ITCHYKEEN Art Fiends

Dylan Williams, Publisher at Sparkplug Passes Away

2011-09-11T17:54:00.000-07:00

I heard the news last night and I felt like I left my body. Going to sleep early and feeling alone, even with my wife sharing the bed. This morning it hit me pretty hard. I never knew Dylan as well I would have liked -- I would see him with Tom Neely at shows, have dinner with him on a few occasions, and we’d exchange emails from time to time. But I only had this rapport with him for little more than a year or two.

I’d try to inquire as to whether he would distro some of our books, chat him up about also being a vegan, and generally come off often as a tongue-tied pest. If he found any of my blathering and blatant hero-worship the least bit obnoxious, he didn’t show it. Instead, he would tolerate my silly behavior, took me up on attending MIX, answered my questions on running a tiny comics operation, etc. In short, he was a patient, modest person who I perceived as my late 20’s role model.

Just being around Dylan put me in mind of having or being an older brother (I am the oldest amongst my siblings so I can recall being on the other end -- in addition, my younger brother’s name is in fact Dillon). Anyways, as you can imagine, the usual awkwardness and fumbling that arises from these sort of scenarios. This was my relationship with Dylan and he was fine with my interactions very much coming off like a foal’s first steps.
Dylan was also aware of this effect he had on people -- we talked a bit about it at one point and he wasn’t always sure if people were genuinely trying to befriend him or merely trying to schmooze / network with him. He may have even been politely nudging me with this. In any case, Dylan was a true, ethical, hard working dude. He dared to publish comics no else had much interest in and to continue putting out many of them in the staple-bound format as comic books. It was no mistake that Sparkplug Comic Books had ‘comic books’ in the name.

Sparkplug was and is my favorite comics publisher and Dylan is the reason for that. I am deeply indebted to him for his openness, his example, for personally introducing me to awesome cartoonists like Noah Van Sciver, and just for being an honest and decent human being. He is sorely missed.

My heart goes out to Emily, the rest of his family & friends, and the comics community at large. We lost a great hero today.

Sparkplug Comic Books need YOUR help

2011-08-23T13:57:00.000-07:00

Dylan Williams, cartoonist and publisher of Sparkplug Comic Books is seriously ill and needs your support. If you have any interest in comics, specifically art comics / small press / or the new underground, I strongly urge you to stop by their online shop. They have a huge selection of drop dead gorgeous comic / books. To help you with your choice, here are some of my current favorite selections and those that I plan on adding to my Library post-haste(!):

1.)
Too Dark To See
Flesh and Bone
Both of these are by Julia Gfrörer, whose work I find emotionally overpowering and hauntingly beautiful. Gfrörer evokes deep, highly sophisticated magic. Reading her comics just fucking stun me and take over my day.

2.)
Gay Genius
edited by Annie Murphy
A well crafted hodge-podge of art / comics with a DIY / queer bent. Mixed-media, sketch book doodles, collage, photography, color, paint -- COMIX. Gorgeous zine-influenced LGBT work. Some of it is very personal and all of it is very precious.

3.)
Passage
by Tessa Brunton
My wife and I shared a table at APE in 2008 with this west-coast comics darlingly. She makes beautiful, funny, hand-crafted comics. Did I mention Matt Groening was wandering around APE that year and stopped at the table we shared with Tessa? Let me tell you, he certainly was not stopping for anything we had, he didn't even look our way, but he did purchase every book she had there!

4.)
Asthma
by John Hanckiewicz
Rob Clough, comics critic at High-Low & The Comics Journal, had this to say about Asthma "One of the greatest books of the past fifteen years and the best example of comics-as-poetry." So, maybe add that one to the cart too.

5.)
Blammo #7
by Noah Van Sciver
Anyone who has been reading here in the past, where I fumbled through an interview with the new underground comics legend would realize I am in love with this young man's work and his work ethic. The dude is tireless and unstoppable. Blammo is modeled after excellent comics like Optic Nerve, Hate, Eightball and Yummy Fur -- but it's made today. #7 is the latest and greatest! Go get it stat!

6.)
Eschew #1 & #2
by Robert Sergel
I really like the clean line and short anecdotal story-telling. It's sharp looking stuff!

7.)
1-800-MICE (series)
by Matthew Thurber
Don't yet own this and have not read it, but I will be amending that shortly as I have heard some very good things about this series.

8.)
Inkweed
by Chris Wright
This comic looks like nothing else out there that I have seen. I really really dig Chris Wright's work. Inkweed made me think hard and long about the type of comics I would like to make some day...

9.)
Pines (series)
by Jason T. Miles
This is another one that I have not yet read, but I have really enjoyed what I have seen of Jason's work and plan on acquiring more of it. So far I only have that oversized La Mano release, Dead Ringer.

10.)
Exploding Head Man
by Jason Overby
Overby is another comic cat whose work I really dig and I'd like to see more of, which is why this book is in my cart as we speak.

11.)
The Ditko Package
by Steve Ditko (you know, co-creator of Spider-Man!?)
What has the co-creator of Spider-Man been up to? Why making comics of course. Play a detective and purchase them. Black and white is featured prominently.

12.)
Service Industry
by T. Edward Bak
T. Edward Bak is a mighty talent, his work has been featured in MOME and D & Q Showcase. Service Industry looks to be an earlier work. Again, I have yet to read it, but AGAIN I shall and soon -- see the Sparkplug Comics Shop!

13.)
Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man
by John Porcellino
This was an earlier work by John P. about his job as an Mosquito Abatement Man. John's Simple evocative lines draw you in to his world and his life. If you are a fan of King Cat, you ought to pick it up as it is another gem and well worth adding to your library.

I should add that none of these are in any particular order. They are all excellent comics by excellent creatives. You really ought to use this time to head over to the Sparkplug shop and peruse to your hearts content. There are so many beautiful and cool comics over there. And as I have said above, Dylan could really use your help.

Dylan Williams is the Publisher behind Sparkplug as well as a cartoonist in his own right. For about 10 years he has been publishing beautiful and weird comics alike, both as spined albums and folded and stapled mini's. He also has acted as a distributor for some of the best damn small press comics out there today. The list above collects a mix of comics that he has published, illustrated, and those that others have self-published or other small press publishers have distributed via Sparkplug.

If there is one comics publisher we at 2D Cloud most closely identify with, it is Dylan at Sparkplug. His focus on floppies, when Fantagraphics, Top Shelf, Drawn & Quarterly were still publishing them, and his persistence in continuing to publish them well after the big boys have stopped has likely not earned him a ton of cash or accolades but I find it so damn necessary for the form to continue and carry on. And THAT is why I find Dylan's efforts at Sparkplug so important and admirable. He is one ethical, tough, cool dude. Please help him out as this real world comic universe needs him.

Some Stuff from Figure Drawing (x-posted from my blog)

2011-07-12T22:27:00.001-07:00

xtranormal

2011-07-02T21:47:00.000-07:00

www.xtranormal.com is the topic of this post. What is xtranormal? It's absolutely the fastest way to make a movie. Ever. All you need is an internet-capable device, and an account, and KABLAMO! You've got movie-making at the tips of your fingers.

Why is this cool? A few reasons come to mind, but the two most glaring ones are:

1) Movies are a complicated and time-consuming prospect, and

2) There is now a very fast way to test cinematography edits and storyboard ideas.

The movies themselves are pretty primitive, and often quite boring, but the site is definitely worth checking out and messing around with. I'm going to post some movies I've made there to give you a rough idea of what it's all about.

Why am I showing you these? Mostly because I think my sh*tty little movies are funny, but also to illustrate my point. Each of these were produced in under an hour. Bam!

The Wolf is coming to get you!

2011-06-17T06:27:00.000-07:00

Hello folks! Tom Neely's new painted novel is on it's way. If you happen to be in LA on the 8th of July, you should totally stop by Secret Headquarters (deets below) and check out the book release party. I'd be there if I were not here, in MPLS. But you can pre-order Tom's book at his shop, check the release below for some positive words from folks that have already given it a read and watch the trailer-- very cool stuff!

“An assaultive, erotic riot of sex and combat and horror and sheer image-making power. There’s great beauty in The Wolf’s blackness.”

– Sean T. Collins, critic (The Comics Journal, Robot 6)

The Wolf is a new graphic novel by Los Angeles-based painter-cartoonist Tom Neely. The book tells a simple love story, but one woven with surrealist horror, werewolf lore and its own brand of nightmare logic. With The Wolf, Neely progresses from the traditional cartooning style he showed off in his previous books, The Blot and Brilliantly Ham-Fisted, to a form that blends comics-style storytelling with a fine arts approach to imagery. The ultimate effect is equal parts touching and chilling.

Neely’s paintings and illustrations have been featured in galleries all over the U.S., in magazines and literary journals, and on records, posters and CDs for bands like The Melvins, ISIS and Wolves in the Throne Room, Groovie Ghoulies, among others. Earlier this year, he garnered a flurry of attention as one of the authors of the cult hit mini-comic Henry & Glenn Forever. Neely’s debut self-published novel, The Blot, won an Ignatz Award in 2007 and made it onto several of the industry’s “best of” lists that year, including “Best Comics of the Decade” in The Comics Journal.

228 Pages, Black & White and Full Color, Paperback, $25.00 (US)
Available now from I Will Destroy You
P.O. Box 39963, Los Angeles, CA 90039
www.iwilldestroyyou.com

Book Release and Signing
July 8th, 2011 at Secret Headquarters Comic Shop
3817 W. Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90026

Some early praise for The Wolf:

"The book talks about a progression, and an inner struggle, but I was most impressed with how Tom masterfully articulates the sentiment of love."
--Trenton Doyle Hancock, artist.

“The Wolf is drawn with skill and heart … It is thrilling to see Neely work this way, and to know that this dedicated artist is in it for the long haul.”
--Austin English, comics author/publisher (The Disgusting Room, Domino Books)

"The Wolf veers from frightening and expressionistic to cartoony at the drop of a hat, sometimes in the same drawing. But Tom pulls it all together beautifully.
--Zak Sally, cartoonist (Sammy the Mouse, Recidivist)

"Tom's work has the unusual ability to provoke anxiety, uncertainty, horror and uncomfortable laughter in equal measure … Mr. Neely has done so here with grace and a crafty precision.
-- Aaron Turner, musician-artist (Isis, Mammifer)

Pre-order the book from the IWDY store now!
Stores- e-mail Tom for wholesale orders!

The Highway Won't Hide You: The Knotwells Album Release Event

2011-06-14T12:22:00.000-07:00

The Knotwells woodsy genre blending sound will be touching down in Minneapolis at the Hexagon Bar about 2 and half weeks from now on friday July 1st. The event will kickoff the release of their second full length release, 'The Highway Won't Hide You'. It's a fantastic album and well worth your cash (and mine too-- I'll be there!). And being at the Hexagon, it is a 21+ show and is of course, FREE.

The Knotwells with Brute Heart, and Black Audience
Friday July 1st @
The Hexagon
2600 27th Ave. So.
Minneapolis
music starts at 9:30pm

They are having another album release event the following day at a currently undisclosed place. This one will be an all ages show and they will be playing with Terracide and Visitor. More details are forth coming.

I am not a music connoisseur by any means, but in my skull and in my heart, the Knotwells are quintessential Minnesota music. If you'd like to try a taste of their sound before making it down to the show, click the links below. Hope to see yah there!

Thousand Dead by the Knotwells

02 The Spinning Song by the Knotwells

Oh and here is their poster for the event:

Interview with Zak Sally and Dylan Williams part 1

2011-06-09T06:45:00.000-07:00

The day prior to MIX 2010, I organized an interview with Zak Sally and Dylan Williams in the La Mano studio. I was too out of sorts to compose any questions or really do anything other than hold the microphone. Luckily, Justin had my back in concerns to the questions and Toby Jones and Ben Hanson took care of shooting the actual video.

That Kim Deitch volume Zak mentions in the video is now available for purchase! Click the La Mano link!! Oh, and before I forget, another round of thanks to everyone who threw some greenbacks at Zak's Sammy The Mouse book via Kickstarter. Y'all made it happen and it is going to be a beaut!

PS this blog is still in the process of becoming 100% functional. Thanks and apologies chitlins.

Squash, Stretch, and Scale - Animation Fundamentals

2011-06-04T12:41:00.000-07:00

So, here is an article I wrote on Squidoo. You're welcome to go there and read it, though it is riddled with ads so I can make some kind of money. If you're not into ads, simply read below:

Okay, So You Know How to Use Your Animation Software. Now What?

Anybody can click their mouse and do a tutorial to learn an animation software suite. The hard part is making movement that looks good, and creates the illusion of life.

This article should cover some of the basics of using scale, squishiness, and anticipation in order to make what you're animating more believable, be it a car driving down a road, a character lifting something heavy, or just a simple bouncing ball.

Does Squash & Stretch Happen in Real Life?

There is not a single piece of solid matter that we can perceive that is not in a constant state of change with regards to its dimensions.

Everything, everywhere is reacting to the physical effects of something. Even the items nonchalantly resting on the ground are having secret bouncing dance parties in reaction to the ground constantly smacking them with gravity.

Whether it's the physical effect of muscles deforming and altering the scale of body parts, or a hard metal ball bouncing on concrete, there will always be some level of scaling visually. That is, our eyes see motion blur, and all objects bulge (even if only a little) when they hit other objects. That said, it's important for animators to exaggerate these naturally-occurring phenomena.

Squash

Squash is the easiest way to create anticipation before a movement begins, especially a fast one. It's important to remember that preserving volume sells most animations with squash, so as things get squished, they should get wider in the other dimension. That matter has to go somewhere.

Preserving volume is really important for hard, solid objects, like anvils, pianos, and army tanks, less important for flexible objects like water balloons, tires, and jello molds, and totally unnecessary for objects like balloons full of air, t-shirts, and blow fish.

Another, obvious example of squash is when an object is literally being pressed by something. Not much description needed on that one, except that there are a plethora of slow motion videos of things being smashed on Youtube for your reference.

Stretch

When animators talk about stretch, they're usually referring to stretching with preservation of volume. The other kind of stretching will be addressed in the module below.

Stretch can be the result of something being grabbed and pulled on by two conflicting forces, but the less obvious, more important kind of stretching is the kind that accompanies a quick movement, linear or on a curved path.

Stretch usually happens right after squash, the most commonly-used example of this is when a ball bounces or a character jumps. When the ball hits the ground and is about to fly back in the air, that's when it's in a 'squashed' position, and immediately after (when it has the highest velocity) is when it is stretching.

A Demonstration of Squash and Stretch Together

This simple test showing a flour sack leaping into the foreground demonstrates anticipation, squash, stretch, and then follow-through.

A Bouncing Ball Test

Try to focus on the parts where the ball is bouncing, these are the frames where you will see the most extreme squashes and stretches.

Other Kinds of Scaling

Other kinds of scaling include when objects are inflated/deflated, when the animator is purposefully messing with the audience, and the most important kind of non-volume-preserving scale: motion blur.

Motion blur is a byproduct of our vision, and of cameras. It is not a true physical effect, but a trick of seeing. It is also a very useful tool for an animator working on a time budget, because it can simulate a higher framerate than is actually there. Even with a high framerate, though, it looks very nice and can help bridge the gaps between frames of animation.

A Demonstration of an Animation Using a Blur Frame

This animation only really has five different frames, but what sells the motion is a single frame that 'blurs' the forms between the two surrounding frames.

Imaginary Friends

2011-06-02T05:39:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow there is an art show at Infinitea, including works by these cool folks:

Todd Balthazor, Pat Callahan, Will Dinski, Katy Ellis, Sarah Hedstrand, Danno Klonowski, Pete Lochner, Lisa Luck, Chrysa Otto, Cory Speets and Nicholas Straight.

The address is:
Infinitea Tea House
2827 Hennepin Ave. S
Minneapolis, MN 55408
(612) 871-3900

Nicholas Straight is the dude organizing the event and a participant in the art show + anthology. If your in MPLS tomorrow night, stop on by!

Justin and I will most definitely be there. Oh, my wife and I participated in the limited edition anthology that will be making an appearance at the show. Below is a page from it.I am pretty sure you will be able to purchase said anthology at the show. Check it out!

Be Your Own Barber

2011-05-30T22:45:00.000-07:00

Meghan Hogan here. From my first baby trim until I was a senior in college, a barber named Pat cut my hair. When Pat retired, I decided to cut my own hair. Why not? My husband always cut his own hair, and it fit with my desire to be frugal. Websites recommended scissor sets and three-way mirrors, but I went with techniques I observed Pat use. My first haircut wasn't a complete success, but I've since honed my abilities. To celebrate last night's successful chop, I put together clips of Hollywood cuts that inspired me to try my hand at being my own barber.

Empire Records. After watching this movie 300 times in high school with my best friend Holly, we got the bottom halves of our heads shaved (because our parents wouldn't let us shave our heads.) The desire to cut my own hair stems from this scene.

The King of Marvin Gardens (ok, I've never actually seen this movie, but it really captures the emotional impatience of your first self-haircut)

Alternative Methods:

George Witman's Candle Burning

Garth from Wayne's World: the Suck Kut (I don't understand why, but halfway through this clip the language turns from English to a French dub)

That Was Then and This is Now: Pass Out Drunk and Your "Friends" Cut Your Hair

I'll leave you with my favorite lines from the movie Bowfinger:
Robert: Would you be willing to cut your hair?
Jiff: Well, yeah. But it would probably be better if someone else did it. I've had a few... accidents.

Jim Woodring at the Walker Art Center this Saturday!!

2011-05-30T21:34:00.000-07:00

Special Announcement: This Saturday, the Walker Art Center and Rain Taxi Review of Books are throwing together a little something for comics lovers outside of the cities here to be damn jealous of-- as a special midnight performance, Jim Woodring is going to compose a series of drawings live with a 7 foot tall pen!! Last year he raised funds for the giant pen via the United States Artists Special Projects, a crowd funding site in the vein of Kickstarter but with a non-profit spin. For more info check out Rain Taxi or the Walker Art Center.

Also, did I mention it appears to be free and open to the public? You would be wise to not miss this!

ps-- still working on the re-design. thanks for your patience!!

Help Zak Sally Raise funds for a Sammy The Mouse Collection!

2011-05-16T18:56:00.000-07:00

Sammy The Mouse is a comic series Zak has been working on for a few years now. It was initiated by Fantagraphics and Coconino via their collaborative Ignatz line of books. For this fundraiser, Zak is seeking your help in covering the cost of the materials for the books to be collected into one volume, which he will print off his own press vs sending it to China or something. A pretty neat prospect for an intimate art object such as it will be. I am excited to see more books go that route. Anyways, enough of my yammering. Watch the vid-- throw down some cashola! For only 12 bones yah get the beautiful hand bound book in question--do it!

Later in the month with the aid of Toby Jones, we will be posting the first part of a video interview between Zak Sally and Dylan Williams, moderated/interviewed by Justin Skarhus. More on that soon!

Music Post

2011-05-05T17:57:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd post this concept art for a game I'm working on. It will (if ever finished) be a music-based chip-tunes-esque mobile game. The main synth featured here is the Quantum 64. There's a video showing its capabilities below the audio link. It's free if you can find the download online, and well worth it if you have a DAW that can handle VST instruments.

JustInTimeConcept by godhatesglobes

Artist's Block and Bullock's with Cactus

2011-04-26T21:09:00.000-07:00

Cactus née Jonatan Söderström is a monster-- his output is vast and his range, wide. So, who is this chap? In short, he is a Swede based in Gothenburg who makes bite-sized games that follow his own creative and internal desires. All of his games thus far are free via his blog.

In general, his work seems to be governed by a Lynchian dream logic, accompanied by a strong sense of deviance when it comes to rules. As an example, in Stench Mechanics, throughout the game's narrative the user is suggested to turn off the lights when they exit a room via the Captain's log. Should they take this advice, they will find themselves unable to complete the game. It's subtle, and without trial and error-style exploration, the user is lost.

Raighne Hogan: When I first started following your work, I believe you made mention of having difficulty finishing projects, either in an interview or on your blog, I forget which. This seems to be a common theme amongst creatives. As you seem to be pumping out these games at a decent clip, what has changed? What do you do differently that has enabled you to stay on track for completing projects?

Jonatan Söderström: Basically, nothing has changed. It's really hard to finish a project if you invest time in it, which is why I rarely do that. I simply do smaller scope projects that I can work on without losing too much time if they aren't finished. At the same time this approach allows me to finish a higher rate of games, because the aspect that makes me drop projects is usually the amount of work I can see on the horizon to get the game to where I want it to be. If the amount is rather small then it's a lot easier to force yourself than if you know it'll be months of hard labor to get it done.

RH: You've mentioned David Lynch’s films as an influence in past interviews, are you a fan of his animation, music, drawings or paintings? Has any of his non-filmic output gotten into your skull to the same extent as his films?

JS: I haven't seen as much of it, but I did enjoy Dumbland. Overall I think Lynch's magic comes out best when he's pressured into compromising between his own artistic ambitions and making it a bit more accessible and entertaining for commercial reasons. For instance, I didn't really get into Inland Empire, because it felt like he went from weirdness to weirdness without any contrasting that actually makes the weirdness interesting.

RH: Speaking of dream-logic, do you keep a dream journal? What about a regular sketch book?

JS: Nope, nothing like that. I do have some interesting dreams every now and then, but I think they are too hard to recreate or use as source material for other ideas.

RH: Are there any game artists, filmmakers, fine-art artists, cartoonists, etc. that have influenced your work that you would care to talk about?

JS: Yes, lots of them. As for games, I think the most well known game designer would be Suda51, although I only really played/liked Killer 7. It felt amazingly fresh when I saw the first previews, and I followed it maybe a little bit too closely, so I was mildly disappointed when I actually played the game. It's still a really unique and interesting game though, especially considering that it's a commercial creation. As for freeware/indie, I really love Messhof's stuff, and the La La Land series.

I love Jodorowsky's El Topo and Holy Mountain. Two truly interesting and inspiring movies. I really wish he'd been allowed to make more films, as even now he still seems to have interesting ideas. A lot of Japanese culture can be very interesting too. Takashi Miike, Akira Kurosawa and Shinya Tsukamoto have all made movies that probably have had an effect on me. Even anime can be very cool sometimes, I was very sad when I heard that Satoshi Kon passed away last year. I think his work is way better than any of the overrated Miyazaki films that everyone's raving about. Masaaki Yuasa's work always has very interesting visuals, and some really cool ideas, but there's something about everything he does that puts me off a little bit.

Manga has really been a gold mine for me, there's so many people who draw comics that are truly mind blowing or just so bizarre and alien that you can't help but be inspired. Junji Ito, Shintaro Kago, Go Nagai, Kazuo Umezu, Koike Keiichi, Naoki Urazawa, Hitoshi Tomizawa, Kaneko Atsushi, Tsutomo Nihei, Hiroya Oku, Takayuki Yamaguchi, Hideki Arai and the list could go on for quite a while. I think it's really interesting how the workload they're subjected to is one of the reasons that their creations are so fascinating to read. Being forced to write a new chapter weekly or bi-weekly allows some of them to create these extremely bizarre and epic tales that end up continuously pushing their plots farther and farther into insanity. It's truly an amazing experience reading a lot of it.

RH: Sounds like it, I really need to brush up on my knowledge of these Manga-ka.

Back to games, what about Kenji Eno, have you ever played his games, such as D, Enemy Zero, D2, or any of his other weirder ones?

JS: I think I played D back when it came out, or maybe I just read a review, but it didn't really make much of an impression on me since I can't remember anything but the cover picture.

RH: Ahh. Fair enough. I do feel that his work seems like it would be up your alley. Although I could be mistaken.

Music seems to be a pretty large inspiration in your work. Was this something that made you start your Indie Song of the Day blog? Do you listen to music while you are creating and if so, does this ever influence your art and how?

JS: I rarely listen to music when I create actually. Partially because I can't play music on the computer while working on a game; my computer doesn't seem to like it when I do that. And I also think that it's important to stay in tone with what you're working on, and I can't do that if I listen to music that has a different feeling from what I'm trying to create. And if I do listen to something that has the same feeling, then I wear myself out because the feeling stops being interesting when it's constantly imposed on me.

I can't remember any game I've created so far that was the result of being inspired by a song. I usually try to find a soundtrack first when the game's getting close to being done.

RH: What first made you think -- game design, this is the medium for you?

JS: That people actually took their time to comment on the games I released. I'm an attention whore, so creating something just for myself isn't what I want to do. I also really enjoy the aspect where a game comes alive and exceeds your expectations. You can rather easily make a game generate levels and graphics on it's own with just a few assets and some lines of code, and the results are often very unexpected.

However, I don't necessarily think that game design is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I'd rather try to do as many different things as I can. Although it's pretty hard to break the barrier and try something completely new, especially when you have no clue where to start.

RH: How did you end up choosing Game Maker over other game engines?

JS: Game Maker said that you didn't need to know how to program to make games with it. And it probably helped that I googled "game maker" when I was looking for the right tool.

RH: That's pretty fortuitous. What are you reading these days? Any comix/manga?

JS: I started reading Billy Bat by Naoki Urasawa a few weeks ago. It starts out as a comic made during the cold war, about a cartoon bat-detective named Billy Bat. Then it shifts focus to Kevin Yamagata - the author of the fictional comic - as his home is invaded by the police. It turns out there's a man suspected of being a Russian spy living in an apartment opposite to Kevin's, and one of the officer's mentions that he's seen the Billy Bat character in Japan and asks if Kevin is working on a translation for the US. Kevin is shocked and travels to Japan to see if he's unconsciously stolen his character from a Japanese author while he was stationed there during the aftermath of WWII. He gets involved in a big murder conspiracy, and finds the original author of Billy Bat, who turns out to be a medium able to predict the future through drawing his comics. From there, things go crazy, and the reader's taken through a fictional re-envisioning of history, where the Bat character plays a central role in many important historical events; from the Kennedy assassination to the execution of Jesus. It's all very surreal but presented in a very realistic and well paced manner.

I'm also reading Violence Jack by Go Nagai. It's a comic about a bear-sized man who roams through the postapocalyptic sceneries of Japan that has been laid to ruins by a massive earthquake. He carries a machete-sized jackknife with him that he uses to disembowel people who get in his way. The story lasts for over 6500 pages. His publishers tried to censor him, as the comic was published in a kids magazine; but due to the popularity of his other works, he could pretty much do whatever he wanted, so the comic is extremely depraved, containing gratuitous violence, rape and even bestiality. I think the existence of a comic such as Violence Jack is maybe more interesting than actually reading it, just knowing that someone must've spent his complete attention to something so bizarre for several years consecutively is just mind boggling. Then knowing that it actually was successful commercially, both nationally and internationally, and even spawned several animated features just makes it even crazier.

RH: I definitely need to look these books up!

I've read that your brother sometimes provides the music for your games. As you seem to be a fan of collaboration, what is your take on working with your brother versus working with friends/peers/employers? Is there a more natural flow to the work as maybe you trust him more or are more comfortable around him? Or is your collaborative process much the same regardless of the partners involved?

JS: I think it can be very difficult to collaborate with people, especially if they are very creative. You have an image of what you want to do, and they have an image of what they want to do, but the images usually don't match each other. Most of the time creativity should not be a democracy, but a dictatorship. Compromising between two ideas can be good sometimes, though often it just demotivates both parties to the point where they no longer are excited about the project.

So when I collaborate with someone, I usually try to make sure I get to tell the other person what to do, even though I'm not very good at assuming that kind of responsibility. It's the same thing when I work with my brother, as when I work with anyone else.

I urge you to check out one of Jonatan's latest games, Hot Throttle, a collaboration with Doom Laser / Mark Johns on Adult Swim. Also of no small import, many of the older games in the Cactus Catalogue are now Mac friendly thanks to L / Leon Arnott!!

Started a new blog:

2011-04-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

It's called Exponential Acronym. Go on over and check it out. If you like the concept, let me know and I'll send you an invite to be a contributor.

Basic concept is this:

1. FART

2. Flapping ass rattlesnakes try.

3. Flying lips are peeing. Plop! In gross apple shitty shit. Ramps are totally trying everything like eagles. Science never asks killers everything. Shake tornadoes 'round, you.

4. ???

5. Profit $$

Good Minnesotan Interviews: Tom Kaczynski

2011-04-10T21:17:00.000-07:00

At 30+ contribs to GMN4, there are quite a few interviews yet to do. Every artists contribution has been a treat to have included in that little book. I am indebted to them for taking further time away by doing these snack interviews. This latest one is with Tom Kaczynski.

To be blunt, Tom K is producing some heavy/intelligent shit that seriously needs to be put in front of more eye balls. Once his ethereal post apocalyptic vision enters your periphery it sticks in your craw-- your Cronenbergian jaw drops and the epiphany will either fly away or die today.

Raighne Hogan: What do you do to make ends meet? Does this interrupt the output of your own creative projects, comics and otherwise?

Tom Kaczynski: I work as a 'Flash Guru' for a small New York based digital advertising agency. The job mostly takes about 20 hours out of my week, though sometimes it can be more demanding. I also teach occasionally at MCAD, I do the odd illustration job... and that's all on top of drawing comics (mostly for Mome) and running my publishing 'label' Uncivilized Books. Of course doing all these different things can be disruptive, but it also can be enriching and symbiotic. After years of worrying about doing too many things, I've decided to just embrace it. I find that the more I have on my plate the more I get done... this may change in the future... in fact you can count on it.

RH: Is there something in particular you have done to balance your art and the need for monetary sustenance?

TK: I've always tried to set up my life so I don't have to have a full-time job... and to have lots of scheduling flexibility. That is fraught with danger because if you're too flexible you might forever push certain creative projects out of the way. I'm now trying to create a more rigid schedule for myself to make sure certain things have time to get done.

RH: When was the last time you bought a comic anthology (or any kind of anthology)? Was there anything in particular that attracted or repelled you to that specific one?

TK: The last anthology I purchased was Gazeta #1. I love international anthologies where you can see a broad diversity of work from places where comics are often even more obscure then here. I didn't have any expectations other than expecting to discover something new. There was a lot of good comics in there, but I was especially taken by the work of Igor Hofbauer whose work I'd never seen before. His story pushed a lot of my favorite buttons: weird occult symbolism, modernist architecture, 2 color art, dream logic, etc.

RH: What are some of the projects you are working on now?

I'm working on a new story for Mome... From Uncivilized Books: I'm about to publish a series of mini-comics of Jon Lewis' excellent True Swamp comic. Jon's True Swamp has been an inspiration to me since the mid-90's. I'm very excited to be working with him on this project. I'm also readying the second issue of Cartoon Dialectics.

PS: Tom K has some sketches in a show that is closing this Saturday at SSCA. Sounds like an awesome show! Click the links for more details.

Good Minnesotan Interviews: Emily Kaplan

2011-03-30T20:05:00.000-07:00

A quick note and/or reminder: these interviews are short and sweet and have been done with GMN4 in mind. Yes, I am still doing these GMN4 interviews. At this point, I am not even sure how many have yet to go up.

Emily Kaplan has skills and interests that are all over the place and a resumé filled with creative endeavors that cover many visual mediums, including animation and illustration. At the bottom of the page is a short animation she did soon after or maybe during the production of GMN4. She also runs the neat cartoon blog, Your Daily Cartoon.

Concerning the image to your left, this was provided for the cover of one of the booklets for GMN4. Her psychotic psychedelic visuals provided a nice opener to the work and I am thankful for her contribution. Anyways, on to the interview!

Raighne Hogan: What do you do to make ends meet? Does this interrupt the output of your own creative projects, comics and otherwise?

Emily Kaplan: I am a Security 'Captain" at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. A middle manager, for the rest of you. It sometimes interrupts me, but not often - in fact, it's the opposite. I salvage materials from the framing department, and I have quite a bit of space and down time. The place itself is quite inspirational as well - I work on the night shift, and a lot of that job involves walking around a darkened museum by myself. It becomes a different place at night, more of a whole hall of shadows than a collection of objects. It's quite beautiful and inspirational.

RH: Is there something in particular you have done to balance your art and the need for monetary sustenance?

EK: I try to make money making art - it would be nice to be able to make more, but I've always had trouble compromising for clients. It's very easy for me to create what's in my head; to create what's in someone else's head is not. There's something horribly tedious about using my technical abilities to fulfill someone else's vision, even when it's something I would normally be excited about. I know that that doesn't work well with freelancing. Because of this, I'm very particular about the commissions I take on. I understand my limitations and don't want to waste my time or anyone else's if I know I'm not a good fit for a project.
As far as the "day job" type stuff, I tend to gravitate toward my vices - music, art , film. Because of this, I have acquired an odd patchwork of skills that never quite add up to a "real' job. So I further master the gentle art of saying "No" and that pays the bills for now.

RH: When was the last time you bought a comic anthology (or any kind of anthology)? Was there anything in particular that attracted or repelled you to that specific one?

EK: A few months ago, I grabbed a benefit anthology for ... oh damn, I forget who it was. It wasn't very good as a whole, but I think there was one story I liked and some artists I usually dig. As I read it, I realized it was kind of an unimpressive collection - the curation was really inconsistent. I also bought a Krazy Kat book that day, so that eclipsed the other book, because damn I love George Herriman.
What attracts me in general to an anthology is usually the quality of the art. I do gravitate toward certain artists, editors, and publishers, but if something I haven't seen before catches my attention, that will sell me.

RH: What are some of the projects you are working on now?

EK: OOF. I had kind of a fallow creative period over the winter, so I'm now playing catch-up. I have a lot of video editing to do for some shows I have coming up. I've been experimenting with trying to make 3-D animation - old school red-green stereoscopic 3-D. I also have a stack of drawings I have to finish.

This is the greatest thing to happen to anything or anyone ever, forever, to the fifth...

2011-03-23T19:00:00.001-07:00

http://marchmodokmadness.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-03-08T01%3A07%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=20

Attention MN Artists!!

2011-03-20T18:19:00.000-07:00

Should you be an artist of any ilk living here in Minnesota, please give this a read and fill it out as it pertains to GRANT MONEY going to MN-Artists. Thanks!!

Dear friends,
Whether a personal or professional interest, arts are important to you – and to the quality of life in Minnesota. The Minnesota Legacy Amendment passed in 2008 helps support creative expression through grants dispersed by the Minnesota State Arts Board.
As part of dedicating funding to the arts from the Amendment, the state legislature has called for the Minnesota State Arts Board and the state’s regional arts councils to conduct a census of artists and artistic organizations to measure the far-reaching influence of the arts in the state.
The Minnesota State Arts Board invites anyone who, professionally or personally, engages in any and every form of creative expression to participate in the MN Arts Count census. Do you sing? Act? Dance? Write? Draw? Paint? Sculpt? Photograph? Weave? Play an instrument? Compose?
No matter how well or how publicly you share your talents, be proud and be counted.
Go to www.MNArtsCount.com to complete the census. If you prefer, paper surveys are available by calling 800-748-3222 ext. 225.
Please help us spread the word. Tell your friends to be counted, too. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Thank you!
MN Arts Count 2011
From ballet to bottle caps, your art counts.

Brian Strub, communications & government relations director
Minnesota State Arts Board
brian.strub@arts.state.mn.us
(651) 215-1604 and (800) 866-2787
Get involved, #arts4allMN: www.arts.state.mn.us
Minnesota’s investment in Minnesota arts: www.legacy.leg.mn/

Call for submissions!!

2011-03-18T10:07:00.000-07:00

This is mostly copy-pasted from my blog so sorry if you've already read it!

I'm doing a new comic/zine thing about periods and puberty for girls. I've found out (from many heart-to-heart conversations and my own experiences) that most girls are not prepared at all for the start of their periods and body hair and bra shopping and suddenly having to use deodorant and all that jazz that comes along with puberty. I'm going to be writing and drawing about these topics with humor and blunt honesty (for example, yes you will ruin some underwear when you start getting your period, but it wont end there. You will be ruining underwear until menopause. It's a fact and anyone who says otherwise is lying).

I'm asking for submissions or stories about your own experiences during puberty ladies. I'm going to be adding 'real life stories' throughout the book so be graphic and honest please. The point is to show other girls-hopefully young girls going through this or about to-understand that it is awkward and embarrassing but it's awkward and embarrassing for everyone. Feel free to submit more than one story (most girls have a pretty good period story, but I'd also like stories about telling your folks about your period, side affects of your period, boobs and bra shopping, shaving, and B.O. ect ect). If you are more comfortable with the story being anonymous that's totally fine, just let me know. Otherwise if you wanna include a drawing or a short comic with your submission (or just a written one, this isn't just for artists) that's awesoommmeee! Feel free to share this information with any other women you know of who may be willing to share some personal details about their past!

Email submissions to me at anna.claire.bongiovanni@gmail.com
THANKS!

P.S. Am I not covering something that you think I should be talking about in this zine? Let me know that as well! Also the deadline is April 4th, I know not a lot of time to work on something, but I'd like to get it done before Stumptown Comic Con!

ABC: already behind--crap!!

2011-03-07T16:04:00.000-08:00

In response to Dan's post, I also feel like I am constantly behind schedule on everything. There is a reason I feel this way too and it is pretty straight-forward: I am constantly behind schedule. It sucks like a black hole, taking you in and shitting you out on the other side-- closer, ever closer to death! Haha-- grandiose wording aside, far too often this oppressive feeling overwhelms me enough where I will spend the better part of a year working on a 9 page comic short or something (see RDCD FIST).

Last year I developed this rough plan that I can work on 3 projects at a time. I have A-Projects, which would be my most urgent project at the time. Then there are B-Projects, things that I work on after, well, work. And finally, C-Projects, those that I work on at work (on break) and on the bus. I imagine it is not surprising that this plan mostly failed. I get distracted and depressed far more often than I care for. One thing that gets me out of this funk is by doing bus/cafe/life drawings in public spaces like the drawing at top-- done on a bus.

Anyways, I did run into something that currently does work for me (somewhat): project rotation. What I have been trying to do late last year and early this year is to make small amounts of progress on a project, then move forward onto another project. Unfortunately, I have yet to make a full rotation. To expedite this process I am going to implement the whole ABC thing once more AND Alec Longstreth's "THE SCHEDULE" (I stumbled upon this on Jordan Shively's FB page--thanks!). I highly HIGHLY recommend folks check out that posting on MAKE COMICS FOREVER!!.

It basically works like this (I am paraphrasing Mr. Longstreth here and you'd be ~~better~~ best served if you just read his post like I already said-- do it!):

THE SCHEDULE

8am-12pm DRAW
12pm-1pm Break
1pm-3pm Draw
3pm-5pm Break
5pm-7pm Draw
7pm-10pm Break
10pm-12am Draw

The important thing to remember for working like this is that YOU DO NOT WORK ON YOUR BREAKS!!! As I probably will not be following this to an exact T, and maybe not everybody will (or can, let alone should), the thing to keep in mind for how/why this works so well is that breaks, as the day goes on, get longer. Which is good, right? Yes. Oh, Alec also posts multiple alternative schedules if something comes up in your week to keep you on track.

As I am rather obsessive with making lists concerning whatever projects and responsibilities are currently in vogue in my skull, my desk, subsequently, is an utterly disorganized mess covered in these fuckers. I lose probably 90% of them (later my wife finds them, to her sincere delight I am sure). One way I have discovered to avoid this is to have a few master lists that are rather difficult to loose. The first one I'll discuss here draws its near loss-less powers from being attached to the wall-- it's a white board! I have one up in one of our studio rooms currently by the computers. It works rather wonderfully and has saved me in near spiritual ways (structure is my savior!). I have also found google doc's rather helpful (Justin and I have a master list related to 2DC doings there).

The other master list I use is a fairly recent discovery (for myself anyways) and it is called EpicWin. It's an app for the iPod Touch/iPhone and it works wonderfully well, acting as a list based RPG game type thing. But instead of taking you away from life and projects, it pushes you to completing tasks.

I have been using it for about 2 weeks and it's rather exciting taking things off the list and getting abstract points for my accomplishments.

I could easily give you an earful concerning why I am vegan (any reason you might suspect) but the one reason that overpowers the others is structure--making clear black and white choices about how you live life, things you will and will not do has an enormous impact on directing your life which, when handled well, can push you towards your goals. It is hard to randomly, from thin air, pluck such an idea. It helps when there is a precedent, whether that be Alec Longstreth's "The Schedule", veganism, whatever. When there are just rules like: complete a drawing before breakfast, go to figure drawing, or don't bring a book or reading device into the bathroom--I tend to travel too far in time on a one way ticket (in fact, there was an instance where I finished reading a book that was 8 hours away from the back cover--finished). With those types of rules, there is a bit of a gray area.

Having rules with no precedent is difficult. Wavering, being indecisive is easy. For some folks, perhaps they don't need someone else to have set-up a system. Oftentimes, I do. Which is why it was so very nice to stumble upon "The Schedule". Another thing that I have found that works pretty well is a kitchen timer (a non-electronic one that "dings"). I use it to create 1 hour blocks of time to complete a portion of something (drawing a page or a panel-- writing a blog, etc). That is really something I should start doing again as it worked pretty well for completing a story I did with Justin in GMN3 (I was living in a tent in our old studio at the time to meet our deadline-- very stressful!).

I'll be trying this out ALL this year and will be happy to let anyone know how it is all working out on my personal blog.

STAY ON TARGET

2011-03-02T13:13:00.000-08:00

Blerg. Keeping on personal projects after an 8 hour day spent doing something less meaningful is hard as hard can be. I made this deal with myself last week that I'd go to figure drawing every week for a couple months. I made it one whole week, and then this week it just didn't happen.

How do we as artists who also have to earn a living create things that we care about? I have no idea. Perhaps being perpetually mindful of the unavoidable fact of death can help. Nope. That's just kind of depressing.

Next week, though. Next week I'm going to figure drawing. Maybe I can still salvage this thing. Perhaps I can go every other week? That seems a lot more doable since there's a new baby in the house and all. There. Now I'm not a bad person anymore.

I might still be a bad person, for reasons not brought to the overcooked, skin-like surface of this word stew.

Also, hey artists on this blog!

I've been charged with the task of putting together a site for the struktur (sp!?) web site/web presence. Anyone have any ideas/examples of a format I should use? I was thinking of doing a blog, but it feels like the project might demand a bit better, ahem, structure than just a blog.

PS Yes, that is a giant woman sitting on a flying saucer.

The Second Coming of Noah Van Sciver, an Interview: Part 3 of 3

2011-02-26T07:35:00.000-08:00

Parts 1 Parts 2

Comic by Noah Van Sciver (duh!)

“Australia has no comic book industry. One way of explaining my situation is to state that you wouldn’t believe how good my assistants are. Most artists assistants are there just to sharpen your pencils. Yet because there is no work here, I get people drawing my backgrounds who are extremely clever and competent people. People keep trying to do magazines, and for some reason they just don’t work. Australia is very good for political cartoons, however. And there is a great tradition of cartooning, leaning heavily towards political cartooning. It’s gotten to such a way that if you say your a cartoonist here, people will automatically say, “Oh! Can you do me a sketch of the prime minister?” Most people simple don’t understand the concept of comics as comic books here. The newspapers are filled with the American comic strips. In fact, they think most of the strips are Australian; the average citizen really thinks Peanuts is Australian. I’m sure he does. And the American comic strips are better, so they remain in power.
But there is no industry here; there’s nowhere for anyone local to go. Last year I made my income in five different currencies, including Swedish and Spanish. But I only made $200.00 from working in this country--and that was by doing a lecture for a nearby university.”

The above is a quote by Eddie Campbell taken from Comic Book Rebels, published in 1993. I have chosen to include this as Master Noah Van Sciver is most likely over there by now, for his BLAMMO tour. I imagine the comic book industry is a little different over there today than it was in 1993. Perhaps I am mistaken-- never been there myself. Anyways, lettuce make like rabbits and conclude Part 3 of the NVS-interview saga!:

Raighne Hogan: Say, how did your Australian Blammo Comic tour come about? It's sounds absolutely amazing!

Noah Van Sciver: The power of my brother Ethan. He didn't want to go alone and arranged for myself to be included in the conventions out there. It'll be fun seeing him again after a year of not. He cracks me up.

RH: Do you read any web comix? What would make you interested in them enough to read, if your not already?

NVS: I don't really care for them. Being on the internet for too long sucks! Facebook takes enough of my internet time.
I don't want anymore things keeping me here, you know? I'd rather be out on a walk or something.

RH: Yeah I agree about web comix. I hardly ever end up reading them, usually end waiting (or hoping) for a printed version if it's something I enjoy enough to want to own.

NVS: Exactly. When I think of web comics I think of Penny Arcade. I don't like that kind of dorky stuff. I like a different kind of dork than the Penny Arcade dork.

RH: I haven’t read any Penny Arcade comics as it doesn’t look to be my bag, but I dig what they’ve accomplished for themselves. Now speaking of which, I've read that you are not a fond fan of LOUD-gunfire videogames. How about quiet 2-D side scrollers like Super Mario Brothers or something?

NVS: Nah. I never really got into playing video games. Competition stresses me out.

RH: I've never been interested in games for competitive reasons. What I've found interesting about them is the idea of an interactive narrative. Point and click adventure games, 2-D side scrolling games, and indie games are far more likely to focus on narrative and puzzles-- which are things I enjoy. Next time you visit I'll have to show you some examples of what I mean.

NVS: It's a deal.

RH: Cool.

Have you any interest in "motion" comix? I personally don't like the term, but the idea of an interactive comic/game thing appeals to me. What are your thoughts on it and do you think digital comix (or whatever) can co-exist with print? Should the form be a part of the initial design?

NVS: I don't really know anything about motion comix. That doesn't really seem like comics to me. Comics are based on the illusion of movement, not actual movement. Maybe motion comix could become it's own thing, seperate from comics.

RH: Concerning these interactive comix/game/animation, whatever-- they are not and would not be comix, we are certainly in agreement there. They would have to be something else. As I said, I am intrigued by the idea. One artist who is currently working on something in that ether based format is Phoebe Gloeckner.

NVS: Oh shit! I love her comics!

RH: Me too! In a short she supplied for Mia Kirshner's "I Live Here", she physically crafted 3-D models of horrible scenes in Juarez, Mexico. They are beautiful and intense. In a semi-recent interview she spoke about continuing these stories in a larger/longer/interactive space. I love her work and am curious as heck as to how she approaches such an endeavor. Do you ever foresee yourself doing anything in such a medium? Or consuming such works?

NVS: Hhhmm... I don't know. Perhaps if I become influenced by what she has done, I guess. Anything is possible, right? I'm open to trying out any kind of art form. And who knows what kind of shit will be available in the future!

RH: Here are a couple quickies: why four fingers?

NVS: I've always given my characters four fingers. It's just my tribute to the cartooning tradition.

RH: What is your typical day like-- sunrise to sunset?

NVS: Pain. Sadness. Podcasts. Coffee. Computer screen. Coffee. Sweet girlfriend. Movie. Sleep.

RH: How do you make rent?

NVS: Barely!

RH: Ha! What tools do you use in your cartooning?

NVS: I use micron pens, and just plain old #2 pencils on Bristol board.
I know some people who draw directly on a computer tablet thing. I don't want to do that. I like creating something real. A physical object. Then, I like selling that object.... I have a drafting desk, but I can't get myself to sit down at it though. I always wind up drawing on the floor, in bed or on the couch. I'm a lounger!

RH: How's your new place?

NVS: It's a little home! I love it. I was suffering with roommates for awhile and escaping to my girlfriend's place most nights, so it made sense to just move in with her. It was good idea. My place still isn't as cool as yours though, with your tilted floor! Ha ha!

RH: Yeah, gotta love the titled floor. Although, it’s a hazard in the dark.
For Noah Completists out there, what are they missing? What's the total list? Mineshaft, Hive, Candy or Medicine, Mome, Blammo, Noah Novella, Bound & Gagged-- am I missing anything?

NVS: Yeah, you're missing a ton of mini comics. Too many to list really. Also, a lot of Anthology stuff...

RH: Drats! Your really not gonna tell me about all of 'em? Ahh well. I'll live. I love the interviews you used to compose for The Comics Journal. Are you doing any more cartoonist interviews?

NVS: I don't have the time right now. But I'd love to eventually, if they'll print them.

RH: Have you found it necessary or helpful as a cartoonist working today to try to get in to as many anthologies as possible or to get into niche micro-publishers catalogue?

NVS: I took tips from Jeffrey Brown. He is everywhere and I like that about him. I want to be like that.

RH: Would you recommend this for other cartoonists trying to get their name out there?

NVS: Yeah. I do. You have to be drawing all of the time! Always carry a notebook too. Draw whenever you get a second to.

RH: Hmmm, well I may have only one more question for yah, what are some of your current/upcoming projects, comix or otherwise you'd care to talk about? Am I missing anything else?

NVS: I'm in the very, very beginning stages of doing a split comic with John Porcellino. We don't have a name for it yet. My big things right now are just Blammo #7 and THE DEATH OF ELIJAH LOVEJOY!

Parts 1 Parts 2

The Second Coming of Noah Van Sciver, an Interview: Part 2 of 3

2011-02-22T20:06:00.000-08:00

Parts 1 Parts 3

Our conversation with the handsome young cartooning master Mr. Noah Van Sciver continues in this here Part 2:

Raighne Hogan: It is an interesting transition that the single issue torch has been passed from publisher's like Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly, Top Shelf to artists that self publish or smaller and smaller publishers like Sparkplug, I Will Destroy You, Koyama Press, Uncivilized Books, La Mano, and many many more. With the advent of all these smaller publishers and self-publishers, how do you think this affects the comics buying public and the market? Word of mouth travels slower than the growth of these up and coming small press comix publishers and sales seem to be ever more incestuous at shows and shops. I'm ranting a little. I apologize. Do you think about this stuff much?

Noah Van Sciver: I only think about this stuff when I talk to people like yourself! I think that there are still weirdo people who like single issue comics and will seek them out as long as they exist. People like myself. Maybe I'm naive, or just stupid. I have my readership still, though. I know that what I work on at home will be read by some one, somewhere. I'm not really sure how this affects the market. I just hope that the stapled comic book will always exist in the same way that records exist.

RH: What are you reading these days?

NVS: I'm reading what people send me mostly. I just read all of the Good Minnesotans that you sent to me, I read these mini comics from england called Smoo that were sent to me, and I re-read ICE HAVEN in it's softcover form. Have you ever read that?

RH: I can't remember if I've read ICE HAVEN in soft cover or not. You are talking about the version in EIGHTBALL right? I do really enjoy that story. My favorite story by Clowes is LIKE A VELVET GLOVE CAST IN IRON.

NVS: Yeah that's a classic.

RH: Man, every time I end up picking that book up I loose time as I end up sitting down and re-reading it. There are certain comix/books/films/whatever that affect me in a similar manner. How about you, is there certain works that mesmerize you?

NVS: Hhhmm.. Ivan Brunetti's Schizo series from Fantagraphics definitely mesmerizes me.
I think of comics that I read in the collection 20th Century Eightball often. I'll be crossing a street and for no reason at all Shamrock Squid will enter my mind. All of that stuff has just burned itself into my brain. When I first found that collection I took it to a coffee shop and read it and I just wanted to BE Dan Clowes after that. I still do.

RH: I've read that you grew up in a Mormon household...

NVS: Yup. I've been trying to figure out what the best way of translating my upbringing into comic form.

RH: That would be really interesting to read. I wasn't raised religiously until my sister's father entered my life. There were some weird idea's floating in my head prior to this, but they seemed to multiply after his entrance into my life and continued well past his exit. A lot of them are perhaps familiar one's like thinking every time I'd get a crazy intense migraine or motion sickness (which I used to get quite often) or horrible horrible stomach pains that they were the result of god punishing me for masturbating too much. Maybe not so familiar... How do you think being raised religiously affects your outlook on life and art? Do you have any embarrassingly personal anecdote's that you'd like to share? I have a ton and I have a tendency to share them far too often for my wife's comfort. ha ha.

NVS: I was definitely afraid of going to Hell growing up. I remember the very first time I said a curse word out loud, I got really dizzy. I was really scared that I had just purchased my lot in Hell for that.
I don't believe in the Mormon church, or even god anymore. I don't mind at all if others do, as long as they leave me alone. But, I still notice certain things in myself left over from that upbringing, as far as not feeling comfortable drawing sex scenes in my stories and stuff like that. I get freaked out by it. That's why Blammo will never truly be like other Underground comics.

RH: Did you get a chance to listen to that 2-hour Inkstuds special with Al Columbia? That guy's comix and art are intense! It's super interesting to hear how he was raised and see how he analyzes his past in context to his present.

NVS: I haven't had a chance yet, but I did hear his old one, and thought that he sounded like a really cool dude.

RH: Say, when is your Australian tour kicking off and how long will you be gone?

NVS: I'm leaving on the 24th and coming back March 7th. I have a gigantic fear of flying so this ought to be fun for me.

RH: Wow, that's soon. Well, we'll conclude this on the 24th then!

Parts 1 Parts 3

The Second Coming of Noah Van Sciver, an Interview: Part 1 of 3

2011-02-16T23:22:00.000-08:00

Yes, Come to ~~Butthead~~ Noah Van Sciver! The NVS interview Part 1 of 3:

Peripherally, I’ve been aware of Noah and his Blammo series since ’09 when I started seeing his comic reviewed on small press sites like Optical Sloth and Midnight Fiction.

Then at SPX, Nic Breutzman, another fantastic cartoonist, tabled near Noah and gave him a copy of Yearbooks (a comic I coloured and published). Apparently he enjoyed it enough to mention in Blammo #4, which I purchased at Stumptown last year.

Through sheer coincidence I met Noah Van Sciver last year at MIX when he and an awesome gaggle of amazing cartoonists crashed at my place. We’ve been emailing and occasionally talking over the phone the last few months, but it’s been only recently that I’ve started to compose this interview.

I feel that I should mention, maybe as a disclaimer (!?--hah), that we are publishing a book with Noah late next month or early April. It’s called The Death of Elijah Lovejoy. I’d be happy to blab about it more over at the 2D Cloud shop...

Enough of that, to the interview:

Raighne Hogan: One thing that struck me immediately when I finally stumbled upon BLAMMO were the similarities to the single issue comix (floppies) D & Q and Fantagraphics used to publish back in the day; Hate, Eightball, Dirty Plotte, Yummy Fur, etc. These comix were following a tradition paved by the likes of Justin Green, Art Spiegelman, R. Crumb. BLAMMO is the latest comic to follow in these footsteps. Were you actively looking at these creators and some of those books for direction/inspiration? What are some other works, creators that fed your creative itch?

Noah Van Sciver: Every one of those artists influenced me, as well as one you've forgotten Optic Nerve. And also Palookaville. When I started trying to draw my own comics, those were the things that I was reading. I didn't realize until much later that all of those creators had decided to quit drawing their comic books.
I used to send issues of Blammo to all of the publishers to see if they'd publish me. Oh lord the rejections I've gotten.... Yummy Fur really had a lot to do with Blammo. Chester did whatever the hell he wanted to, and his style didn't intimidate me like maybe Clowes' did. I really love Chester's line work as well. Beautiful!

RH: In my mind Blammo is a direct descendent of Yummy Fur, from tales of the embarrassingly personal, weird religious complexes, historical accounts, formal experiments in structure, etc. It’s all there. You have even managed to include letters! I am sorry to gush about these things, but I recently discovered how very much I LOVE the single issue format of these-- I don’t know, 2nd generation underground comic books?-- a friend of mine sold me a ton of these for dirt cheap a number of years ago and I only last year and in ’09 began to read them. Eightball, Zap, Peepshow, Hate, Dirty Plotte, Yummy Fur, et al-- they are wonderful. I guess what I am trying to get at (besides these comics blowing my fucking mind)-- I am nostalgic for the format and saddened to see many of them go. I understand it is an economic reality for many of these comics publishers. This makes it all the more ballsy for you and Kilgore to publish BLAMMO in such a format. My (finally right?) question is, what is your take on this? --The dearth of quality underground floppies in the standard american format?

NVS: Well, there are still great comic books being made. Joseph Remnant's Blindspot, or Deforge's Lose, or Harkham's Crickets... Also 1-800- MICE by Matthew Thurber. Alternative comics are out there. You have to dig a bit more to find them. And of course, single issues of King Cat comics will always be around. What generation of underground comics am I? 3rd Generation? Maybe 4th? That's an interesting tittle.

RH: Ahh, that's embarrassing.
I guess your’e right, now that I think more about it. I hadn't realized that there were so many underground comix still put out in that format. I've seen some of these, and have recently ordered Crickets #3. Thanks for the correction, I think I need to go to Big Brain soon to look these up.

NVS: I like that shop.

RH: With the economic down turn, the disappearing of the direct market (comic shops), floppies, especially those of the underground persuasion, are a very rare sight. What inspired you to something crazy like self-publish in the form of floppies and how did you hook up with Kilgore (a rare and used books store and now occasional comix publisher!?)?

NVS: With Blammo I just wanted to have my own comic book series that would sell alongside all of the greats someday. It's pretty horrible that those comics are gone. I think I was born just a bit too late.
I'm not done working in the medium of the "comic pamphlet." There is SO MUCH more that I want to do, but I'm constantly made to hear a clock ticking in my ear about it.This is real agony for me. I stress about it all of the time. I think that there is still a good use for it, and I'm proud to have the chance to work in that medium, considering what a huge impact comic books have had in my life and in our culture. Who knows, maybe Blammo will end up being the very last Alternative comic book series....

Kilgore Books & Comics is a bookstore that specializes in some of the best rare books, and comics. It's run by two guys, Luke Janes and Dan Stafford. They have nearly every underground comic book from the 1960s in PERFECT condition. It blows my mind to see Air Pirates in perfect condition! One day a few years ago I wandered in there with Blammo #1 asking if they would sell it there. They said they'd "take one copy." That one copy sold and so they got more, and before we knew it Blammo was selling very, very well in there, issue after issue. When I had finished drawing Blammo #6 They offered to publish it, and I agreed. It has been a very good working relationship.
And Blammo #7 will have the Kilgore trout logo on it as well.

RH: The cover to the fourth issue, the way the cover was painted put me in mind of Van Gogh (the blotchy swirls coming out of the dudes mouth). Maybe that’s a strange observation, but I work at an art museum and get to look at paintings pretty regularly, so that was the thought that sprung to mind when I saw the cover of the fourth issue of BLAMMO. Do you have direct influences when it comes to your paintings?

NVS: That Van Gogh swirl was an inside joke. Myself being another artist with a dutch name, another "Van," and also another "tragic artist." The grey head in the corner of that cover is, or was supposed to be the Denver Spider man. From a story within that issue. I'm not a very consistent artist unfortunately. And I'm a terrible painter. That's no joke.

RH: I actually REALLY like what I've seen of your paintings (either cover's to BLAMMO or some of your blog posts). It'd be very interesting to see more of your painting/colouring in comix form.

NVS: You are nice, but honestly I barely have the patience for painting anymore.

RH: I unfortunately missed out on Blammo #5...

NVS: You should find a copy of that. It's my full color issue. I always recommend that one and issue #4 to people. Well, I guess #4 to #7 are what I consider my best issues. Anything before that is hard for me to look at, now. The first three are just "I hate myself" comics.

RH: When is that spine'd collection supposed to be coming out? Do you have an interest in doing more with painting/colour in future books?

NVS: I'm putting out a "best of" Blammo book maybe next spring. I think I'll do some new stories for that book as well. I love doing color comics, but I'm rarely given an opportunity to do them.

Tune in to Itchy Keen next week for parts 2 and 3!

Sometimes Things are not Disappointing

2011-02-16T13:57:00.000-08:00

I first heard Julian McCullough's stand up on This American Life's Comedians of Christmas Comedy. Julian's Christmas story was so funny I found an interview with him on In the Tank. He mentioned that he and Sean O'Connor had taped their own American Apparel commercial in their underwear. So in the name of all things that should be stupid but turn out fantastic, let's begin this post here:

Julian McCullough and Sean O'Connor

Sometimes I order books online that I've never seen. It's a gamble. So yesterday when I received Daina Taimina's Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes I opened it half-heartedly, picturing a small pamphlet of crochet instructions. Instead I paged through a text book full of geometrical models, M.C. Escher, and wall mosaics. The book was so good I started sweating.

Then this morning, the google search engine did that aggravating thing where it flashed a list of choices at me while I'm typing in what I want it to find. I clicked "google bookmarks" and it sent me to "google body". I was terrified, not knowing what sort of freaky spam I had stumbled into.

Maybe google cookies is keeping good info on me, because what I found twisted my heart up in knots. Google Body is a 3D model of the human body. You can rotate it in any direction and GET THIS it is divided into layers of anatomical sections. As an artist I'm most interested in the muscle and skeletal layers, but there's the nervous system and the organs too, which are also neat.

Well I will close with an appropriately sorrowful Valentine's day story: My husband Raighne and I received matching pottery cups from a friend at our wedding reception. We love those cups and use them all the time. On Valentine's Day, I shattered his marriage cup, but I made up for it by leaving a ♥ shaped tear-stain on his shirt.

Keep up with my thoughts on my startledmaggie blog.

Comic Champions

2011-02-09T21:35:00.000-08:00

Some time ago Dan, Raighne, and Justin posted videos that inspired them. Here's a few videos that have inspired me.

1. Kermit's X-Ray Machine with Herry Monster

I first saw this episode of Sesame Street when I was five. My Mom says it inspired me to draw bones on my arms with magic marker. I ran up to her afterward and triumphantly yelled, "Bones!"

2. Ernie Kovac's character Percy Dovetonsils:

My dad would always get Ernie Kovacs movies from the library when I was a teenager. I'm absolutely in love with this show and this is my favorite character. Sometimes I smile and shake my head like Percy.

3. Mr. Bean

My dad and I also watched a ton of Mr. Bean together. It's so embarrassing because when I watch it now I realize that half of my mannerisms are swiped from Mr. Bean.

4. Sesame Street's "Monsterpiece Theater" Parodies

It's funny, my most memorable moments from childhood tv are grover running a marathon on the beach and grover running up the stairs forever till he reaches a brick wall. I think of these scenes fondly in spare moments. My over-the-top yelling Maggie humor and my love of making furry toys comes from Jim Henson.

5. Harpo Marx

When I saw Harpo Marx in Horsefeathers...I wished I was him. I always loved comedians that didn't use words (like Mr. Bean and Charlie Chaplin). Probably because I preferred not using any myself.

ps. Sigh...I wanted to post the video of Gilda Radner and Bill Murray as Todd and Lisa in Nerds & Milt (SNL) but it wasn't on youtube. Gilda and I both love red candy. My mom always called me Rosanne Rosanna Danna when I was a kid because my hair was so poofy.

Why are all my inspiring videos about comedy? For the same reason I married my funny husband. I appreciate and cherish weird humor above all else. It's how I was raised.

Beautiful Interaction

2011-02-08T09:58:00.000-08:00

Let this video load and move it to the 3:00 minute mark to see it in all of it's beautiful interactive glory. Then check out the text beneath it.

This game beautifully shows how so much can be accomplished with the most minimal of means. An argument could be made that because the fundamental elements are at work, it is inherently beautiful like a Kandinksy painting.

Glad to be part of the Itchy Keen. Your truly, Sean.

The Filthy Spectre: Paranarrative and the Cultural Position of Lo-fi Art Comics

2011-02-06T16:20:00.000-08:00

In our efforts to keep this blog alive, Raighne and I have agreed that we should expect contributors to post at least four times per year. Realizing that I've only posted one substantial entry thus far, I told myself I better think of something to write about before the year was out (failed). I started with the simple and clichéd idea of putting together a best of 2010 list, but after looking over what I read last year, I realized that a lot of it was 1-3 years old already (I always feel like I'm playing catch-up). I do have plenty of 2010 comics on my 'to read' pile, but most hadn't been opened yet. I then thought maybe I can cull from what I read last year what has had the strongest influence on how I approach my own comics, which was plenty, but for the sake of clarity I wanted to narrow it down to one primary theme or tendency.

Part of what helped me focus my thoughts was how Good Minnesotan 4 has been received and I how I've interpreted Raighne's design and editorial choices. In our lengthiest and most thoughtful review of said volume, Rob Clough claims, "Hogan at times goes overboard by inserting too many incidental drawings and sketchbook scribblings of some of his contributors". Other reviewers had similar misgivings regarding the level of craft involved in some of the comics Raighne chose to include. Looking over GMN4 again, I can see what they're getting at, but at the same time, I'd have to disagree. While we've mentioned here and there during our time putting out the Good Minnesotan series that we're drawn to rough, loose styles just as much as some of the more polished, technically accomplished cartooning out there, I think that point may have been missed by many. Yes, there are quite a few roughly sketched incidentals and even comics, but the space accorded those comics/creations alongside work by more established cartoonists was to me our way of saying that although something like this (nothing personal here, choices made are for the sake of argument):

Luke Holden

holds up just as well as something like this:

Kevin Cannon

Obviously, the aims of each artist are quite different and maybe it isn’t fair to even juxtapose them here, as they were kept in separate minis for the volume, but the fact that they still both reside in the same slipcase meant that we held both contributors in a high enough regard to expend the same amount of energy and time in showcasing their comics to the outside world.

That’s all well and good, but where am I going with this? What I’m trying to say here is that while Cannon’s work demonstrates his drawing chops and ability to craft an interesting little narrative or sequence, it feels like a much more mediated (read distanced) experience. Now that is just my reaction to his work, so maybe that’s an unfair criticism, but what I get from Holden’s comic feels more direct, which subsequently makes it appear to be a more sincere or authentic statement. Again, different intentions between the two, different ways of reading each, but what makes me, or others, have that kind of reaction to rougher styles that foreground their imperfections? Is Holden really being more truthful or genuine than Cannon? What is it about seeing partially erased images, traces of a ruled out page, smudge marks not removed in Photoshop, or any vestiges of the artist’s hand that connotes authenticity? This is something I noticed repeatedly in my own reactions to many of the comics I read this year. What struck me as interesting was that it wasn’t limited to a particular time (from Jerry Moriarty’s Jack Survives strips in the early 80s

Note: these are from the reprinted edition put out by Buenaventura. The original printing did not include the traces of unused word balloons, etc., yet the choice to include them in the reprinting is worth noting.

to Blaise Larmee’s Young Lions, put out in 2010),

region (Mark Smeets in Holland,

the east coast output by CF,

west coast work by Jason T. Miles, etc.)

or genre (autobio from Moriarty,

Fantasy from CF,

abstract stream of consciousness from Miles

and Al Columbia,

and so on).

Keep in mind this is a very limited sampling, as I’m basing it mostly on what I’ve read this past year and a little bit of 09’, so do not consider it exhaustive by any means, but I did find it notable that so many of the comics that are critically well-received share elements of this lo-fi tone to them. Of course, this is only one tendency amongst many, but what makes this less mediated mode of address feel more authentic to so many? What follows is my attempt at trying to interrogate my own reactions to this aesthetic upswelling and how it possibly fits in to the larger discourse about contemporary comics and culture in general.

One train of thought that came to mind when thinking about this trend or tendency was something Jason Overby discussed in a post on his blog in the summer of 2010:

We started talking about how Crumb (and most cartoonists) has internalized the vernacular of comics history and makes things according that particular set of rules. As great as Crumb is, he's also a good counterexample w/r/t his aesthetic conservatism. I brought up that there is no reason in the era of Photoshop and cheap printing for drawers to go through the steps printing deemed necessary 40 years ago. Surely, many folks have recognized this, but the ramifications of desktop publishing for comics are immense. As long as your images and words function in combination to create something that works and is cool, then you've made good comics. Scanning drawings made on paper and then tweaking them for printing could be eliminated in favor of directly making images using a computer. There aren't a lot of good examples of it so early in the game, but this newish technology will probably bear more interesting fruit in the future.

Quite often Overby seems to theorize in whatever direction he’s leaning in terms of how he approaches his own comics, but that aside, he does have a point. Technology has eliminated the need for certain processes and conventions that have been instilled in many cartoonists, without much thought as to their necessity. Obviously, plenty of cartoonists have gone in directions far removed from the pencil-ink-scan-‘clean-up’/color-print method, but that process still has a strong enough pull that typically the division of labor in superhero and genre comics continues to fall along those old production lines. But besides the broadening of aesthetic possibilities, what’s the significance of being freed from these dated parameters? How does being able to scan in straight pencils or light watercolors or ink washes broaden the narrative or poetic potential of comics? Does it? Some reviewers like to think so, calling smudged and erased pencilwork a technique for conveying memory or liminality, whether that be perceptual or ontological. I can’t say I disagree with these hermeneutics, but what continues to stick in my craw is this assertion that these methods are somehow more truthful or carry with them an air of authenticity that work by someone who adheres to more conventional processes might not. How truthful a narrative is isn’t dependent upon its aesthetics, yet there is something being told in that approach that differs from what you would find in the type of honesty someone like Chris Ware might deploy.

While others have thought of these choices or techniques as a way of manifesting some of the more ethereal qualities of a narrative, I see them rather as a means of overlaying the artist’s own narrative of creation onto the more overt or primary narrative. By leaving the imperfections, discarded ideas laid bare on the page, the artist is creating a paranarrative. This paranarrative engages the reader on a different level, one separate from the primary narrative. Instead of regurgitating what has been said about this concept, I’m going to drop some choice quotes from the essay I encountered it in (credits to Benjamin Biebuyck):

In this sense, it seems implausible to expect that the paranarrative actually interferes in the primary narrative; it can be said to cast a new light on it and put things into a different perspective, but these are supplementing actions rather than real interventions.

…The paranarrative, however, being tied to the eventuality of figurative occurrence, has no continuous time-line, but takes on a lapidary form, becoming very prominent at some points of the primary narrative, only to retreat at others. Conjuring up dispersed portions of the narrative and shifting figurative networks, the paranarrative manifestly traverses the intentionality and temporal linearity of the primary order. This urges us to interpret it as a counter-telling, joyously released from the illusion of narrative sequentiality and – although requiring recipient activity – not depending on a specific and purposive hermeneutic intervention, as is required in case of allegory.

…Being a derivative narrative, the paranarrative is not necessarily the shadow of an epinarrative, since it has the potential to disrupt its most elementary narrative parameters. As such, it is determined to be an answer to the primary narrative, by means of which the literary text can fully unfold its reflexive potential.

…Most importantly, in all of the cases the paranarrative is there to enhance and intensify reader involvement, not allowing him or her to remain a witness of what is being represented, but urging them to become an active participant in the encompassing cultural dynamics of the narrative, which does not satisfy itself with mere representation, but always supplements this with a figurative counternarration.

In some cases (especially in some of the examples I noted above), applying this concept may be a bit of a stretch, but in others it feels like the most apt way to describe what I’ve felt as I’ve read some of these comics. The paranarrative doesn’t necessarily alter how I would read or interpret the primary narrative, but it adds a dimension to the comic itself that makes it symptomatic of one of the potential zeitgeist(s) of the 00’s.

In a post meant to instigate debate on the music/film review site, Tiny Mix Tapes, the question of whether lo-fi music could be considered to have any political or critical value was proposed:

Point: By emphasizing pastoral escapism conjoined with nostalgia, these artists dangerously put aside the material world of political reality and choose to embrace a form of dreamlike, childhood fantasy that results in apathy and inaction.

Counterpoint: American music’s so-called “retreat” into the past was not escapism at all, but rather a process of carving out an alternative psychic reality to the bourgeois economic and political value system. Lo-fi’s return to low-cost, outdated recording technologies, which Beaumont-Thomas decried as a “retro” fad, was in fact a move toward the democratization of the music-making process. And while it did not discuss politics directly, lo-fi and its nostalgia for the past constituted a critique of society’s failure to deliver the egalitarian future that technological progress once promised.

Can we find a parallel in the increasing popularity of lo-fi art comics? Is this a democratization, or what may have been thought of a little over 30 years ago as a punk approach to comics? Privileging passion and ideas over technical skill or refinement? If we refer back to Overby’s statement above, it would seem that way. The price of basic scanning equipment and desktop publishing software has dropped to the point that with a little shopping around online, you can acquire the means to put together comics for a few hundred dollars as opposed to the thousands you would have needed a couple decades ago to gain access to the same tools. In light of people like John Porcellino and the new-wave minicomics of the 1980’s, even the cost of entry at those price points seems rather prohibitive, as they were making comics without these tools for even less money. Nevertheless, one could say that this renewed interest in the rough-hewn quality that was commonplace in minicomics from the 1980’s has returned, but maybe as more of an aesthetic pose or layer, meant to connote authenticity. Numerous critics have leveled like-minded criticisms at the profusion of lo-fi bands over the past few years, describing the trend as just a fashionable scuffing up of one’s sound to mask the mediocre skill and ideas lurking behind the static and low-production values. Whether the same could be said for the primitivist and lo-fi comics currently enjoying favor by many critics will of course remain to be seen, as the trend wanes and those working in those idioms make their next moves.

If we are to give those practicing in this vein of comics the benefit of the doubt, that they are trying to communicate something besides potentially mediocre work disguised by fashionably low production values and claims of primitivism, what would that be? By leaving the spectre of process, of error, within the work, it could be said that these artists are trying to fight against the simulacraic reality of how their work is produced and consumed. This is but one paranarrative that could be applied to these works; another could more directly address the quotes listed above concerning lo-fi music’s political connotations (or lack thereof), that the appearance of rough artwork could be a way of distracting from the bourgeois privilege typically accorded to those who can create these comics. Regardless of what one may take away from this relatively new aesthetic branch of comics history, its mere existence demonstrates the broadening scope of the medium, with all the attendant messiness and contradictions that such growth engenders.

Craig Mullins

2011-02-01T08:36:00.000-08:00

One of my art heroes is Craig Mullins (www.goodbrush.com). I love looking at his paintings and trying to figure out how much is 3D, how much isn't actually there, and how much he actually had to render.

Here are some simplified diagrams I found from him on conceptart.org. I found them very helpful when I first got into speed painting.

Vidumprocrastination

2011-01-26T16:57:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of the past two posts (and a way to divert any possible attention away from the fact that I've only posted once on this blog-I'm working on something!): here's my past six month's worth of vids I've shared with other people, and now with you! Enjoy?

Moar Video Dumpage

2011-01-21T20:20:00.000-08:00

In response to Dan, posting videos that prove inspirational to us singularly, I also wish to share/grow. Here are a few that creep to the top of my skull for whatever reason:

First up is Jojo in the Stars by Studio AKA. They make some excellent animated shorts, both as commercials and beautiful little art films. Actually, I changed my mind, first watch one of the shorts by the same director that inspired Jojo, Pica Towers: Pizza Sangre directed by Marc Craste.

I bought Jojo in the Stars on DVD a number of years ago, around the time Nintendo was launching their Wii. My brain combined the two, yearning for something with a similar style brought into the interactive 2-D space. This vid below is a trailer for an indie game called Feint developed by Florian Faller and Adrian Stutz. I love LOVE the trip hop vibes.

Another indie game creator, whose work I am rather nuts about is Cactus. His game Norrland has a fantastic trailer (actually-- all of his games do).

We will be doing an interview with him on Itchy Keen in a future posting. In the mean time, y'all best check out his blog-- his games are free and it appears many of them are being ported to the Mac platform (woop woop!).

A friend of mine runs the Your Daily Cartoon blog. A place for fun, (duh) daily cartoons. Here's one I've recently discovered on there (below):

Another site to check out, is the the Animation Show's blogsite. Below is something a little goofy...

Speaking of the Animation show, I'd also urge anybody that somehow managed to not see said show, to check that out. Don Hertzfeldt is a personal favorite and this video is a perfect way to end this post.

Creepy Art Video Dump

2011-01-16T09:38:00.000-08:00

I tend to collect jewels of creepy video. My favorite videographer is Chris Cunningham, best known for his video work using Aphex Twin's music. The following clip is from a piece he created called Rubber Johnny. If you enjoy it, I highly recommend getting a DVD featuring his work on the Director's label.

The following is a video a friend linked me to. I'm not certain of its origin, but the names of the performing artist and videographer are listed in the end credits.

The next video is by an artist called Cyriak, who is sort of an internet-lore-legend. The artist's work usually appears to have been produced in After Effects, and really exemplifies what can be accomplished with just 2D, and often just with a few photos that have been lying around. At least that's the effect:

A clip from an artist called Maximalist, and the title of the track used is Baths. I'm not sure who the visual artists are that worked on it. You should Google it!

A music video for Gatekeeper's song, titled Optimus Maximus. I probably wouldn't have posted this, had I not just read the post from a while back re: Heavy Metal.

And the last one is a video I enjoy because it has the cut and paste quality of all anti-pop-pop culture of the 90's, the time during which I came of age. The Third Eye Foundation's video for a track titled The Out Sound From Way In.

Artists! What's your favorite snippit of interesting video art? Post links! Let's all share our influences and grow.

It's Who You Don't Know!

2011-01-05T07:47:00.000-08:00

You may have run across this link in your exploration of facebook:

Think of all the people that you've been acquainted with at one time or another that are now on facebook. Click See All.

Oh the anticipation. Soon a parade of your former childhood friends, classmates and bullies, ex-boy-friends, ex-roommates, and second cousins will float before your eyes. You will get a glimpse of them drunk in their favorite bars, with pot bellies and slightly balding heads, read about their coke-addled ex's and 9-5 office jobs, and view thousands of pics of their children. Or maybe you'll find they've succeeded in running their own guitar business, spent a small fortune on a wedding in Hawaii, haven't gained a pound despite two babies, and bought a suburban house and a pit bull named Grover.

But no, you were mislead. As you scroll down the page you don't know any of the people that pop up in your facebook generated list of "people you may know". They're all famous cartoonists that you admire because you've read their books. It's like facebook is taunting you with who you don't know. But you decide to take the bait. You click on one.

Trumped! Of course you don't know Jim Woodring personally. Now you feel stupid for even trying.

You could always add him and hope he's kind or not paying enough attention and accidentally accepts your friend request. But you already have a ton of cartoonist facebook "friends" that you don't know. It's like buying stuff. Should you buy more stuff that you're never going to use?

The only person you know "personally" in this "People you may know" list doesn't have a face and two days later he still hasn't accepted your request.

Process: How to Fail Until You Finish

2011-01-04T13:55:00.000-08:00

You know, I really should have read deeper into Dan’s post and taken it to heart. But, being the thick-headed numbskull I am, and having a short attention span, I’ve went about a recent commission for Mark Granlund’s Book of Bartholomew all-kinds of wrong. I had a certain look in my head for the illustrations I was to provide and I did a number of sketches before getting into the thick of it, but not enough.

This sketch was spot on for how I was envisioning the character on the right. The character on the left-- uh, not so much. Of course, regardless of my mental misgivings, I went ahead and started slapping things together on the computer, changing heads, adding textures, other characters, etc. This is a short-cut that is familiar to me. It’s familiar because it is actually a long cut and I have taken it too many times to count. I do get to my destination, but it takes lo-o-o-onger than it should.

I’m not showing the shit-ton of minor alterations, because really, they are unnecessary-- if only I would have realized so to begin with, I would have saved myself some time.

I don’t know if it is necessary to note, but I am sure it’s probably somewhat obvious-- I am not the the most skilled or technical draftsman. I operate better at an intuitive level, failing over and over again and hopefully I get it right at the finish (which is how I colour comix). Sometimes this is not the case. With that said I do like these two beige toned illustrations and their cartoony expressions.

Anyways, I decided to re-draw the illustration and change up the composition a little. This was an improvement. The palate is a little hyper though, again something that I find difficult to escape from. After thinking on it some more, I realized it is a bit too busy for my tastes and the head on the central character I felt was not quite right.

What I did to fix it was to draw that character from scratch, close up. Now, this, this I liked. I also liked the white space. One illustration down, yes.

With that first illustration complete, I went back to the other one and took out a lot of the details, re-did her head to match the other completed illustration and changed the texture to make her pop a bit better. I think the composition has a better flow now. And I am happy with it, which is pretty important to me (which is why I don’t do commission work often as I will try the patience of whomever while I muck about trying to figure what the heck I am actually doing).

SO, what have I learned? Well, as I mentioned at the top of this post, the Dan-machine (dad-machine?) is indeed onto something. Warm-up work is important. Verily, indeed, hum-hum. But, I think as artists work more and become more familiar with their own process, this could become more internalized and they could skimp or even skip some or all of that warm-up. That takes some years of very serious work, and from where I am standing, I am not there.

The Book of Bartholomew is a series of web based picture books that form a larger work. Several artists from the Twin Cities area have provided illustrations for Mark Granlund, who is the author, publisher, organizer and artist himself on several of the chapters. And 2 of the artists involved, a Matt Wells and Martha Iserman specifically, have some of their work in GMN4, so Matt and Martha completists may wish to seek out what those two boyds have been up to.

If you find yourself itching to know more about the Book of Bartholomew or Mark Granlund, check (yourself before you wreck yourself, or you know, follow) the links.

2011-01-02T17:04:00.000-08:00

So I was really excited for 2010. I was jobless when the year started, was hoping to accomplish a lot with my art that had taken a back-seat while I walloped in depression, and was the poorest I've ever been. I really thought 2010 was going to be my year.

And overall, it was a good year. I landed a job and got promoted quickly, I was able to focus on my art for a little bit and got a couple of good things going, and had money for laundry. Then december came and I lost my job, got down in the dumps again, forgot I had a drawing table at all, and have 20 bucks to my name.

BUT it's 2011!! And I really feel it! This'll be my year!

I was just curious, do the people reading/writing this blog have new years resolutions when it comes to their art (lifestyle wise/career wise)?
Mine are:
1. Keep my studio and desk extra clean and organized (something I utterly failed at last year).
2. Update my blog at least twice a month
3. Save the panic for AFTER a projects complete

Grimalkin Head Cat Interviewed

2010-12-29T18:55:00.000-08:00

A month or so back I stopped at Big Brain (an awesome comix shop here in Minneapolis) to pick up some books. Clarence, one of the employee's at the big B told me that Jordan Shiveley of Grimalkin Press (you know, publishers of HIVE!) was in the process of moving to MPLS. So I thought I’d shoot him an email and welcome him to town. The following interview was loosely and abstractly gone over in person and then about a month later I got my thoughts together and we conducted the interview via email.

Raighne Hogan: I understand you have been mostly on the road as a cook for films sets, what were some of the problems this posed for your as a publisher? What were some of the positives?

Jordan Shiveley: Well the positives were pretty straightforward monetary. I pretty much took the job just to further subsidize printing costs for Grimalkin Press. The salary was pretty gross so that enabled me to be able to plunk some scratch down immediately on projects that otherwise I would have had to slowly save towards. I really had zero interest in hob knobbing around movie sets; it was a purely financial decision. The bad side is to get the gross salary I had to work twenty-hour days, seven days a week for the last year and a half. Which severely limited how much I could be personally involved in all the minutia of getting the books to print and promoting them etc. After working from 1 AM to 9 PM the last thing my body wanted to do was read emails and look at photoshop files. Luckily I had the wonderful team of Mark Leicht and Ingrid Bohnenkamp working with me during that time so they did all the grunt work for the books that came out during that time as well as convention and distribution duties. I finally quit the movie industry because no matter how lucrative it was I felt I was missing out on the whole point of publishing comics. To actually BE THERE publishing comics.

RH: As a cook, what is the strangest or worst combination of food-stuffs you have assembled as a meal? For myself, I once threw together a soup mixing banana’s and wasabi as the base... SO, I can’t imagine you making anything stranger or worse than that. But I am all ears...

JS: Well as a professional cook I haven’t really ever put out any products that I would consider to be a “worst combination”. My food is delicious! But as a curious foodie I have definitely taken some missteps, barbecue sauce ice cream, fried mayonnaise, chicken fat gelee . . .

RH: Have you been reading comics your whole life, or is this a fairly recent development?

JS: I’ve read comics ever since I was a little kid but that was mostly Spiderman with some occasional Batman or X-Men thrown in for curiosity sake. I think I quit reading them around age sixteen or so. However I didn’t start reading Indie comics or alt comics until somewhere around 2004 so that would definitely be a rather recent occurrence. I got back into comics with Sandman and eventually read Mauss and then Blankets which launched down that path without a look back.

RH: Did you ever draw up plans to be a super hero? I ask that, because as a child, I sure did. I was pretty sure scientists were going to throw me into the back of a van on my way home from school and graft bone claws into my for arms. Prior to that, I was fairly certain that were I to catch some bugs and prick them with a needle, then myself, I would get some of there DNA, thusly, their powers. And you know what, none of these things ever worked out.

JS: Yeah I would totally draw up my own superheroes. I think I remember going out into abandoned lots and breaking boxes and bottles pretending I was the Ninja Turtles or whatever other character I was currently crushing on. I don’t think I ever actually made serious plans/yearnings towards being a superhero though, I was always a somewhat practical kid in that matter.

RH: Where was it you said you grew up again? How might’ve that informed your comic making/editing/publishing sensibilities?

JS: Well I was born in Lousiana but grew up the majority of my formative years in Oaxaca Mexico. I’m not sure how it has affected me as a publisher besides maybe having more of a view from the axiom of the poor and disenfranchised. It definitely influenced my aesthetic sensibilities though, Mexican folk art/engravings factor hugely into my design sensibilities. In my own comics I tend towards those blocky simple lines lots of heavy black and white areas.

RH: So, Hive is quarterly? That’s pretty ambitious. What made you shoot for that goal?

JS: I didn’t really know it was ambitious when we started out. I just looked at the poetry and theological journals I was reading at the time and most of them were quarterly so I went with that. However it isn’t a decision I regret. I can’t really imagine putting out just one antho a year, there are way too many comics out there to go that slowly!

RH: One thing that struck me as pretty unique for Hive, as an anthology is the funky covers, often screen printed, concertina folded, or letter-pressed type laid on thick. The interior content is also rather fabulous, featuring work that is at turns, experimental, excerpts from larger works, previously published, or wholly unique to this printing. What drives you to these decisions in design, binding, and content?

JS:
First Design:
I’ve always from day one wanted HIVE to not just be a book of comics, I wanted the layout design and covers to be just as artistically engaging as the comics within. I’d like to think that each issue is an art object as well as a book. I don’t see why those two things should be mutually exclusive. As the anthology gets higher in page count this gets harder to do. It is much easier to do some obscure binding style when you aren’t dealing with 200+ pages. The last two books we’ve dealt with that by perfect binding and using the dust jackets as screen pressed art prints of sorts but I definitely want to look towards doing some more unique paper engineering design in the future.

Now the comics:
I make my decisions on the content based mainly on how engaging the work is. As you’ve noted we definitely aren’t an anthology that tends to one type of work more than the other. I want HIVE to represent as broad a spectrum of sequential art as possible. Sometimes knowing where to draw the line is a murky proposition though and over the two years we’ve done this there are a few comics that I put in that now with the experience I’ve gone through I wouldn’t have in the book today. Learning to say no and shoot down someone’s hopes is definitely the hardest lesson I’ve had to learn as an editor. Having said that experience and technical mastery are pretty much never part of the criteria of how I choose comics. You could turn in the first comic you’ve ever drawn and have it be just a series of cubes talking to each other and if I feel it has that ineffable quality that engages the reader I’ll put it in.

RH: How did you meet up with your current collaborators for Grimalkin? What are your ambitions or goals for this outfit?

JS: Well I originally started Grimalkin Press with my friend Jon Freihofer, however he moved to Portland to be a rock star barista so I did a few issues alone and then started working with my friend Mark Leicht who is also a cartoonist not to mention the kick ass designer on most of the Grimalkin Press books. My best friend Ingrid Bohnenkamp also helped out as the interim editor for HIVE FOUR. Currently Grimalkin Press is just me and Mark.

Ambitions? Well I have the ambition to maybe one day do this as a full time job. But I’m pretty sure that is quite a ways off in the future. Currently I’m working on trying to get better distribution for HIVE. Really getting it out there on a broader level is the main goal at the moment. That and continuing to publish books that are all quality without any fluff.

I’d also like to see Grimalkin Press become something of a resource for fledgling cartoonists providing support and pointing them in the right directions as to where to submit their work, how to get exposure, what printers are affordable etc.

RH: As the new year inches ever ~~closer~~ (ahh geezus it’s like, uh, tomorrow or something), what are some of your upcoming releases?

JS: Well we just published Everything Dies #5 by Box Brown and have HIVE FIVE coming out in early January. I’d also love to do another book with Noah Van Sciver possibly. We of course are still going to continuously publish HIVE and are taking submissions for a stand-alone one-shot anthology themed around jobs in the food service industry as well.

You can procure many of our books for yourself at www.grimalkinpress.com/shop

And keep abreast of our meandering news updates at www.grimalkinpress.com

Well thanks Jordan for spanning some time with us!

illustration by me

EEh Duh Cation

2010-12-08T06:52:00.000-08:00

I've been tutoring a couple of kids. I've been doing it for free, since I'm really not much of a slave driver. Needless to say, it's pretty lax tutoring, and often degrades into playing with legos, messing around with the Spore Creature Creator, or playing pool (we have a pool table that came with our apartment).

A couple of thought-cycles have been let loose as a result of this once-a-Sunday habit; the first being that I keep coming up with exercises & practical tips I wish I'd gotten when I was just starting to draw, and the second is that I'm more and more realizing that if drawing hadn't been a form of play, I never would have done it.

I'll get to the first part of that in a few characters, but the thing about play is pretty essential, especially when you're dealing with children who already spend too much time in institutions with strict rules and time regulations. I keep flashing back to when I was 10, 11, 12, and remembering how hard it was to stop doing something I was interested in, only to start doing something I had to do. So often these requisite tasks for children are really just adults making them jump through hoops as a means of exerting power. I'll get off my soap box, now. I'll save my thoughts on education, and children as an oppressed class for another time, and probably another blog.

On to my practical tips for drawing. This collection is by no means definitive, and I'm sure there are exceptions to every rule here. What counts in art is that your final product isn't bad, which brings me to my first bullet point:

There is such a thing as bad art. There's no sense in wasting a bunch of time on a drawing that is structurally unsound, has a poor composition, or is broken in some way.
For the above reason, if you're working on a project where the final product is ornate, complex, or just plain time consuming, start out by doing tiny drawings. Make sure to do as many little thumbnails (then mockups, then comps, then roughs, and then how every many other intermediate steps you can add in there) as you possibly can. With each new project, there has to be a period of warm-up; during which, drawings will emerge that are terrible. It is your job also to throw away these drawings.
Make sure the surface on which you're drawing is perpendicular to your line of site. Seems obvious, but I've ended up with quite a lot of skewed work because of this simple issue.
If you find yourself with your drawing utensil gripped tightly by the tips of your fingers, and your arm isn't moving at all, you need to a) go back to thumbnails/roughs if you're not currently there, and b) grip your drawing utensil with it resting underneath your hand, not in the crook of your thumb/pointer finger. This will prevent your digits from taking control of the drawing process.
Hold your drawing surface at arms-length.
Drawing from life is always preferable to drawing from a photograph. If you're copying from a photo, what does that make you? That's right, it makes you a photocopier. When people buy art, they're paying for perceptions, and comments, not reproductions.
If you are drawing from observation, place or hold your drawing surface 'next to' what you're drawing, in your field of view. It's much easier to see if you're capturing it well when you've got the original and the piece right next to each other.
When you have a finished piece, ask for critique, and keep your arguments with the feedback in your head, unspoken. In fact, make it a point to only ask questions. Critiquing work is a stressful thing, and it's quite a favor to do for someone. Thank people for their feedback.

I'm sure everyone on this site has their own tips for drawing, and I'd love to see them added to my list, or as comments on this post. The more information we share about process, the more we can help each other to succeed as artists.

Picture Books Evolve on the iPad: Akaneiro Reviewed

2010-11-27T12:42:00.000-08:00

Many games put out under the guidance of a particular American in China deal with themes from fairy tales like those found in the Brothers Grimm repository. In fact most of the titles put out under American McGees watchful eye are directly taken and adapted to the interactive medium of games, including Alice: Madness Returns. Whereas other adaptations, such as those by Disney, may have softened some of the bite from these grim folk tales, American McGee and his Spicy Horse studio, have retained those teeth and have added their own dark flair.

While most of Spicy Horses releases are most definitely games, titles put out under its subsidiary Spicy Pony have been more experimental flirtations of an interactive nature (with a focus on light puzzle's and very stylish art) which is fitting due to their intended platforms (iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad) and price points. So what is Akaneiro?

As Spicy Pony's most current release, Akaneiro is roughly an interactive story book. It takes the folk tale of Little Red Riding Hood and drops it in Feudal Japan. The art commingles beautiful brush work, light ink wash textures; with the colour red, fittingly, made prominent. Where it stumbles is in the interactive bits and the story.

Several of the puzzles, such as there were, are physics based, requiring the player/reader to shuffle books about to find a scroll, put root vegetables and fruits into a basket, or catching fish flopping out of bucket. Fairly easy interactive morsels. These would be easily glossed over by what I imagine is their target audience, children. And for 4 dollars a pop, Akaneiro isn't badly priced at all.

If Spicy Pony is to put out more work as interactive story books, they could look to some excellent physical story books/children’s novels such as Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean collaborations like Coraline. While it too skews towards a young audience, Coraline was still a wonderfully enjoyable story for adults as well. There is much promise for Spicy Pony in their future efforts. I hope they continue to experiment and explore in these early days of the iPad and other interactive mediums.

As an aside, comics and games share a lot of similarities as early mongrel art forms, low brow, exploratory; and in their evolution to follow the dollar, they’d be wise to learn from one another or work with each other.

Mo' Moebius at Fondation Cartier

2010-11-18T01:06:00.000-08:00

At 12 or 13 I rented Heavy Metal for much the same reason I would two years later be so very interested in Andy Sidaris flicks-- juvenile titillation? Why yes. Death and fucking still rank pretty highly in the interests of human beings, whether that be web logs linking a gazillion photo’s of fan lads & ladies in skimpy outfits at a con; the murderous murmurings spat out of the television covering what is the “news”; or some of the spectacular things called Science Fiction. Yes, a capital S and F. Oh, and I’m certain pornography fits in there all to well.

Heavy Metal, the film, is an anthology of shorts put together to form a whole. It is, of course, an adaptation of the magazine of the same name. One of these shorts, The Legend of Taarna, directed by John Bruno was heavily inspired by an early Moebius strip that hails from 1974 (first printed in Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal). Moebius's Arzach shorts were sort of a big deal and made some waves due to it’s powerful use of dream logic guided by large deserted landscapes, peppered with strange creatures and peoples. The silent nature of the strip certainly added to the mystery. With the almost familiar and yet so very alien imagery, the reader’s brain can almost touch, taste, feel-- live, in this place that Jean Giraud created. It is that alive.

These pages were skimmed from the Grant Bridge Street Blog. They have more here.

The awesome power of Arzach and Moebius’ work was obviously not limited to France. Over 20 years later, it extended across the globe to Japanese game development studio, Team Andromeda. Andromeda were tasked with creating an original game for the Sega Saturn that would serve as a showcase for the system and Panzer Dragoon was the fruit of that labor.

It was (and still is) a gorgeous game. For the Japanese release, Moebius illustrated the front cover.

He also provided some illustration work for the development of the title (sample to the left). The game had two sequels for the Saturn (the first of these was actually a prequel) by the same team, Zwei and Azel (also called Saga). Though admittedly peripheral, these were my first look at Moebius’ work.

To be perfectly honest I have not read a lot his work, but that did not stop me from checking out his career spanning retrospective “Trans Forme” at the Fondation Cartier a couple of weeks ago. I was first made aware of the show by Dan Nadel via a Comics Comics posting, so-- thanks Dan! Unfortunately, no photography was allowed at the exhibition, otherwise I would have snapped some shots and uploaded them here. I did however manage to buy some color pencils (as seen at the top) and the “Trans Forme” Catalogue. They both are quite lovely. I would strongly recommend picking up a copy yourself or the very least or heading over to Picturebox and buying 40 days dans le desert B should you find yourself at all interested in Moebius and his work. You are unlikely to regret doing so.

Small notes: there is a signing with Moebius at Fondation Cartier on the 30th of this month, should you find yourself in Paris-- well, you know what to do, right? Also, photo of color pencil's taken by my wife. She's got an excellent post on the trip here.

Gay Genius

2010-11-12T17:33:00.000-08:00

Hello to any Itchy Readers. Sorry for the slow spell, I've been away. I'll have some interesting write-ups soon about the Moebius show, a conclusion to media mail and some other rants/reviews. In the mean time, please check out and consider laying down some cash for a cool comix anthology called Gay Genius. Click the link, check out the vid!

Scott West at 3AM Standing Still

2010-10-25T16:52:00.000-07:00

Last week I spoke with Cloud Cult band member and live-painter Scott West. We talked about his band, his new focus on his solo career as a painter and a bit about how he is balancing the two. Image to the left painted by Scott, quick ink-doodle by myself.

Raighne Hogan: Hi Scott, hows your day going?

Scott West: Good, good. I’ve got a model shoot today so I actually got up at 3 o‘clock in the morning and started painting.

RH: Holy shit! [laughter]

SW: Yeah the show is coming up quicker then I have time for, so I’ve got to make the most.

RH: [laughter] That is how it usually goes.

I know some of this will be familiar ground covered in past/recent interviews, but for the most part I will try to avoid that.

SO, from what I have read, it sounds like you have been with Craig Minowa for quite a while now. How is that you two met?

SW: Oh boy. We met-- I was a guitar player for his very first band. It was my first year of college or his or maybe both of ours. We met in college. I was friends with the lead guitarist and was the rhythm guitarist/back up singer.

We kinda met that way and then we had a practice space in Minneapolis [which] I used for my painting studio and he’d use it to go there and write. It was kinda a process where I’d be working on painting and he’d be singing songs and they started to influence each other. Things I’d be painting he’d start incorporating and things he’d be saying I’d be incorporating and it really became collaborative.

Craig was then dating Connie the other painter at the time and they were kinda doing similar things at the time... He then said, you know, lets bring this to stage and this was at the time I was going to leave the band ‘cause I really felt that I should focus on painting because that’s really what I love to do. And he said “nope, your not gonna leave the band, your gonna paint on the stages” [laughter].

Ok, alright. It kinda started way back then. Even our earlier shows, when I wasn’t painting he would fill the stage with easels and paintings. It was always kinda part of the stage show.

RH: As both a musician and visual artist, does your understanding of the music help inform your paintings and vice versa?

SW: Well yeah, there is a ton of common ground between song writing and paintings. I kinda see putting this show together in the same way that I would see putting an album together. Kinda individual songs on the wall. The work that I do with Cloud Cult is definitely an influence on the work and it’s an influence on the process. One because because I relate painting so much to music. I really see brush strokes as rhythm and the hue of the paint as a key signature, whether it’s a major or minor-- there is an emotion you react to with color the same way with a key signature.

Composition, same kinda thing. The music that I am listening to, whether it be Cloud Cult or any other has a definite influence, also that is where I get most of my titles from in lyrics and songs. It may trigger kinda an idea that just sums things up better than my cache of literary knowledge.

RH: It seems that Cloud Cult and Earthology Records are a rather green band and label [Scott chuckles]. I really dig you guys efforts to use 100% Recycled PCW in you CD productions. Do you know how this was set-up?

SW: Well, that was really spear-headed with Craig because he was an environmental science major in college. The reason he went into environmental science was because he wanted to pursue a career that was for a greater good and he thought that was always a really good pursuit [whereas] the song writing and the music was maybe a little bit of a selfish pursuit.

He came to change his mind later because his music and lyrics have helped, you know, thousands of people with grief and loss and everything with their story so, it really started that way so when he really started writing music he really felt that since he lived this way he’d really be a hypocrite if he released an album in a normally poor environmentally conscious way.

So he founded Earthology Records to figure out how [he could] release a cd in the most environmentally conscious way. And you know, he figured out replication and the deal with the jewel cases-- ‘cause those are all PVC based and he would bring boxes around to universities asking kids to recycle their CD cases and he would take them and hand wash them. We’d all hand wash them and print environmentally-- soy inks and recycled paper for our inserts and what not. It kinda started there and just grew from that point.

RH: [ed. interviewer makes an attempt at a poorly worded question-- too mangled, but somehow interviewee manages to not drop the ball and continues on].

Yeah and from the point where he has started that its grown and its gotten a lot easier and cost effective to be you know environmentally conscious with it. Before it was you know, releasing a CD cost a band a buck to 2 dollars a piece and to release it environmentally consciously it was like 4 to 6 dollars a CD. You know, quite a difference and it still is a difference but what we are doing we feel good about and we’re not creating garbage.

RH: Thats awesome, so do you guys still collect CD cases at colleges?

SW: No, no, we do-- they have digipacks which are post consumer recycled stuff. Its out in the market place now, but when we started it it wasn’t.

RH: Wow, well that's cool. Do you guys have any ideas to put that stuff forward as resources for other bands or--

SW: First off, Earthology Records is kinda a resource for other bands and that’s more what it has become. Craig and Connie are starting Earthology Institute which is more of a resource and an educational push for doing that and a place where people can go and get information. and there’s links to that

RH: Very cool!

When you are on the road, do you ever do collaborative paintings with the other painter?

SW: Yeah, my stage setup is kinda large. I hand built a custom easel for it. I take up a chunk of space on stage so if the stage is not of a size that allows two painters for a full setup and 7 musicians then we’ll definitely work together and collaborate. We just did a show with Etown which is a radio show in Boulder Colorado. And we actually did a collaborative painting there. We do them every once in a while, which is really fun because it’s great to work with another artist because, you know, they have their own vision for things and they kind of pull up things that you just never would have thought of.

RH: So your collaborations are usually determined by the size of the venue versus just an interest in--

SW: Yeah, yeah, well at the end of the show we auction the paintings off to the audience so just business-wise it’s better to have 2 paintings going.

RH: That makes sense.
What-- how long are your tour stints and how many pieces have you put out that way?

SW: Well it’s changed a little bit this year because [Craig and Connie] had a baby and our tour is a little bit shorter. Usually we’ll do like, well, this run we are doing like 30 dates, so, 30 paintings. It’s pretty much a painting a night. And that’s pretty much how I work in the studio too-- that I am producing a painting every one to two days.

RH: You just kinda bang them out?

SW: Yeah. I spent so many years as an illustrator that I feel, and this may sound arrogant but I feel that I have strong drawing skills and stuff and so I can really, kinda knock out the formalities of painting right away and concentrate more on the emotional content so it works best that way. If I let a painting sit I’ll nitpick to the point that I don’t like it anymore. Then I’ll just gesso over it and start over [laughter].

RH: With this show you have over at Tarnish & Gold, Still, how did it all come about-- could you talk a bit about that?

SW: I was initially-- I left my day job as a creative director for an apparel company in January to paint full time. I just came to this resolve that I am not going to wait any longer to pursue this because I was always like, well, at some point I’ll have the money set aside where I can just do this-- I felt that I would just be waiting until I retired and then I would be a hobby artist in a water color class in a retirement home somewhere, you know [laughter]?

And there is nothing wrong with that whatsoever but I really wanted to make it my career and make it, you know, what I was known for and not as a maker of lingerie or something [laughs].

RH: Did you put away some money for this art-career re-shift?

SW: Yeah I put some saving away and I basically made the decision that-- when I moved to Minneapolis I didn’t have a job. My wife lined up a job at the VA Medical Center and we moved over here and I just did free lance for like a year and I made just as much money doing that as a regular job. So I always knew if I really got into a bind I could call up some companies and let them know I am available for freelance and I can usually pick up some stuff. And that’s been true- I really haven’t done any freelance since I’ve left ‘cause I’ve really wanted to focus this first year on painting. And it’s been going really well. I’ve been getting a lot of private commissions and whatnot.

Back to your earlier question with Tarnish & Gold, when I felt like I started to build enough of a backlog of paintings that I could actually do a show, I started hunting the gallery scene in Minneapolis, just to see what was available. I came across Tarnish & Gold and I really liked the philosophy of the gallery being more of a community based venue that is also supportive of the music scene.

They’ve got a stage and eventually they are going to have a small recording studio and some things like that-- and I thought, that really fits where I am at as an artist as well. They also want to keep art at a reasonable cost where people can actually afford to buy it. You don’t have to look for private collectors or museums. I really like that philosophy and that is why I chose the gallery.

RH: How long is Still going to be up for?

SW: The opening night is November 6th and I am having 2 bands play: The Wapsipinicon and Dewi Sant which is two mellow acoustic acts performing and then the show runs all the way through December 5th. That is pretty much a full month. It’s a solo show, and you know I went back and forth on whether I should go up with another artist but the gallery actually encouraged me to do it as a solo. So, that is what I am doing.

On the 10th I am showing a film-- I made a movie with John Paul Burgess the director No One Said it Would be Easy and it’s a documentary about Cloud Cult. We released it about a year ago or so and I am doing a showing of that film. You’ll be able to buy it at the gallery and I am doing a screening of the film with the director and myself there on the 10th of November.

Then we’ve got one more event that we are going to host. December 2nd we are going to do a panel discussion where we are going to have some other artists there --yet to be announced-- I am waiting on a few to commit to it before I post it. But the [subject of the] panel discussion [is on] music and the visual arts and the correlations between the two. And there will be an opportunity for people to come down and discuss that. Minneapolis has such an awesome music scene and a visual arts community, but to bring those communities together, that’s a little [amazing].

RH: That sounds great. Are these special events as part of month long show ticketed?

SW: It’s free to the public. Anybody can show up. Throughout the show, during gallery hours when I am not playing with Cloud Cult --there are a few days where I am playing with Cloud Cult at First Avenue on the 17th and 18th and I think I am up in Duluth or something on the 20th [and] playing at The Current on the 16th.

We have a few shows lined up. But when I am not doing the Cloud Cult stuff during gallery hours I am going to have my live painting easel set up at the gallery and I am going to be painting in the[re] and changing the show throughout the month.

So, I am going to try and stay at the same pace- ideally and I doubt this will happen, but it would be really great if by the end of the month it was a completely different show. People can come down and check it out and see how things progress, or stop in and see an artist producing work. It’s a bit of a performance piece at the same time.

RH: Well I think that’s all I got unless there is anything you’d like to say?

SW: No I think that is it for me too. I totally appreciate the interview and the press [laughter]

RH: I hope you get a lot of people going there and checking out the evolution of the show.

SW: that would be great!

RH: Thank you very much Scott.

SW: Well thank you.

RH: You have a great day and good luck on getting everything done [laughter]!

Good Minnesotan Interviews: Eric Ruby

2010-10-20T05:33:00.000-07:00

Eric Ruby grew up in suburban Connecticut, went to Rochester Institute of Technology for four years, and then moved to Minnesota.

As a side note, do check out his site, he has some truly beautiful photo's and an amusing video of his current limited edition photo book! And for those lazy-lackards I have included the video at the bottom of the post.

IKAF:1.) What do you do to make ends meet? Does this interrupt the output of your own creative projects, comics and otherwise?

Eric Ruby: To make a living, I make prints of other peoples work; hopefully better than they could do themselves which is sometimes satisfying. It does interrupt the output of my own creative projects, and is sometimes frustrating since the potential to become burned out is extremely high. After spending all day using photoshop, the last thing I want to do after work is to get back on the computer and use photoshop, but since my medium of choice is photography, I can always just go out photographing if I don't want to be on the computer any longer. On the plus side, I have access to use equipment that I may never be able to afford personally.

IKAF:2.) Is there something in particular you have done to balance your art and the need for monetary sustenance?

Eric Ruby: Similarly to my first answer, I have managed to lead my career to a place where the facilities are available to me, and I dont have to buy my own scanner, computer, printer, etc.

IKAF:3.) When was the last time you bought a comic anthology (or any kind of anthology)? Was there anything in particular that attracted or repelled you to that specific one?

Eric Ruby: I dont think that I have ever bought a comic anthology, but I do buy lots of art photography books. What attracts me first and foremost are the photographs, secondly, the physical book. I have an appreciation for consideration, specifically in books in how the content works with the design. Coherence is the most important thing of any publication, and if that isn't achieved, it is hard to get past those issues to the content.

IKAF:4.) What are some of the projects you are working on now?

Eric Ruby: I am constantly photographing, I guess that is a project? I also recently made a small edition hardcover book, and then a video of the book. My working method is sometimes backwards, I make groups of photographs into a "project" months(or more) after they are created and I still don't understand what it is until I come back to it much later. I try not to think in a project mentality because I feel as though it limits what I can do creatively on a day to day basis; if I am creating something everyday, I can constantly perfect what it is that I am doing at the time.

Since July from Eric Ruby on Vimeo.

Standing on the Brinkman

2010-10-17T19:44:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I was on vaca. out east with my girlfriend to visit her brother and wife in NJ, see the first announced Pavement reunion show in Central Park, buy a ton of comics, walk around NY and avoid looking like a tourist as much as possible (we were successful until the last few hours before we had to fly back). In some of my downtime I gravitated towards my workaday habit of scanning through my list of comics blogs, one of the few types of reading I can do that doesn't require prolonged attention. I was fortunate enough to come across the news that Fort Thunder bigwig Mat Brinkman was having the opening of his first solo show on the only night I'd be in New York for the first leg of my trip. This quickly became the 'thing I had to do before I left New York', so I made my girlfriend, her bro and sis in-law accompany me to the opening (don't worry, I'll drop the exposition soon).

The opening was fairly average: crowded, apt background music (drone-metal), gallery attendant who appeared to be super into anything but answering people's questions, etc. Given that I was much more interested in the show than my companions and that I didn't want to stand in front of any particular piece too long (standard gallery strafing in effect), I made a concerted effort to get a general feel for the show and call it a night (I did return the following week to a virtually empty gallery, which made getting these photos much easier). I had read that there was a book released in conjunction with the show that was also being sold through Brinkman's current publisher, Picturebox, called Heads, 44, so I looked through the display copy before leaving. Prior to this show my primary exposure to Brinkman was via the collected editions of his comics (Teratoid Heights, Multiforce), since I was oblivious of him when he was putting out minis during his time at the Fort. I won't get into too much detail about those releases, since that's been done much more competently elsewhere, but it will suffice to say that Brinkman is no stranger to experimental narrative structures and an ethos that often foregrounds the visceral and deceptively crude act of mark-making that characterized the Providence scene he was an integral member of in the 90's.

In recent years he's moved in the direction of making primarily singular images (posters, silk-screened prints/books, etc.) and being included in numerous gallery shows and exhibits, most notably the Whitney Biennial in 2002. Again, there are many directions one could take the trajectory of his existence as an artist, considering the contrast between where his notoriety was fostered and where his work finds audience now (at least some of it anyway). I won't even begin to pontificate upon the role of galleries/art institutions overall as they relate to the dissemination, consumption and valuation of art, as I'll soon be noticeably out of my depth. Instead, I'll provide what impressions I can given my limited exposure to Brinkman's work and my status as a relative outsider to the 'art-comics'/primitivist scene as it relates to this show. Plus it's a way to justify doing a photo dump of the show for peeps who couldn't see it in person.

(I apologize for the picture quality. In my attempt to avoid looking like a tourist, as noted above, I left my camera at home. As a result, you get camera-phone quality!)

A first for me was seeing Brinkman's charcoal work and how much it contrasts with the type of cartooning I had seen from him in his comics. Whereas his cartooning style was in the crude/primitivist vein he helped usher into fashion in art-comics of the past decade, here his assortment of reptilian monsters and demons have this somewhat trashy quality that reminds me of the tableaus painted on the walls of shitty horror carnival rides. I'd love to see one of those rides re-imagined in a Brinkmanesque format.

These two sets of images were hung in the first and last room of the gallery, sandwiching the charcoal pieces. In terms of the type of mark-making on display, these series of decomposing portraits felt more redolent of his cartooning work of years past, but yet a little more evolved in a way that isn't immediately apparent, at least from solely seeing them on display in the gallery. One could certainly say that these images are more technically accomplished than a lot of his cartooning work, but to say that is to ignore a crucial element of his comics, his unique construction of the comics page. Frank Santoro once noted when discussing Multiforce that there was an aquarium-like quality to the pages, meaning simply that his pages are these clusters of meandering tales occurring simultaneously. My first pass across these images at the show was a pleasant one, but I left missing the labyrinthine narrative play at work in his comics. It wasn't until looking at the selection of portraits collected into the Heads, 44 release that I appreciated the show on another level. In the description of the release on Picturebox's site, Dan Nadel (presumably) says, "As Mat drew, each of these ink-on-rice paper "heads" would seep onto the next sheet, forming the basis of that drawing, and so on". While I wasn't aware of this process upon my first flip-through, that feeling of each image informing the next was immediately apparent. In this way, Brinkman has devised yet another narrative technique, one that takes one of the very fundamental tenets of comics, sequentiality, and bends and shapes it to suit his current interests. As many comics scholars and critics have argued or resigned themselves to believing, attempts to define what comics are often end in the tautology that comics are what people say are comics. This release could certainly make a case for that circular logic, but given the liminality of the object (is it an art book? a comic?), we can't come to a conclusion readily. How it is classified will really depend upon the reader and the context in which it is presented.

I must admit, there are a couple of parts of the show I have failed to discuss thus far in my attempt to overlay this faint narrative onto Brinkman's development. They felt somewhat out of place at this show, mostly because they reminded me of his cartooning style from earlier in his life, but also because they felt like a smattering of images that didn't congeal into a concerted statement.

There is a second wall that is similar to the one pictured above, but the photo just turned out too poorly to even bother showing. Maybe these sets are not so much about making a unified statement, but rather to provide the viewer with a chance to form a better overview of his work as it has developed through various stages. The room not pictured in particular felt like a collection of sketchbook pages by a precocious metalhead, letting his hand scrawl out whatever possessed him that day. I know a lot of people wish he'd get back into making comics proper, but from looking at Heads, 44, I'm not so sure he ever completely stopped; he's just gone in a direction we may not recognize immediately as comics. It's up to us to get up to speed.

Good Minnesotan Interviews: Sean Lynch

2010-10-14T10:38:00.000-07:00

Sean Lynch is a very talented comic booker, and an illustrative master of the brush. Currently he resides and works in Minneapolis. That will change in about a week or so when he moves to Japan to be with his wife Mako. Catch him at FallCon this Saturday or on his blog which shows all of his most recent work.

IKAF:1.) What do you do to make ends meet? Does this interrupt the output of your own creative projects, comics and otherwise?

Sean Lynch: To make ends meet, I've mainly been working on lots of small art jobs and random day jobs. As for random day jobs, for like 6 weeks, I worked at my friend's fish store and scraped soap scum and algae off of around 350 fish tanks. I had a lot of time to reflect and think about how I'd rather be drawing anything rater than being covered in fish algae. My art jobs are usually designing for bands, doing random illustrations and working on project pitches. I've been lucky to have some fun commissions lately too. This always gets in the way of the projects that I keep close to heart and keeps me bohemian.

IKAF:2.) Is there something in particular you have done to balance your art and the need for monetary sustenance?

Sean Lynch: The art jobs get me through on enough to keep working on them and my projects, with small real world jobs here and there to supplement that. In fact, I'll be moving to Tokyo with my wife to find jobs. I'll be working like a dog and drawing on the side. I try to make sure to always spend some time drawing the things that I want to. That's the most satisfying part of drawing to me. That helps me forget about the dough.

IKAF:3.) When was the last time you bought a comic anthology (or any kind of anthology)? Was there anything in particular that attracted or repelled you to that specific one?

Sean Lynch: While at Mocca with you guys in 2009, I bought some anthologies. Since then, I really haven't bought anything but the Good Minnesotan. I was in one with Ed Moorman, called, Ghost Comics. I had a copy of it because I was in it. Usually my budget doesn't have too much room for comics, honestly. I try to buy something if it has either a favorite writer or artist in it. The GMN is different, in that it's style is what really attracts me.

IKAF:4.) What are some of the projects you are working on now?

Sean Lynch: I've mainly, been finishing some commission and slowly working on a project about being a kid in Minnesota. My brother is the writer on that book, so it's ultra-chill. I'm still waiting to hear back from some editors on some fun stuff too, but I guess right now I'm just drawing while getting ready for the move to Japan.

Bring it on: Whack-A-Bone Plus Poke-A-Muscle Game Reviews

2010-10-13T12:06:00.000-07:00

Meghan's disclaimer: I haven't played many video games, so I probably should be the last gamer to write a review. To read about what I actually do visit my blog.

Anatomy Arcade is a website with free educational human anatomy flash games. It was created by Ben Crossett, a Science and Physical Education teacher at Glen Waverley Secondary College in Melbourne, Australia. I love his motivation for creating this software:

This mission was born of frustration with what I saw as a lack of truly engaging material in the area of anatomy and also a frustration as a teacher catching students wasting class time playing flash games every time they were in a computer lab. The catch phrase "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" sums up the decision I made; to investigate the potential of these "pesky" little games to invigorate the delivery of anatomical material to the teenage audience.

The games on Anatomy Arcade are organized by body system and game type. I'm going to review the two signature games: Whack-A-Bone from the skeletal system and Poke-A-Muscle from the muscular system. In addition, there are jigsaws, crosswords, word searches, match twos, and just for fun.

Whack-A-Bone begins with a mesmerizing vocal beat that sounds sort of like a robotic Sean Paul: "Whack-A-Bone, whack-a-bone, whack-a-bone, r-i-i-i-ght!" You will be singing this song all day, I guarantee it.

Description: Whack-A-Bone will lead you toward an instinctive knowledge of the major bones of the body. Build up, scan and whack the arm, leg and core. When that has been perfected, scan the entire skeleton and finally, whack Harold silly.

Difficulty: All major bone names. 10 years old and above

Controls: Mouse click, drag and drop

To advance you have to score 80% or higher. There is a nicely designed scoreboard that charts your progress. You are egged on by the robotic Sean Paul voice announcing the bone names for you. This is both amusing and infuriating as the voice can be hard to understand. When you progress to higher levels robotic Sean Paul is joined by a demonic chipmunk.

One minor annoyance: phalanges is used for both your finger and toe bones. There's a written distinction ("(toe) phalanges") but the vocals don't distinguish between the two and you have to choose correctly or it's counted against you.

Overall, I love this game! I can play it for hours and I'm really learning the bones.

The first thing that hooked me on Poke-A-Muscle is its humor. I can't stop cracking up over the funny postures and feedback. Plus that little hand you use to poke Russell the Muscleman with makes me giggle. I have to admit I'm a sucker for visuals, and I love how this game looks. Whack-A-Bone is more engaging but I get sort of lost in time poking those pretty muscles!

Description: Poke-A-Muscle is designed to help the learning of the major superficial muscles of the body. Hunt for muscles with an x-ray scanner and poke the right muscles with your finger. There are 10 stages in all that will challenge most students of anatomy.
Controls: Mouse click

Overall, as a beginning gamer I'm thrilled with the simplicity of the controls. These games are easy to figure out how to play but they are challenging to beat! You will learn a lot while having fun. If you can think of a better way for a teacher to introduce students to human anatomy, bring it on! But I'm sure Whacky Harold and Russell the Muscleman will convince you otherwise.

About Narratives: An Essay That Might Be a Little Too Long

2010-10-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

    What’s a narrative? I’m not one of those people who likes to quote Webster’s at the outset of a discussion, so I don’t know the dictionary definition. But I’ve used the term enough—both as a writer and a social scientist—to have an idea. So I’d consider a narrative the way that a representative of an experience with some group, object, event, or idea conveys that experience. The emphasis I put here is on experience and representative. There are, for example, few slave narratives by people who have never been slaves or experienced slavery. It’s possible for a slave owner to represent him or herself as one who experienced the impact of slavery, but one has to have experienced it in some way in order to represent it.
    I prefer to write narratives because they’re compelling. They have the potential to be more interesting than a story from an omniscient know-it-all who’s telling me what everyone is thinking, who spoon-feeds you the entire story from a silver platter. They’re easy to read: I feel that I pick up on more details and ask questions that make me challenge rather than passively absorb a text. It’s often easier to connect with the protagonist, even if you don’t like him or her. Finally, to me, there’s an implication in narratives about the importance of subjectivity and the fact that all narratives are essentially fictions.
    But narratives aren’t easy to write. Sure, you might think, “I’m just going to write down a bunch of stuff that seems like it would go well together. That’s realistic, right?” Well, no. Not at all.
You have to stay realistic to the nature of your narrator. Does your narrator have the thesaurus memorized? Is he really so shockingly quirky that you, the listener, notice, while others don’t notice at all? Is he speaking in a manner consistent with what you know about him? Kevin Smith, for example, once explained that he wrote the dialog for Banky Edwards from Chasing Amy so that every major claim or assumption he makes is proven incorrect as the film progresses. While the nature of Smith’s dialog writing is frustrating to me in general (because nobody talks like that in real life), he does do very well with continuity and consistency, which I can appreciate.
    The narrative has to be honest to the nature of the situation. Is the storyteller panicking, angry, happy, or attentive? Is she in a car and trying to tell a story? Where is she? People talk differently and use different methods of speaking when they’re in all these situations. When we meet the narrator in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club and he has a gun in his mouth, he seems pretty calm about it. With the angsty self-destructiveness of the character aside, people who have been through situations like that are pretty traumatized and exercise reluctance to recall even tiny details. With this in mind, did Palahniuk construct a realistic narrative?
    Finally, writers should always consider the audience—not readers of the story that you as a writer in this world are typing, but the person or medium through which the narrator is delivering the story within the microcosm of the story. Is the narrator retelling the story to a police officer, his mother, her sister, his best friend, or partner? To a group of people? Is she writing it down, or is she merely thinking it?
    There’s my favorite situation which I call “the guy sitting in a bar drowning his sorrows” method. This can make your narrator multi-dimensional and complex. The ability to withhold secrets, to divulge others, and to tell tiny lies in order to impress the listener. It also resolves the problem of figuring out who the audience is: Namely, some poor shlub at a bar who’s there and doesn’t care.
    This is what Charles Johnson used in his novel Middle Passage. Johnson has a solid narrative formula: a slick-talking freed slave (whom we actually do meet in a bar in the book) who might give the listener the impression that he’s blowing his experiences out of proportion to garner both prestige and sympathy. This narrative uses an excellent context as well, because if you’re sitting at a bar and listening to his story, then you might miss little details that don’t make sense and poke holes in the story the narrator is telling—which is a good thing. I promise you that you’d miss the same details as a casual reader, too.
    It’s also tough to not be boring with your narrative. Why? Because most stories are really boring. Most conversations are really boring and we wouldn’t retell them. Sometimes the more realistic you get, the more boring the story can become. This can be because of the audience. Consider the possibility of relaying a crazy night to a police officer or your grandmother. In both situations you’d probably leave out details. Sometimes the story is just uninteresting, though. There’s that little twinge you get before you open your mouth in real life that only somewhat translates to real words: “Is this worth telling? Will anyone care?”
    Or the narrator isn’t compelling. This can be from a number of factors. Here’s one we can all relate to: Your elderly (male) relatives might relay stories about wars in which they fought, but they don’t seem very exciting. Meanwhile, on film and television, ‘splosions and blood and glistening, vascular muscles titillate the viewer’s senses. So what happened? Well, remember what I mentioned about trauma, and how people deliberately exclude some factors? Do you think your grandfather or great-uncle thinks it was way awesome the way he torched that Vietnamese village to the tune of Papa Roach, dude? No. He probably shit himself for days afterwards because he couldn’t forgive himself and still can’t. So when he tells you about little parts—like how after the battle at Omaha Beach (which he never gives you details on, because you’re just a kid), he got demoted to head chef and, well, that’s how he met his best friend Sal—that’s not an interesting story. Sorry, granddad.
    When one considers that context, the nature of the narrator, and the identity of the audience are all factors in the way a story is told, one can begin to understand that all narratives—even those from real life—are fictions. We tell them differently depending on who we’re talking to, how we remembered it, the emotions to which we attach those experiences (which are always changing), who we are, how well we remember details, and the medium through which the story is being told. Which, in my opinion, makes writing narratives hard.
    I’ve worked really hard at writing narratives through my life. Not necessarily because I’m lazy, but because I hate writing stories from an omniscient, thought-reading perspective unless I’m able to leave some thoughts un-read. What I do is write narratives and read them aloud to see how they flow. The hardest part is trying to present them in the tone of voice and manner intended for the narrator. I’ve failed many times. It used to be that, rather than making genuinely interesting stories, I’d usually end up writing lame fictional journals that copied the format of Chuck Palahniuk:

Here’s something nihilistic about how I view the world. I am so calm. Now here’s an informative, trivial tidbit you may not have known that’s actually quite dark and morbid. I am a clever person, as evinced by the quirky phrase that I will use to end this paragraph.

    Then, unsatisfied with my writing style, I decided to go to college. Not to study English or literature, but to study anthropology. I did this to get brainstorming ideas, but also to look at how people tell stories.
    When you do anthropology you conduct interviews. Then you know what you do? You transcribe every word. Every pause and laugh and “umm” and “yeah” and “so.” By Odin’s beard, I transcribed so many interviews that it makes me shudder just thinking about it. Do you know how long it takes to transcribe a thirty-minute interview? Let’s not talk about it.
    After you’re done transcribing, you analyze what’s been said. I learned that people tell stories in a certain way depending on who they’re talking to and the reasons they tell them. They exclude and emphasize some ideas, and bring them up later on when they believe it will e more appropriate to do so.
    People rarely use traditional storytelling conventions like “He said, somberly.” They might only say, “And he was so pissed off and was, like…” and give no indication of when another person’s speaking pattern begins and his/her own re-telling of that story begins. Simply, people don’t speak with clear quotation marks or formal citations, and you often have to figure that out for yourself.
When people think about an intense or traumatic situation, it’s a sort of in-the-moment situation. Think about accounts from police officers who have had to actually shoot at somebody. They often don’t know how much time passed, what they were doing, how many rounds they pulled off, and so on. They’re generally a shaky wreck and their narrative should follow accordingly: in a panic. Use terse ideas and sentences, avoid needlessly long words or unnecessary adjectives, and so on. (Unless you’re creating an unreliable, Picaresque narrator who’s to heroify himself.)
    People write down their experiences differently than they tell them aloud. They might skip around some specific event that happened and generalize it around a sensation or feeling they had during that time. In LiveJournal you might read something like, “Sheila made me feel really bad with what she said to me today”—but what she actually said might be excluded for dramatic effect.
    Finally, narrators often can’t think of the right way to explain something. They might describe something differently twice. They might forget something, then remember it, then forget it again. There’s no need to interrogate someone or get aggressive when this sort of thing happens. People re-evaluate the meaning of experiences all the time and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s how our brains work. So just cool down, man.
    In my opinion, the best narrative writer, in terms of accuracy of his stories against how people actually speak and act, is Junot Diaz in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. It’s a palatable but realistic narrative. He only occasionally uses quotation marks to indicate who’s talking or when, but it’s given in the context of someone re-telling you a story that someone else conveyed to the narrator anecdotally, verbally, and in writing. There’s also no emphasized sense of “I” for a good part of the story, so it’s unclear who’s telling it (which can be dangerous but Díaz pulled it off flawlessly). Believe me, it’s really hard to write this way and keep the narrative compelling.
    So what I do I recommend you do to improve your narrative writing? Well, listen to or (be careful here) record conversations between yourself and other people, and see how everyone talks. Transcribe them [this is where my groan goes] to get a better idea, and you’ll see how awkwardly you tell stories or convey ideas.
    Something I still do is play around with words and storytelling methods. I try to write at least one short story (50 words minimum) per week using whatever voice I feel I need to express it in. From a narrator telling you about his experiences, to someone in a panic right now, to someone giving you forewarning about something that’s going to happen, I’ve tried to play around with possibilities.
    And, of course, you should care about your narrator. Even if it’s only 50 words. It doesn’t need to be conflict and strife, but you can think to yourself, “How can I convey that this person is happy to have a daughter in his life?” Then think about whether you care about something like that, and if others do. Or look at it this way: You’re raising awareness about a storyteller’s cause, and people should pay attention to it. After all, that’s why we tell stories.
- Achilles Sangster II

Deflated Part 2: Media Mail/Shemedia Shemail: Fun in Phonetics

2010-10-07T13:34:00.000-07:00

Just as I feared, I got a package kicked back at me some odd days ago. What I was trying to mail was comic books and the rate I chose was media mail- 'cause they are books, remember? Thus continues last weeks quest of figuring out what in the hell exactly is a book or why a comic book is not considered a book by the Postal Service when concerning media mail. So, I biked over to my local Post Office today with some questions. Oh and below I have included the letter for your perusal:

Give it a click or a read if you like. It's super non-specific. I brought several copies of the different Funny Books we publish as well as a few by larger outfits like Pantheon and Fanta to ascertain what is the dealio.

To make matters more frustrating for my end I called the number included in the above form, and after gently and lovingly navigating the USPS telemenu system I was greeted by slightly uncertain representative of the Postal Service who did not believe comic books were excluded from Media Mail. Obviously, this added to the confusion.

Upon arriving at my local Post Office, I was given a sheet that stated comic's are not allowed media mail rates. Here is a close up:

As you can see I high lighted books, comic books, and no. The Postal worker said that for some of these book/comics there was maybe a bit of a grey area. I was also told that if I wanted a more definitive answer on all this to go to the Post Office down town. Which is what I will do next week for part 3. My apologies on dragging this out but I have been busy with other things.

Another note, I was made aware that the Post Office is to manually check 1 in 5 packages that are shipping the media mail rate. Fun fact!

Art by Luke Holden from an upcoming Funny Book we are putting out early next year.

Good Minnesotan Interviews: Sarah Dan Bee Tulius

2010-10-04T13:25:00.000-07:00

Sarah Dan Bee Tulius is a short, bespectacled, adopted Korean-American, and identical twin. She was raised in a suburb of Milwaukee called Cedarburg and moved to the Twin Cities for college in 2003. She graduated with a degree in Cultural Studies in 2007. While she does not officially see herself as a cartoonist, she dabbles from time to time in various artistic outlets. Her true artistic genius lies in the creation of delicious sandwiches (do not call her a “sandwich artist”, that is corporate diarrhea) and other foods. She also travels to comics festivals with the 2D Cloud group and tries to help them out the best she can. She lives in the Seward neighborhood with her boyfriend, Justin Skarhus, who graciously puts up with her hypochondriacal neuroses.

IKAF:1.) What do you do to make ends meet? Does this interrupt the output of your own creative projects, comics and otherwise?

Sarah Dan Bee Tulius: I am a fearless leader of one of the busiest delivery delis in Uptown, Minneapolis. I get paid pretty well, however the work is so tiresome that it most definitely cuts into my time for creative endeavors. When I was younger, I was constantly drawing, writing, playing musical instruments and crap. Now that I’m an adult, I’m pretty disappointed with my lack of motivation to create anything but a big paycheck. The callus on my middle finger I’ve had since age 5 is disappearing because of my laziness to pick up a pen or pencil. It’s not all bad, though, I’ve been able to travel a lot more now.

IKAF:2.) Is there something in particular you have done to balance your art and the need for monetary sustenance?

Sarah Dan Bee Tulius: I really haven’t done anything to create a balance other than learn to adapt to my horrible laziness and inclination to procrastinate. Actually, I’ve taught myself how to do decent work at the last minute since I was little, so if someone gives me a project, I can do it, as long as I don’t…think…about it…? I’m terrible at planning projects. The only comics I’ve finished so far were done in half hour spurts when I was bored and finished later on.

IKAF:3.) When was the last time you bought a comic anthology (or any kind of anthology)? Was there anything in particular that attracted or repelled you to that specific one?

Sarah Dan Bee Tulius: I’ve bought a lot of comics over the past couple years, but I can’t even remember the last time I bought a comic anthology…no wait! I bought a Papercutter anthology at TCAF in 2009. Now I remember. Sweating in that crowded library with so much amazing shit to choose from, I bought that one because it featured work done by Hellen Jo. I hadn’t seen any comics by Korean-American women up to that point and still haven’t seen many since then. At the time, I was also dealing with my twin sister moving to South Korea, so the creepy Asian sisters in her comic were appealing to me. I think I figured it would inspire me. Whether it did or did not, I’m not sure.

I also recently purchased a Food Studies anthology as I’ve pondered going into the field for graduate school. It’s titled From Betty Crocker to Feminist Food Studies: Critical Perspectives on Women and Food. I’m excited to read it as soon as I can pull myself out of this escapist fiction phase I’ve got going on right now.

IKAF:4.) What are some of the projects you are working on now?

Sarah Dan Bee Tulius: I have so many ideas, but it’s difficult for me to think of ways to execute them. I would love to start a comic with food and/or dream stories collected from other people or made up. I am obsessed with both topics. Although you can’t tell from my submission in GMN 4 (which is extremely goofy), I’m more of a writer. I might have to wait until Megan returns to collaborate with me. She is a much more skilled artist. A little kick in the butt from her and I’ll get things rolling again. I hope.

Good Minnesotan Interviews: Mayme Donsker

2010-09-30T05:32:00.000-07:00

With all of these GMN interviews, I have asked the artist to write a little something about themselves, a bio perhaps. Mayme Donsker has written an Artist Statement which gets into her beautiful drawings straight away. Take it away Mayme!

Mayme Donsker: I value the TIMELESS qualities in all things. Working with themes such as, connectedness, sensation, nature and loss, I render semi-autobiographical stories about the imagination of an artist who is longing so desperately for magic.

As I make work in the context of contemporary art I need to believe that ORIGINALITY is not restricted to any particular time or date, but it travels, connecting to any demographic, person or period.

My drawings are composed of MAGIC REALISM. The subject of my work relates to the tradition of Nineteenth Century Romanticism, while utilizing folk and contemporary drafting styles, inspired by artist Casper David Friedrick who's paintings illustrate man's idealistic relationship to nature.

I draw; DRAWING is an honest medium. I make drawings because I am stimulated by their evidence, a drawing's marks will show the artist's hand, the time it took, and even the artist's mistakes. When I draw, I hope that there is a trace of humanity embedded within the graphite. Drawing is a contemporary medium when it does not hide from conventional rule, that's when a drawing’s 'shoddy mistakes' become confident, interesting, and intentional. I see a contemporary path in the craft of drawing.

IKAF:1.) What do you do to make ends meet? Does this interrupt the output of your own creative projects, comics and otherwise?

Mayme Donsker: I Teach drawing, which I love! It keeps my eye and my mind sharp, I connect with the students and help them meet their goals in and beyond the classroom, I often forget that I am making ends meat! I am so grateful that I can make a living doing something meaningful and stimulating that does not take away from my studio practice, it only enriches it.

IKAF:2.) Is there something in particular you have done to balance your art and the need for monetary sustenance?

Mayme Donsker: It would terrific if my work could support me financially, but that's not the reason why I make work. I became an artist because I feel the most successful and the most fed when I can inspire and communicate things that need to be shown, instead of spoken.

IKAF:3.) When was the last time you bought a comic anthology (or any kind of anthology)? Was there anything in particular that attracted or repelled you to that specific one?

Mayme Donsker: The Good Minnesotan of course! Firstly, I am so proud of Raighne and Meghan Hogan for everything that they have accomplished with this beautiful anthology, that's what compelled me to pick up the book. In conclusion I found a number of outrageously talented Minnesotan illustrators and story tellers who can do two skillful things: render and tell.

IKAF:4.) What are some of the projects you are working on now?

Mayme Donsker: I like to make drawings about my relationship with music, I call the series "Love Songs". Since I have been living in Minnesota the lakes and woods have been a great setting for these scenarios. I am currently packing my bags for graduate school in Richmond, Virginia! We will see if the mighty James River and the blue ridge mountains become the next stage for more drawings about how music saves and heals... Oooh la la!

How to make Squishy Characters and Muscles in 3ds Max with Squishy Bones

2010-09-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

This is a repost of an article I did on eHow:

How to make Squishy Characters and Muscles in 3ds Max with Squishy Bones, An EHow Article By Me

This article will take you through the process of creating bones in Autodesk 3ds Max that have scalability, while preserving their volume.

These bones will have squash and stretch, ideal for muscles, or exaggerated cartoon-styleanimation.

1) Most rigs that make use of squishy bones also have a base skeleton made from non-scaling bones. It is easiest if you start out with a simple rig, but it isn't necessary for completing this tutorial.

That said, open up 3ds Max.

2) Pull down the 'Animation' menu at the top of the window, and then click on 'Bone Tools'.

A dialogue should appear that has several tools for editing bones. Near the top, there is a button called 'Create bones. Click it.
(Animation menu => Bone Tools => Create Bones)

3) Left click in the viewport of your choice in a spot where you want your muscle bone to originate. Move your mouse to where the bone should end, and left click again.

The tool isn't complete. it's designed to make chains of bones, so it's going to try to make another. Right click anywhere in the viewport to complete the tool.

This should leave you with one reasonably-sized bone, and one tiny nub. Both are necessary for the muscle to be complete.

4) Name your bones. Select each one individually, and rename it something that will allow you to easily identify it, I'm naming the muscle bone 'Muscle_Bone' and the end bone 'Muscle_Teminator'.

5) Before you close the 'Bone Tools' dialogue, you need to do one more thing. Select your muscle bone. Now, scroll down to the bottom of the 'Bone Tools' dialogue, and at the very bottom are the stretch options for the bone. make sure that 'Squash' is selected.

This will insure that your bone will always scale non-uniformly in a fashion that will preserve volume.

6) Under the 'Create' tab, in the 'Helpers' subsection, select the 'Dummy' tool. Click and drag in the viewport to create a dummy object, and then create a second one. They should be roughly within the same scale realm as the bones, but slightly larger.

(Create => Helpers => Dummy => click in viewport to create)

Name your dummy objects, one to indicate that it goes with the muscle, and one to go with the end. These dummy objects will serve as intermediary pieces between your muscle bone and the non-scaling bones in the rest of your rig.

I'm naming my dummy objects 'Muscle Dummy' and 'Terminator Dummy'.

7) Right click on the 'Snaps Toggle' button to bring up the Grid and Snap Settings dialogue. Uncheck everything except 'Pivot'. This is so you can position the dummy objects exactly onto the origins of the bones.

Hit 'W' to turn on the move tool, and position each dummy object so that its pivot is directly on its respective bone's pivot point.

8) I believe order of operations is very important for this part. Believe is the keyword, because anyone who uses software like 3ds Max for any extended period of time will end up very superstitious.

Select your muscle bone. Go to the 'Animation' menu, then 'Constraints' submenu, and then 'Position Constraint'. Click on the muscle dummy object.

(click bone, Animation => Constraints => Position Constraint, click dummy)

Select your end bone, and then apply the same constraint, constraining it to its dummy object.

9) Select your Muscle bone, and now go to the 'Animation Menu' again, and then to the 'Constraints' menu, and this time select 'LookAt Constraint'. Now click on the end dummy object, NOT the muscle bone dummy.

(select muscle bone, Animation => Constraints => LookAt Constraint => click the end dummy)

10) Your muscle/squishy bone should be ready to use! The easiest way to test it, is to drag one of the dummy objects around, the muscle bone should stretch and squish between the two dummy objects.

If you have a rig, all you need to do is link the dummy objects (not the muscle bone or end bone) to the bones you want the squishy bone to be in between.

Tips:

Be careful not to give your squishy bones too much skin weight, otherwise characters can sort of explode at certain angles.
Think anatomically. The best way to utilize the effect of squash and stretch is to think about how it naturally occurs. Biceps are a good place to experiment, or in the stomach region of a character.
Keep a mirror near where you're working, so that you have good reference.
If you really want to go all out and have realistic bones, muscles, and skinning, then draw a cross-section line around your arm, your leg, or any part of your body, and watch it deform when you bend it.

Warnings:

If you're doing animation for a game, make sure the pipeline you're using supports squishy bones, or bone scaling at all.
If you're doing animation for a game, make sure the pipeline you're using supports squishy bones, or bone scaling at all.

Hi!

2010-09-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

Hello all! This is Dan. I've recently been invited to participate in this blog, and as such, I've posted a short film (below) that I made a couple years ago. Hope you like it!

I feel like this little bit of animation pretty much sums up how a lot of modern artists feel about computers. They're like these horrible parasites, that just sort of suck all the time out of you right through your skin, and often times eat people up by grabbing them with tentacles. It always makes me so sad when I spend more time with a mouse than with my tablet or a sketchbook, and I think most artists can relate when I say that when I spend too much time on a computer, my drawing/painting skills start to suffer.

Deflated: Media Mail/Shmedia Shemail: Fun in Phonetics

2010-09-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

I want to fucking cry or scream.

Dramatic. I know. I do not feel that way right now. Not so much anyways. Yesterday I spent a good chunk of the day at usps.com looking at their small print concerning media mail. As a micro-publisher of Funny Books, this is an area that concerns me. USPS has not been doing so well for years, I am sure we all know this. Raising the price on the stamp has not been enough, they have proposed to shave off Saturday's as well. Where this all starts to concern me is that the Postal Service has also decided to start getting specific on the phonetics of what is media mail and more specifically, what is a book.

So, what is a book?

According to the free dictionary dot com, a book is "A set of written, printed, or blank pages fastened along one side and encased between protective covers." I like this definition.

Oh, and in case it isn't already obvious, I ship my books to Shenton supported shops generally through media mail to keep costs down as I eat the shipping costs to get to more shops. If I can no longer use media mail, then not only will I be eating shipping, I'll also be adding a healthy helping of shit to my plate- enough so that that may be all I eat.

Anyways, when you click on the "restrictions apply" button on the Media Mail option for the postage calculator at usps.com you get an expanded message which I have copied below:

Media Mail is not sealed against postal inspection. Regardless of physical closure, the mailing of articles at Media Mail prices constitutes consent by the mailer to postal inspection.

Media mail is used for certain types of books, films, manuscripts, printed music, printed test materials, sound recordings, play scripts, printed educations charts, loose-leaf pages and their binders consisting of medical information, video recordings, educational reference charts, and computer-readable media. Video games, whether on CD-ROM, diskettes, or similar software, or playable systems including computers, do not meet the standards for Media Mail. Storage devices such as "portable hard drives", "thumb drives", "flash drives", "jump-drives", and "USB drives" for use with computers are not eligible for Media Mail prices. For specific eligibility see DMM 173.3

That first sentence concerning inspection I found discouraging. When I went to the post office with thank you packages for supporters of our Good Minnesotan 4 fundraiser (via kickstarter) I was greeted by an inquisitive postal worker. Which was fine, good even. But then he began inquiring as to the contents of my packages with more gusto then was usual. I told him that they were weird art books, going off that dictionary definition of what a book is that I posted earlier.

As magazines and comic books are not eligible for Media Mail, I figure it has something to do with USPS's aversion to advertisements. Nixing advertisements from the equation and a comic book or magazine could be a book, could it not? This is my thinking when talking with the postal worker (to whit, a comic book is a type of book, in my, well, "book"), so I think I may be in the clear. Then again, I may not be. And more importantly, many comic book publishers, artists/self-publishers, and micro-comic publishers may have more to worry about. The profit margin on these small little suckers is about to shrink even further should these phonetical quibbles engorge themselves up the ass of the small press comics industry.

More on this later in the week. Also, art/words taken from Yearbooks by Nic Breutzman, Shaun Feltz, and myself.

Good Minnesotan Interviews: Martha Iserman

2010-09-24T06:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, back at it folks. Sorry for the delay.

Martha Iserman is a Minneapolis based fine artist with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in drawing and printmaking from the University of Minnesota. She uses ink and watercolor to render naturalistic aquatic creatures that she has imagined based on her own science studies. Her work is focused on the natural world due to a fascination with the biological sciences and her lifelong fear of sharks and water. She will be attending an exclusive graduate program in Monterey California in the fall for Science illustration.

IKAF:1.) What do you do to make ends meet? Does this interrupt the output of your own creative projects, comics and otherwise?

Martha Iserman: I work in a book factory laminating covers during the day and as a part time bartender/server at night. It very much interrupts my creative output, but it's become necessary to pay the bills. I prefer to only have one day job so that I can get artwork done, but I'm making a last push to save money this summer before I go to graduate school in the fall.

IKAF:2.) Is there something in particular you have done to balance your art and the need for monetary sustenance?

Martha Iserman: I found that it helps to actually schedule art time in as if it were a 2nd/3rd job. I made a time sheet on a clipboard and keep it in my studio. I can't say that I use it all the time (or a majority lately) but it's always there to remind me that I should be putting hours in. It also helps when I'm working on multiple projects over months to keep track of how many hours I've put in for each. Perhaps it's just part of my personality, but sometimes when I'm discouraged it picks me up a bit to see my efforts quantified on paper.

IKAF:3.) When was the last time you bought a comic anthology (or any kind of anthology)? Was there anything in particular that attracted or repelled you to that specific one?

Martha Iserman: Maybe I should be embarrassed to admit it, but I bought the Tori Amos 'Comic Book Tattoo' book last year. It was a nostalgic buy I think. Other than that, I don't buy comics really. I steal them from my brother and borrow from my boyfriend. I would like to get into independent comics more.

IKAF:4.) What are some of the projects you are working on now?

Martha Iserman: Right now my big project is moving to California for graduate school in September. I'm going to a science illustration program. Since I'll be getting there a few weeks before it starts I was hoping to start some sketch journal projects that I may want to work into a zine type product. I was planning on sending a few sketch journals back and forth with people in Minnesota to keep up an image dialogue for the 9 months I'm gone. Perhaps something will come of that!

Pickle

2010-08-04T10:45:00.000-07:00

It seems I have put myself in a bit of a pickle. I am currently hustling to finish GMN4 in time for MIX. IKAF shall resume after the 21st. Sorry for anybody that was especially keen for new content.

Good Minnesotan Interviews: Nicholas Breutzman

2010-07-26T10:31:00.000-07:00

Nicholas Breutzman is a cartoonist to keep your eyes on. His grasp of the medium often befuddles me in his delicious approach to pacing and subtle formalism expressed via his layout and design choices. While Nic has influences, he makes his comics uniquely his.

He also has a knack for drawing some ugly mother lovers- which, I must say is certainly endearing.

IKAF:1.) What do you do to make ends meet? Does this interrupt the output of your own creative projects, comics and otherwise?

Nicholas Breutzman: I work at a fucking book store with a retarded girl who calls me 'Mr. Cockroach'. She has been rather punchy as of late so I threatened to throw her down the stairs. She laughed it off. This totally destroys my creative output.

IKAF:2.) Is there something in particular you have done to balance your art and the need for monetary sustenance?

Nicholas Breutzman: I think moving away from New York City would help. Maybe I should live in my parents garage again...I got so much work done there. Hm. I wake up really early and draw before work. I am assisting Nick Bertozzi on a comic about jews. He pays me. Its just something that you have to deal with; discipline is a major part of being a cartoonist.

IKAF:3.) When was the last time you bought a comic anthology (or any kind of anthology)? Was there anything in particular that attracted or repelled you to that specific one?

Nicholas Breutzman: I bought this anthology call BJ Betty, put out by EROS. It has this story called "Queen Bitch of the Universe" by Wes Crumb that has a really hilarious drawing of three 'Hawkmen of Hunglo' fucking Queen B while floating in space. Classy stuff.

IKAF:4.) What are some of the projects you are working on now?

Nicholas Breutzman: I am almost done with Pornhounds 2, written by Sharon Lintz, which is going to be fucking AWESOME. Its about her battle with breast cancer while working as a copy editor at a porn magazine. I am planning on applying to grad school soon, the U of M Duluth graphic design program. Woop woop!

Good Minnesotan Interviews: Toby Jones

2010-07-22T00:36:00.000-07:00

Toby Jones is a filmmaker and cartoonist currently living in Minneapolis, MN. His other hobbies include eating desserts, video games, and being nervous.

Also, he has a short film after the break.... so be sure to click the "keep reading" link and you know, keep reading and watch the vid, it's pretty excellent!

IKAF:1.) What do you do to make ends meet? Does this interrupt the output of your own creative projects, comics and otherwise?

Toby Jones: I work at a movie theatre part time. This used to be in combination with a bakery, creating full-time hours, but it made me miserable and I had no energy/time to make comics and films, so I quit. Now I work about three days a week at the theatre, which is barely enough to cover my expenses. On the upside, I now have ample time to devote to projects and have become much more productive.

IKAF:2.) Is there something in particular you have done to balance your art and the need for monetary sustenance?

Toby Jones: Quitting the bakery. I was making more money there, but I decided that my art and time was more important.

IKAF:3.) When was the last time you bought a comic anthology (or any kind of anthology)? Was there anything in particular that attracted or repelled you to that specific one?

Toby Jones: The last anthology I bought was, I think, The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror #15. With Simpsons stories by artists like Jeffrey Brown, Jordan Crane, Sammy Harkham and Kevin H, it was a no-brainer.

IKAF:4.) What are some of the projects you are working on now?

Toby Jones: I'm working on the second issue of my autobiographical comic zine Memory Foam and a graphic novel for younger readers. I'm also continuing to develop and attempt to produce two feature film scripts. Additionally, I'm working with friends on a relaunch of the video game/art site Shineget.net. In between all these, Maddie and I are writing up episodes of a comedic local access/internet show we'd like to start shooting in the next few months.

Detective Murphly and the Case of the Bloody Boy Body from Toby Jones on Vimeo.

Good Minnesotan Interviews: Vincent Stall AKA King Mini International

2010-07-19T22:41:00.000-07:00

King Mini International is the vanity press house publishing a variety of pamphlets, mini comics, prints and scumbags. Sole employee, Vincent Stall, has overseen the drawing, printing, stapling and folding of nearly every pamphlet, mini, and print that KMI has published.

IKAF:1.) What do you do to make ends meet? Does this interrupt the output of your own creative projects, comics and otherwise?

Vincent Stall: I currently co-own the new media company PUNY with Shad Petosky. Every job interrupts personal creative output, time is such a precious commodity and there just isn't enough of it to go around. The balance just isn't work and money. There is also family and relationships, all of these elements are intertwined and can make for incredibly productive periods as well as the frustrating lulls. When I'm working I'm thinking about personal work, when will I get the time to work on that. It can be frustrating, but sometimes work informs the personal projects in ways that are unexpected, it is all about compromises.

IKAF:2.) Is there something in particular you have done to balance your art and the need for monetary sustenance?

Vincent Stall: I try and keep the two worlds as separate as possible which isn't always successful. Work does afford the luxury of working on personal projects that have a longer return on investment. Of late I have tried to work in the evenings 4-5 nights a week, some nights it may just be a couple of hours, others times five or six. I finally have come to accept this process and though not as concentrated as I would like it to be I'm happy to once again see some lingering projects beginning to be realized.

IKAF:3.) When was the last time you bought a comic anthology (or any kind of anthology)? Was there anything in particular that attracted or repelled you to that specific one?

Vincent Stall: The last anthology would have been Kramers Ergot 7 or Mome not sure. I was certainly attracted by the physical size of Kramers. It was an interesting experiment in scale.

IKAF:4.) What are some of the projects you are working on now?

Vincent Stall: Finishing up the story Things We Carry and working on the very late graphic novel Brass Tacks.

Good Minnesotan Interviews: Buck Sutter

2010-07-18T19:30:00.000-07:00

Buck Sutter takes and makes photo’s that are often dreary and dream-like at the same time. Otherworldly, in fact. They carry a texture and a grogginess as if you just work up and are not quite sure what it is you dreamed.

IKAF:1.) What do you do to make ends meet? Does this interrupt the output of your own creative projects, comics and otherwise?

Buck Sutter: I work at a museum full time in the evenings and take care of my 4 kids during the day! This, of course, does cut deeply into my creative time but I have become very efficient over the years.

IKAF:2.) Is there something in particular you have done to balance your art and the need for monetary sustenance?

Buck Sutter: As a photographer I have found that getting time squirreled away for larger projects has become more difficult and my latest tack has been to always carry a camera of some sort with me at all times.

IKAF:3.) When was the last time you bought a comic anthology (or any kind of anthology)? Was there anything in particular that attracted or repelled you to that specific one?

Buck Sutter: I usually don't buy art books or photography books seeing that I work in a museum I have become saturated with art and beauty.

IKAF:4.) What are some of the projects you are working on now?

I currently am working on getting my last four years of work separated into three sets. Dream Museum, Disturbed Landscapes, and Before I Could Remember... printing and showing. The last set will be for view at the 360 Gallery in Minneapolis in October.

Good Minnesotan Interviews: Daniel Moyer

2010-07-15T06:37:00.000-07:00

Daniel Moyer is a crazy talented artist who has had and kept the ability to stay on top of his shit in ways that make me green with jealousy. He is also a very funny man and I am glad to call him my friend. I think he is going to make a great dad.

I'm Daniel Moyer. I'm an artist hailing from the games industry. I like art, and I love to tell stories. I'm also very gassy. I think it might be the green tea.

IKAF:1.) What do you do to make ends meet? Does this interrupt the output of your own creative projects, comics and otherwise?

Daniel Moyer: I typically work for game companies and miscellaneous media companies doing 3D art. It pays the bills when I can find work. I tend to do freelance illustration and odd jobs when funds are low, though. Right now, I'm working for a company that does flight simulator-type software.

IKAF:2.) Is there something in particular you have done to balance your art and the need for monetary sustenance?

Daniel Moyer: I try to tie the two together. About four years ago, I made it my goal to WORK as an artist, and have been scrabbling to get good enough ever since. This tends to destroy personal projects, since I'm always doing something for 'the Man'. When, however, I get to a point where I'm committed to some personal project, there's almost no way to stop me from working on it in my free time. Obsession is something I suffer from on occasion.

Dan Moyer's Demo Reel from Daniel Moyer on Vimeo.

IKAF:3.) When was the last time you bought a comic anthology (or any kind of anthology)? Was there anything in particular that attracted or repelled you to that specific one?

Daniel Moyer: I think the last thing I bought that qualifies as an anthology would be a bundle of indie games that was released on Steam. I bought it because it had a bunch of indie games I'd been meaning to play, and because it was on sale (embarrassing, but true).

IKAF:4.) What are some of the projects you are working on now?

Daniel Moyer: 3D Stuff, mostly. I have all these ideas that may or may not ever get off the ground. I want to make a walk-through tour of my fantasy house, and I want to create a high-res character based on a world that a friend created.

Good Minnesotan Interviews: Will Dinski

2010-07-11T23:05:00.000-07:00

Will Dinski has knack for whipping out sharp looking mini-comics that use their form to their advantage. His mini’s are carefully constructed bite sized treats. Many of them can be viewed freely online.

IKAF:1.) What do you do to make ends meet? Does this interrupt the output of your own creative projects, comics and otherwise?

Will Dinski: I work as a print production manager for a very small marketing and consulting firm. We work exclusively with private colleges. Because we're so small, I end up wearing a lot of hats. It's a good job and I like the people I work with. By that, I mean they're good people. I've little in common with them and I don't think they totally grasp the kind of comics I make. But I've learned a lot working there that I've applied to my comics.

IKAF:2.) Is there something in particular you have done to balance your art and the need for monetary sustenance?

Will Dinski: I stick to a schedule. It's hard to work 40 Hours a week and then spend your free time sitting at another desk and stay focused. So during the week I try and work on less taxing activities. Like inking. But if it requires a great deal of focus, I try to save it for the weekend. I also, like to get up early before work and get things done.

IKAF:3.) When was the last time you bought a comic anthology (or any kind of anthology)? Was there anything in particular that attracted or repelled you to that specific one?

Will Dinski: Uh … probably MOME. Because Tom K. was in it, and he's a friend of mine. Honestly, that's pretty much the only reason I'll pick up an anthology. I try not to buy too many comics, because I'm a cheap bastard.

IKAF:4.) What are some of the projects you are working on now?

Will Dinski: In my experience, talking about your projects before they're finished is the most surefire way to sabotage any chance that they ever get done. So all my future projects I try to keep as secret projects.

Good Minnesotan Interviews: Eric Schuster

2010-07-08T09:26:00.000-07:00

In the numbering department of this interview series, I am now past my fingers and on to my toes (editor’s note: 12).

Lil Ric AKA Eric Schuster is a cartoonist and illustrator currently living in Minneapolis with a penchant for some mean bit art and messy brush line work that I really dig. Check him out on the internets. But be a doll and do this after the interview.

IKAF:1.) What do you do to make ends meet? Does this interrupt the output of your own creative projects, comics and otherwise?

Eric Schuster: To make ends meet, I work 35 hours a week at a day job, and this summer I'm also working an additional 20 hours at a second job and I've been doing a bit of contractor work for a previous employer as well. I'll also do freelance work if the project's really interesting or the pay's really good. All this absolutely interrupts my own personal projects.

IKAF:2.) Is there something in particular you have done to balance your art and the need for monetary sustenance?

Eric Schuster: I try to draw every day, even if it's just making a little progress on something. It doesn't need to be much to make me feel accomplished: a good set of thumbnails, some satisfying loose pencils, good finished inks on one panel. If I at least maintain a relaxed but consistent pace then it's not hard to work the day jobs, get out every now and then, and produce work. It's ultimately just responsible time management. And sleeping a bit less :-/

IKAF:3.) When was the last time you bought a comic anthology (or any kind of anthology)? Was there anything in particular that attracted or repelled you to that specific one?

Eric Schuster: Well I bought Good Minnesotan volume 2 at Spring Con, because it looked like a very nicely produced anthology that I knew to feature good local artists. Also, I had bought Good Minnesotan volume 1 at Fall Con (for the same reasons) and wanted to keep up with the ongoing series.

IKAF:4.) What are some of the projects you are working on now?

Eric Schuster: I'm working on a book called Godzillasuit where I do drawings and write-ups on the Godzilla costumes from the old Godzilla vs. Insert Monster movies. And I'm always producing more pages for my comic Nerve.

Good Minnesotan Interviews: Reynold Kissling

2010-07-06T21:22:00.000-07:00

Reynold Kissling sprouted from the fertile Texas soil in the mid-eighties and grew and grew until he was 700 feet tall. Then he fell over and landed in Minneapolis, where he got his BFA in Comic Art from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. His favorite hobbies include extreme looming and water purification. He has a website.

www.reynoldbot.com

IKAF:1.) What do you do to make ends meet? Does this interrupt the output of your own creative projects, comics and otherwise?

Reynold Kissling: I work on the sales floor at Target. It certainly does have a detrimental effect on my creative output from when I was unemployed, but being able to pay my bills is kinda nice. I mean, I draw on my days off, I draw before I go to work, I draw when I come home, and sometimes I even draw on my breaks at work, but my output has still definitely slowed. And that's just the reality of being a working cartoonist. You can't be in school forever, so you gotta learn how to work around your day job.

IKAF:2.) Is there something in particular you have done to balance your art and the need for monetary sustenance?

Reynold Kissling: Yeah I have a strict availability at work to ensure I have time to work on my comics, while still making enough to live (somewhat) comfortably. It's hard to resist the allure of more money, but I never forget which is ultimately more fulfilling.

IKAF:3.) When was the last time you bought a comic anthology (or any kind of anthology)? Was there anything in particular that attracted or repelled you to that specific one?

Reynold Kissling: To be honest I don't buy that many comics. I tried to keep a habit of buying something at least once a month, but I could never keep it up. It's hard for me to just walk into a store and pick something up without knowing whether it's good or not. Whenever I do that I ultimately pick up something with appealing artwork but that only takes you so far. I do typically enjoy MOME and Meathaus. I think it's just their overall aesthetic that I like.

IKAF:4.) What are some of the projects you are working on now?

Reynold Kissling: I am working on a graphic novella called "Pale Blue Dot", which follows the life of an alien who wants to be a pilot. It's slow going but it will eventually be finished. I'm also working on a short comic for an anthology called "HIVE V", featuring dragons and lots of psychedelic imagery. And finally I'm working on a graphic novel tentatively called "Nils" with the venerable Ed Moorman.