I am extremely busy right now and the “sketch o’the week” posts for the next few weeks may be well short of ambitious. This week’s subject is actor Ben Affleck, a quick and loose study from a very old entertainment magazine I came across in the studio.

Pittsburgh’s ToonSeum is having it’s annual fundraiser early next month. From Toonseum:

Friday June 5th:

KA-BLAM! A party to benefit the ToonSeum.

Join us Friday June 5th from 7pm-11pm, at Verno Studios on the Southside to support the ToonSeum, Pittsburgh’s Museum of Cartoon Art.

Featuring live music by the Whips, DJ Raw-Z, Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, live cartooning, the opportunity to bid on one of a kind cartoon art and unique experiences, free comics and much more!

Tickets are just 35 dollars online at brownpapertickets.com

Entertainment and Activities

Live music by The Whips!

Performance by burlesque entertainer Paige Turner

Music and dancing with DJ Raw-Z

Live cartooning

Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School Life Drawing sessions

Make your own superhero mask

Free comic books

and introducing- The Megaton Martini! Woo!

One of Kind Auction Items

Original art from Dan Piraro (Bizarro), Molly Crabapple, Mike Peters (MotherGoose and Grimm), Wayno, Rob Rogers and many others. Production art from popular shows including Sesame Street, Dragon Tales, and Yogi Bear.

Unique experiences including dinner for six at Gypsy Cafe with filmmaker and Pittsburgh icon Rick Sebak.

Your cartoon portrait drawn by MAD Magazine artist Tom Richmond.

Bad girls night out, tattoo, and a night at the roller derby.

Cartooning workshop for 10 people.

Comedy workshop and time on stage at a comedy club.

and lots more one of a kind opportunities and items.

Get your tickets now and support
the ToonSeum!

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/63943

---

Can’t attend but you would still like to support the cartoon arts?
We welcome your donation:
The ToonSeum
10 Children’s Way
Pittsburgh, PA
15212

I donated a caricature drawn by me of the winning bidder (big deal!).  If you are in the Pittsburgh area stop in and bid on some of the original cartoon art and other great items to help support ToonSeum.

Last October I was privleged to be part of a group of cartoonists who traveled to Washington D.C. and then on to Landstuhl, Germany to visit with and draw for wounded U.S. soldiers. Those who went on the trip with me were Chip Bok, Jeff Keane, Rick Kirkman, Mike Peters, Bruce Higdon, Jeff Bacon and Stephan Pastis. The trip was an incredible experience.

Last month another group of 8 cartoonists made the same trip. Bill Amend (Fox Trot), Jeff Bacon (cartoonist for Navy Times and Marine Corps Times), Dave Coverly (Speed Bump), Jack Davis (Mad Magazine), Bill Hinds (Tank McNamara, Cleats, Buzz Beamer),  Jef Mallett (Frazz), Michael Ramirez (editorial cartoonist for Investors Business Daily) and Rob Smith Jr. (editorial cartoonist for Glen Beck) made the trek this time, visiting convelesing soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital and Bathesda Naval Hospital in the D.C. area, then Landstuhl Medical Center and other U.S. military medical facilities in Germany. You can read a bit about their trip here. I know they had an amazing trip… it’s impossible not to become emotional seeing these young men and women who have given so much for us and our country. They are all heroes.

These trips are great and I hope they will continue. Jeff Bacon is the man who has gotten these things organized, funded and overseen. He deserves a big hand:

Q: I’m just wondering if there are any particular syndicated strips that you are a fan of (past and present), what you think of their decline with the newspaper industry, and how you feel about the growth of web comics?

A: I was a huge fan of Bloom County back in the 80′s. That strip consistently made me laugh. I also liked Peanuts, B.C. and enjoyed many other strips as well. I also liked Calvin and Hobbes but that was popular right at the wrong time for me… it ran during my college years, my marriage, move to Atlanta and the births of three of my kids. I don’t even think we had a newspaper subscription all those years, so my C & H diet was sparse.

Today I like a lot of strips, my current favorites being Pearls Before Swine (and I’m not just saying that because I owe Pastis money) Zits, Baby Blues, Speed Bump and Lio. There are many others I enjoy but those are the first ones that come to mind. The Lovely Anna is the comic strip nut in the family. I get two papers so I can read how much the Minnesota Twins stink in two different sports sections, and she gets two sets of comics.

The best strips for me are the ones that combine great writing and great art. Cartoon strips are all about the writing… great writing and mediocre or even just passable art still equals a great strip. Bad writing and great art still make for a bad strip… great art cannot save bad writing, but great writing can survive bad art. When the two combine, like in Calvin and Hobbes and Zits, it’s magic.

Web comics…. that is a real can of worms in the cartooning world right now. The dynamic of the business of comic strips is changing as newspapers die off and the main source of mass consumption of news and entertainment gradually moves to the internet. In the newspaper/print cartoon strip business model, strips are chosen, promoted and sold to newspapers and publications by a “syndicate” like King Features or Universal Press. For the last 100 years cartoonists who “make it” have their strips chosen by third parties, i.e. comics editors, for syndication. There is a certain validation and accomplishment to that… so many people try out for strip syndication but few ever make it, and even fewer become a 500 to 1000 paper monster. Web comics cut out that independent party that decides if a comic is “good enough” to be syndicated (i.e. published). Anyone with a computer, internet connection and a web host can “publish” their comic strip on the web. Web cartoonists either don’t make any money from their work, or make money indirectly selling merchandise and printed collections to their readers. As far as I know, only Michael Jantze‘s The Norm is a subscription based web comic… and that one doesn’t really count as he was successful in syndication first before moving to the web.

There are lot’s of bitter and heated debates going on in cartooning forums about print vs. web cartooning. For the sake of simplicity, let’s call the two types “print cartoonists” and “web cartoonists”.

Many print cartoonists feel that web cartoonists aren’t legitimate professionals because they did not pay their dues by breaking in to a print medium that is notoriously difficult to get into. Some feel without an independent party (editor) to decide a strip is worthy of syndication, there is no validity to a claim of being a “professional” strip just because it’s on the internet. Some traditional cartoonists cite that no one actually pays to read these strips, but rather those few that actually make a living doing a web comic sell T-shirts and other stuff to a small (comparatively) but loyal following.

Some web cartoonists, on the other hand, accuse traditional cartoonists of clinging to a dying business model, and of not acknowledging the excellence of some web comics simply because they are not published in a newspaper. Many are unhappy because they feel that their genre of cartooning is not recognized by organizations like the National Cartoonists Society. They argue that the editors that pick the strips don’t know what’s good and what is not, citing what they consider to be terrible strips filling the comics pages, including moldy oldies that have not been funny or relevant for years. Some feel they are quite simply being snubbed and left out of the party.

I think each side has valid points and each side is also in the wrong on some points. It’s true that with no one to tell a cartoonist his or her strip is good or not, anything can get “published” and the majority of web comics out there are amateur work…. bad writing, bad art, bad execution, poor professionalism. However it’s not true that ALL web comics are like that. There are many I’ve seen that are as good as the best in the newspapers. It’s not true that syndicate editors don’t know the difference between a good and bad strip, although it might be more accurate to say they know the difference between a strip that will SELL and one that won’t. The “good and bad” of a syndicated strip is mainly in personal taste. Even a strip you might hate in the comics section is done with a level of professionalism that most web comics do not equal. A lot more goes into a strip than just a gag and some funny pictures… layout, storytelling, design, execution… these are all things that are of a professional level in syndicated strips. Syndicate editors make sure of this. Many web comics have good ideas and funny gags and even good art, but suffer from poor draftsmanship, layout, etc. Finally the idea that there are no worthwhile web comics is just plain wrong. There are some excellent ones out there, it’s just that there is no simple delivery system to find them as easy as a daily newspaper sitting on your doorstep in the morning.

My take on web comics is that while the web is definitely the future of comic strips, it’s still in its relative infancy. 95% of the web comics I’ve seen are amateur at best, and the best ones seem geared toward computer geeks and gamers, which makes sense as they are still the majority of those who spend their time on the web. I’m not their target audience, so few web comics appeal to me. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate and respect the good ones.

Eventually someone will figure out how to make real money with web cartoons, then you will see traditional cartoonists jump to the web and the competition will become much more fierce there. That won’t happen until the majority of consumers start getting their news and entertainment from the internet, but that day is coming one way or another. Eventually web comics will just be comics, but the delivery system will be different and the appeal of comics that make it on the web will have changed. There might be “editors” at central web portals that pick comics to run, or the marketplace may decide which ones are successful and which are not. Either way only comics with a strong mixture of commercial appeal, good content and concept and professional execution will be successful.

Thanks to Curtis Horsburgh for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!

Shadowhare… NO MORE! Dept.

Readers may remember my posting this little piece about “real life superheroes” patrolling the streets of our cities making life… uh… safe for citizens. The news piece I linked to specified several heroes and one in particular, “ShadowHare” from Cincinatti, OH.

Well, it seems Shadowhare is being targeted by a gang of supervillians and a reward is being offered by the evil mastermind ‘The Dark Side” for information about Shadowhare’s secret identity. He’s serious… he posted it on Craigslist:

Hard to believe it never occurred to the Joker to advertise for Batman’s secret identity on Craigslist in “The Dark Knight”… somebody would have squealed. Of course, if I was the Joker I’d have just called up Michael Gough, who would have promptly let him into the batcave like he did everyone else who happened by in the first four movies.

TMZ reports that the mysterious “The Dark Side”, a member of the dreaded “Consortium of Evil“, could not be reached by telephone as the number to his secret underground Lair of Evil is unlisted.

Apparently the Consortium of Evil’s 401k must have been gutted by the recession, as ten bucks is not exactly one MEEEEEEEEELLION dollars. Could there be a disgruntled sidekick ready to cash in on Shadowhare’s secret, thereby putting his family and loved ones in harm’s way as targets for the revenge of all the scum he’s sent to the slammer?

You just can’t make this stuff up.

Oh… wait. They’ve been making this stuff up since 1939!

I did the above doodle for Gillian Anderson‘s cause fighting neurofibromatosis some weeks ago, as part of National Doodle Day. National Doodle Day is an annual event where dozens of doodles are auctioned off to raise funds to benefit NF, Inc., an organization dedicated to providing support to individuals and families affected by neurofibromatosis (NF).

Neurofibromatosis is a genetic disorder that affects one in every 2,500 births. NF is more common than Cystic Fibrosis, Muscular Dystrophy and Huntington’s Disease combined. Funds raised from the Doodle Day auction will go to support education, advocacy, coalitions, and research for treatments and a cure.

The auction is on! You can bid to win my original drawing of Gillian and an alien Alfred E. Neuman HERE, and at the same time support the fight against neurofibromatosis. If you don’t like my doodle, you can bid on dozens of others done by actual celebrities like Gillian herself, Steve Martin, the late Dom Deluise, Mike Peters (Mother Goose and Grimm), Clive Barker, Chris Carter (The X-Files creator, not the Ex-football player) and many others.

Happiness is a Warm Carcass Dept.

I ran across this on MAD production artist Ryan Flander‘s Facebook page. Like him I think it’s unbelievable:

Tauntaun Sleeping Bag

My favorite parts are the intestine print on the interior lining and the disemboweling light saber zipper pull…. and the fact that the kid in the picture is smiling pleasantly instead of screaming in terror. Nothing like snuggling your young Jedi up in the simulated stinking carcass of a dead tauntaun at bedtime. Sweet Dreams!

In fact it is unbelievable. It’s a April Fools prank. Apparently they do something like this every year on ThinkGeek.com. Brilliant, though.

Okay, so after last week’s dismal failure to get a likeness of Amy Adams I had to take another crack this week. These two quick studies are much more successful. Part of the elusiveness of her face is her chin and jawline. Some angles make them seem very prominent and strong, but in reality she has a bit of a week chin and slight underbite. She has very large eyes and a sharply angled nose. This time I used several different pictures at various angles to compliment the two pics I used as the basis of these sketches.

I officially wash my hands of Amy Adams caricatures. No doubt my next MAD movie parody assignment will be a film with her in the lead role.

Here’s a 1/2 page spot I did for this month’s issue of Library Journal:

Click for a closer look…

The story it accompanies is about magazines that are popular with teenage kids. I likely got the job because MAD happens to be one of the magazines they list in the article. They wanted a teenage boy and girl reading these magazines. Here’s the initial pencil sketch:

The consensus was they wanted a high impact statement, having the kids reading the magazines but surrounded by high tech toys and other things kids are known for spending their free time with, which they are ignoring in favor of the magazines. They also wanted me to make the kids more “urban” (i.e. not white). The second sketch:

I was able to salvage the girl’s body but the boy I wanted looking more laid back and cool. Plus I needed the image in a more horizontal form factor. Final inks:

You can see the final color illustration at the top of the post. I dropped in approved cover images of the various magazines. Yet another piece in my “colored line” style which is art directors seem to like.

We interrupt this blog for a brief note today to update anybody who might be interested (that’s you, mom!) about the progress of my recovery from rotator cuff surgery.

Friday I met with my surgeon for the “six weeks after surgery” exam. The good news is that I finally got to ditch the sling my left arm has been languishing in for the last month and a half. The bad news is that my left arm no longer resembles the one in the above sketch, but looks more like the arm of a 12 year old girl. It’s amazing how fast 7 years of intense bodybuilding can disappear in a mere 6 weeks of total inactivity. My doctor was very happy with how well my arm was moving, and cleared me to lose the sling and to move ahead. I was told that six weeks is a sort of magical amount of time with respect to the body healing, especially for reattaching tendons. Barring any accidental reinjury of the repaired area during that period of recovery, the tendon is fully reattached to the bone after that amount of time.

The next phase, also six weeks, involves continued work on recovering range of motion and flexibility, and gradually moving on to active therapy where I start to use the rotator cuff muscles using only the weight of my arm to build up strength If all goes well, around the middle of June I will be cleared to start light weight training with the rotator cuff.

Maybe the worse part is that my shoulder turns 43 years old today… along with the rest of me, come to think of it. Getting rid of that sling was a nice birthday present… I was getting very tired of it.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming…