’m much more interested in hearing what he has to say about them than what I would cobble together. Allan has a vast knowledge of comic strip history, and is currently working on an enormous encyclopedia indexing every American comic strip he has been able to see examples of in his many years of research.

So far he has posted two of the strips I scanned.

First of all, he posted an example of The Strange Adventures of Pussy Pumpkin and her Chum Toodles by Grace Drayton (creator of the Campbell’s Kids), which you can read about here.

I previously posted about Pussy Pumpkin here and here (the strip at the first link did not appear on the Stripper’s Guide).

Next he posted the example of That Family Next Door by Jean Knott which I posted previously here.

Here is what Allan said about that strip, and here is a follow-up post with more examples.

THE PEANUT GALLERY: The Author Meets The Critics: Frederic Wertham Versus Al Capp

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Tom Spurgeon linked to this interesting interview with Frederic Wertham and Al Capp from an old radio show called The Author Meets The Critics on his Comics Reporter blog the other week. I got around to listening to it today. It was recorded when Capp was at the height of his popularity in the fifties, and the focus of the discussion is largely on the Schmoo. Capp decimates Wertham, but you kind of end up wishing he used better arguments. Capp is ill-informed about what is in the comics on the newsstands, and is under the impression that the majority of comics published at the time are reprints of newspaper comics, which was not the case (as Wertham correctly states). Capp believes the comics have all been thoroughly censored (since in his mind, they are reprints of comic strips, which he knows are thoroughly censored)… which, strangely, Capp seems to have little problem with, or if he does he does not elaborate on it. Wertham makes much more inaccurate, spurious and poorly articulated arguments, though… hearing him talk, it is actually hard to believe anyone could have ever taken him seriously. Must have been the accent.

You can hear the interview here.

I just noticed that wasn’t the only episode of The Author Meets The Critics Wertham appeared on either… I haven’t listened to it yet, but here is another one.


There are many more old-time-radio shows on that site as well… it appears to be quite a treasure trove.


View the Frederic Wertham Memorial Funnybook Library here.

Another BIG FUNNY Review

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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

More BIG FUNNY Reviews

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We have had some more reviews of BIG FUNNY recently…

Oh, My Lard

MN Daily

Examiner.com

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

THE PEANUT GALLERY: On Dark Barks

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I recently commented on this post on the Comics Comics blog by Jeet Heer, “The Dark Vision of Carl Barks.” Here is what I blabbered:

This viewpoint of Barks’ ducks seems very narrow to me, Jeet. The Ducks were some of the most well rounded characters in kids comics at the time… which is probably the biggest reason why they were so successful.

While the ducks were certainly capable of greed, malice and avarice… they were also capable of affection, generosity and heroism. So I don’t really understand an interpretation that paints them as flat and one-dimensional as Little Dot or Richie Rich. If this is your viewpoint of them, I suggest you read more Barks! Check out almost any of his many Christmas stories for some good examples.

While there are certainly some dark themes in Barks’ comics, implying an overarching darkness to them seems absurd to me in the extreme.

The Barks that wrote the duck stories was most likely a very different man from the Barks you quote from shortly before his death. My understanding is that his later years were a very dark time for him with the loss of his wife and some exceedingly unscrupulous business handlers. I don’t see this degree of bitterness in his stories at all.

PHENOMENAL TANGENTS is Online at Staplegenius

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My good friend Danno Klonowski just started serializing PHENOMENAL TANGENTS, a collaboration that Danno drew and I wrote, on his Staplegenius blog. It is a tribute to the writings of Jack Kirby… everyone loves Kirby’s art, but too few appreciate his utterly unique writing style, in our view. Click the image above to check out the first spine-shimmying installment! It should be running for the better part of a month.

Photos From the BIG FUNNY Opening

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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.