Arr

Unprepared, the big day passes like a Spaniard scraping the length of a reef
no plunder
arr

X-COM UFO Defense

Fun to hear someone spontaneously mention how great the original X-COM UFO Defense STILL IS.

Cartoonist NW win!

Two years ago I mentioned that I had been thinking about "blogging-up" my ideas behind deeply emotional politics, I was not incendiary enough to unload ALL of my politics but I was toying with the idea of letting some of my ideas filter out.

Partly as a result of Milt Prigee making a big impression on me this month, and partly as a result of the discovery that people were able to "get" my do-it-yourself-Editorial Cartoon concept, I am going to let more out of the bag.

Do-it-yourself-Editorial Cartoons allow you to "cut out" the Editorial that you disagree with and keep the Editorial comment that you want. This technique may result in dramatic Editorial Cartoons that do not generate lawsuits. This would make a low-budget cartoonist lifestyle possible.

The idea here is also to generate understanding between people of incompatible political views.

I am cartoonist of the month for Cartoonists NW. Thank you for voting, you are a great encouragement CNW.

This is NOT an Editorial Cartoonist

Milt Priggee used to be an Editorial Cartoonist. By his definition, an Editorial Cartoonist is a human employed by a Local Paper for the Editorial Page of that Local Paper. (caution - Milt includes some of his banned cartoons at his site - not everything is 3rd grader appropriate that you find at www.miltpriggee.com - not the normal NSFW, but NSFW because... "wow, that was edgy")
M. Priggee was the guest speaker last month for Cartoonists Northwest, as you can see by the caricature of this smiling person (see image) it was the best kind of a cartoonist presentation.
M. Priggee not an Editorial Cartoonist. There are only 10 remaining for the entire US. You can see Editorial Cartoons here (leftish) and here (rightish), so you might think that everything is fine. It is not.
"This little Priggee" * is not currently working in his chosen profession. However he is (almost certainly) "the MOST SUED Editorial Cartoonist evaarrr". Who would have thought that you could be sued for a cartoon expressing an opinion about lawyers? (normally a free citizen living in a dictator-free country cannot be sued for having an opinion, but, if you have artistic ability, a significant number of lawyers are pretty sure that you can be sued)
I will proudly hang on to (and frame soon) my prized caricature, made by "Mr. 12.2 million". Thank you Mr. Priggee.
Cartoonists Northwest meets on the third Saturday of every month (4-6 PM) at
Daniel Smith Art Supply
4150 First Avenue South - Seattle


* Milt does not actually deserve to be called a "little priggee"- I probably should have dropped this title for this talented and important not-editorial cartoonist - please do not sue me!

Emo Phillips

Emo Phillips dominates smart comedy, and rightly so, he holds 3 spots in GQ'S Top 75 jokes of all time.(numbers 44, 54 and 55)
I have loved his humor since it first dominated the college dorm that I was in when Emo's first album was released. (an album is primitive CD rom technology)
There was a good comedy performance in Bellevue this month in which Emo Phillips flawlessly presented the best religious joke of all time ... which he has been tirelessly telling over-and-over since the 1980s.

The best part of the evening is when Emo and I wrote a gag together.

I was early enough for the first show that I could stand in the fan line and get a signature on a poster. (I had been meaning to create a poster like this for years.)
Emo stared at the ink blots - and could not think of a worthy gag to accompany his signature. I enjoyed just standing near the Emo aura of funny talking about writer's block. Eventually I said, "I have tickets for your next show, that will give you an hour to think of something". Emo agreed, and I looked forward to standing in the fan line again to see what he might come up with. After the show he was still stumped, so I borrowed a line from his first album and said, "just tell me what you see when you look at the ink blot" (I think that I am terribly clever - the top ink blot is a Photoshopped inkblot-like-photo of Emo).
Emo replied "I think that this is the inkblot test for narcissism." "Then that is what you write. Perfect!" And that was what was written on my soon-to-be framed poster... along with: "Yours in Freud, emo phillips"

After the stimulation of working out a gag from my favorite comic over the course of the evening the final moments were spent confirming that narcissim is spelled n-a-r-c-i...
If you do not remember which number in the Rorschach the lower inkblot represents ... it is number 4 in the series... the upper inkblot is the test for Emo narcissism (the original inkblot reference is from a great joke somewhere near the "My Childhood, Yes" track on E=MO2)

Challenge to Emo:
Make another CD as Parent Friendly and amazing as your first.
(in the first CD there's no profanity, except when you try to unwrap it.)

Free Comic Book Day tomorrow (Saturday)

Quick reminder- also - wowio is participating with free comic downloads. I always liked wowio.

The Duck at rest

Florida Vacation next week. I am not good at planning vacations but I expect to excel at enjoying vacations. Unlike Donald in Hawaii, I will not be tenting.

Disney World Cruise pt 1

Looking forward to a vacation. I am going to take another swipe at the Jeff Hamill script too.

Jeff Hawley and Logjam

Jeff Hawley is a fine cartoonist and author of the uniquely NW comic “Logjam”
He has wowed his fellow cartoonists in the Seattle area for years. I am pretty sure that I have seen about a dozen of these ideas in-work in his sketchbook before most everybody else - One of the many benefits of showing up at a cartoonist NW meeting.

These are some of my favorites: tree humor
And my favorite trick is when main tree plays himself like a banjo
And he magically lifts himself (and others) off of the roots

NOTE:
Readers can now get Logjam comic strips delivered to their email. Go to the Logjam website to sign up!

Jeff Hawley is Jeff Hamil

This week only.
Jeff Hawley is Jeff Hamill. Jeff Hamill is the correct name for the Jeff who wrote the gag for "Wasp Bait", the single-panel-adventure-winner of the Cartoonist-of-the-Month recognition for the Cartoonists Northwest cartoon club. Congratulations Jeff, and condolences to the other Jeff for not being Jeff Hamill. I may post a version of the cartoon with the correct name at some later date.

I will say more nice things about Jeff Hawley next week. Things that will swing the pendulum back into the "true" direction.

Wasp Bait

I have had this idea from Jeff H for months. It took a while (and several versions over a long period of time) to get it almost right (or at least in a form that I could bring with me to the cartoonist meeting). The thumbnail that Jeff sent looked pretty good, and shows how Jeff was extending the gag to wasp puns and a wasp crowd and a lot more verbiage. I want to be true to the original so I kicked around several variations.
I finally decided that any version that I liked with a crowd would end up being a large detailed drawing. That is a good sign that, as a cartoonist, I am trying to do too much. Trying to do too much bogged the image down, became busier, and the puzzle was put on the back burner for a while.
Besides the crowd not working for me, the swarm was difficult as well. I went so far as to make a photoshop brush of a wasp. In my mind, I could shrink this to various sized, set brush controls, and have a swarm of wasps in no time. This is wrong. I really did not want to draw by hand more than 30 wasps, but the number came up to around 50 in the final image.
Even after I decided to simplify the joke verbiage, eliminated the "crowd of science" and made a swarm of 30 wasps (by hand) the gag was still over-detailed for a very small reproduction. I made one or two "close up" wasps to show my work in developing a stylized wasp. That did not work either. Big wasps look like monster wasps much more than they look like close-to-the-camera wasps.

Interesting challenge. I might come back later and try a version with the crowd. or not

The Cartoonist Northwest meeting will get to judge the simple version.

Saturday, January 16th, 2010 - 4 PM to 6 PM
Daniel Smith Art Supply
4150 First Avenue South in Seattle
Free to people reading this blog and their friends.

(and thanks Jeff, you write well)

My Cat

Per J. Scalzi, a science person:
The vast majority of blogs, in fact, have nothing but the following three posts:

Post One: “Here’s my blog! This is where I’m going to share all my thoughts about life, the universe and everything! It’s going to be great and I can’t wait to tell you all what I’m thinking about everything!”

Post Two: “Hey, sorry I haven’t updated in a while — life’s been crazy. But I’ll be back soon.”

Post Three: “Here’s a picture of my cat.”

And then it’s done.

Graduate meet Real World

Just Kidding - I wish 2009 graduates well.
Hiker link: here " recognize the difference between black bear and grizzly bear scat."

Star Trek

So good.

Now, I have to watch "Wrath of Kahn" again to make sure that it is still my favorite Trek movie.

Fan Rejected Movies

I was shocked at the level of dislike the fan base poured out on their movies this year. Listing from most deserving of dislike to Least deserving: "Watchmen" (there where whole blogs devoted to hating some of the scenes), "Wolverine", and last, "Dragonball Evolution". Sure, they were all bad. But, the only reason that "Dragonball" failed is that it replaced the fan-loved story with another not-as-good story. "Wolverine" was just slightly worse. Apparently super-strong adamantium is no match for super-weak-scriptium.

When a hero movie is made, there is a large group who want to see the hero. But, the movie has immature-adult-elements which remove the larger chunk of the built in audience from participating. For the remaining small group, the story is re-written in a way to directly annoy the fans. Many drop away. Finally, for the remaining small group, the story is re-worked so that it is odd enough and long enough and scattered enough to be practically unwatchable. The movie fails in many ways.

Oddly this does not matter to "Wolverine" which people rate, "pretty good" and pour millions of ticket sales into.

On the good side, "Star Trek" is up this Friday. Also on the good side: the Atomic Robo free comic was Tesla humor at it's best.

Free Comic Book Day tomorrow May 2nd

Free Comic Book Day is a single day - the first Saturday in May - when participating comic book shops across North America and around the world give away several select comic books absolutely FREE (with few stores that are exceptions) to anyone who comes into their stores. Linky with FAQ and a comic store locator here.

Pirate Defense

I won, yes I won at Pirate Defense.

Timing is everything

I think that I missed the opportunity to have a wide appeal with this Kong gag. I should have finished it closer to the time when flight 1549 made a splash. How short people's memories are.

quick recap of the Emerald City Comicon

Erik Thompson who has a style that I love - sat across from me all weekend, sometimes making faces and sometimes giving me some good ideas on process. A good man.
Bruce Timm who saved Batman from obscurity in the 1990s - sat just a few feet away from the CNW booth both days
Stephen Silver is the great character designer who sat next to me, his booth was partially obscured by the huge line that was there to see Bruce Timm, so I was able to talk to him more than I would have otherwise. He is a great person as well as a great character designer, very dedicated to being a dad, I was a fan before the comicon and a bigger one after having him to myself at the comicon.
There was a crowd of people from the cartoon club (Cartoonist Northwest) there (many with their own booths) and I promoted the club with Donna, Elizabeth and Roberta.
His crowd was too large for me to talk to him, but at least I was able to see what Humberto Ramos looked like. I rabidly consume his early work with "Impulse".
Have to mention my other favorites Phil Foglio and Aaron Williams who were there and I have linked to for over a year at Girl Genius and Nodwick. Greatness in stories.

Tonight I Blog

Emerald City Comicon was very very good. I sold my first magazine. Published 2 days before the con, for the con. I feel very good about my first attempt.