Tonight is the reception for my show at the ToonSeum, part of the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh located at 10 Children’s Way, Pittsburgh, PA. The reception is from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. and is by invitation only, but if you are interested in attending contact Joe Wos at joe@toonseum.com.
I will be attending as will The Lovely Anna and all four of my kids (!!). Anna will be at her usual witty and charming self, my children will be good looking and above average as always, and I will hopefully not have any hors d’oeuvres in my teeth.
Saturday is the grand opening of the show, which runs through October 4th. It will feature a ton of MAD originals including preliminary sketches, inks and prints of final art in color.
Also on Saturday I will be conducting a workshop on caricature in the evening from 5 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. I will be discussing caricature theory, how to approach a caricature, what makes caricature for MAD unique and other concepts. The cost of the class is $50 ($35 for students and National Cartoonist Society members) and all the proceeds benefit the ToonSeum and its programs. You can sign up in advance here.
As I mentioned the other day, I will have a limited number of copies of my new (and first!) MAD book, Bo Confidential: The Secret Files of America’s First Dog available for purchase (at the $9.95 cover price, with part of the proceeds benefiting the Toonseum) and for me to sign. I am hoping MAD will also come through with a stack of issues for me to give away and sign as well but that’s still an unknown. I should be around most of the day on Saturday to meet people and answer questions (like “How did you enjoy that hors d’oeuvre that’s stuck in your teeth?”).
I make fun of thing because… well… that’s what I do, but I am honored and humbled to have been asked by the ToonSeum to headline a show like this. It’s a great privilege and I hope the show does well for them.
Just a few projects on the drawing board right now-
MAD Job- Two pager that is scheduled for issue 502… due in October sometime.
Scholastic Cover Illustration- Monday deadline… looks like I’ll be working a bit when in Pittsburgh.
iPhone App projects- Two of these in the works… an interesting idea and a possible new market for illustration. One is a maybe but one is a go involving over 500 caricatures. (!!!!)
Just finished this workplace poster illustration for The Marlin Company:
The above is a very rough pencil I did when at Comic Con in San Diego. I had to scan it at Kinko’s and e-mail it from my hotel, which is always a problem. Kinko’s cannot seem to scan anything as grayscale without screwing it up. It was barely legible. This is a scan I did after I go back to transfer it over to the board. The client liked the sketch but wanted me to have the two instructors interacting slightly more like they were discussing their annoyance at the ghost who doesn’t “get it”.
Click for a closer look…
Above is the finished illustration. I used some cheap PhotoShop effects to make the ghosts look… uh… ghostly.
Today’s sketch is a quick self portrait along with an update on my surgically repaired left shoulder. For those of you not familiar with the story I tore one of my left rotator cuff muscles lifting weights while on vacation in Jamaica… I blame the metric system.
I just passed 4 months since the surgery and while my doctor and physical therapist are very happy with the progress I am getting impatient. A few weeks ago I was cleared to start slowly strengthening my rotator cuff muscles, but I have a long way to go before my left shoulder will be stable enough for me to begin to work out with my left arm again. So far I have progressed to 2 lb weights on a variety of rehab movements, but I still am limited by pain and a lack of range of motion in some left arm movements.
The prognosis is that the 4th to the 6th month after surgery is usually where a lot of progress is made and things begin to get back to normal. However I was warned it will be at least 9 months from surgery before I will be able to start using the level of weights that will allow me to get back to bodybuilding.
In the meantime, I can’t do much about the scrawny left arm but I’m working on losing the muffin top.
I was just notified that the MAD book I did in a whirlwind back in May is being released a week or so early, and is in stock at Amazon.com right now although they project Monday, Aug. the 3rd as the delivery date for orders.
Too bad it was not ready in time for the San Diego Comic Con. However I will have copies in hand and available to buy and for me to sign at the opening of my show at the Toonseum in Pittsburgh this weekend. It will be the official unofficial first time the book would be available to the public, and the first chance I get to see the actual printed book as well. I’m very curious to see how it all turned out… or if it all was just a nightmare I had after eating spicy food.
After five full days here in San Diego, I am now fully reminded of what I love and hate about Comic-Con.
Definitely the coolest costume I saw at the con
I love the chance to meet artists and writers from basically every genre, see new and exciting projects and work, visit with old friends, meet new ones, attend panels and seminars that are informative and enjoyable, and most of all oogle and a mind-numbing amount of really cool toys and stuff.
I hate the crowds, the lines and especially… strollers.
I split my time this year between the booths of the National Cartoonists Society, the ToonSeum of Pittsburgh, DC Comics and a last minute “Super Capers” booth. It was great and I really appreciated those folks allowing me to set up and sign stuff, do some drawing, and even sell an occasional page of original MAD art. If I come next year, however, I will have to try and get a booth of my own if I can… it’s just too chaotic to drag my stuff hither and thither through that tumult. Besides, I plan on having my long delayed book on drawing caricatures done in time for the Comic-Con, so that gives me a good reason to have plenty of space. Note the underlined emphasis… I just gave myself a deadline.
The highlight for me was getting to walk around with my son Tom, introduce him to everybody and share in a little of the “COOL!” moments when we’d turn and corner and see some life-size prop of Iron Man or something equally awesome.
Tom at the Ultimate Alliance 2 Video Game Preview
Tom spent a lot more time in panels and such while I was busy signing MADs or whatever. His favorite panel was the Iron Man 2 sneak preview, for which he waited in line for two hours. His favorite thing about the new trailer? “War Machine… he was bad-ass!”
Big group of cartoonists out for dinner. From bottom left clockwise: Cagle.com’s
Daryl Cagle, Jenny Robb from the Ohio State Cartoon Library, Omaha Herald
editorial cartoonist Jeff Koterba, “Bonanas” and MAD strip cartoonist John Kovaleski,
“The Flying McCoys” cartoonist Glenn McCoy, Illustrator/cartoonist Sean Parkes,
caricaturist and voice actor Piotr Walczuk, animator/cartoonist Rich Moyer, “The Family Circus” cartoonist Jeff Keane, Number One Son Tom, Me, cartoonist Susie Cagle.
As for the bad… let’s just say the SDCC would be the greatest event ever if it was exactly as it is but with half the people there. It really is sometimes impossible to simply walk twenty yards down the floor hall. The only crowds I’ve ever seen to compare to it was at the 1996 Olympics in downtown Atlanta. You need to mentally prepare yourself to accept the reality of 126,000 people crammed into one building and exercise the patience required to handle this. Sometimes that isn’t easy.
Finally, here’s my rant on strollers: We all know wheelchairs are a necessity for people who cannot move about on their own, and every possible accommodation must be made for attendees who are in wheelchairs. Strollers, however, are a convenience and should not be allowed in the convention center. Seriously. If you have a kid who is so young he or she requires a stroller in order to get through the day DON’T BRING THEM TO COMIC-CON!! Those things are a major hazard to life and limb in that crush of people. This coming from a man with four children who has pushed strollers an estimated 450 million miles… but never at Comic-Con. Wouldn’t dream of it.
Otherwise SDCC is something every comic book fan needs to experience once in their lives.
This is a question from a while back that I thought was timely to repost today:
Q: It’s obvious that networking is a very valuable practice in the cartooning and illustration world, but are situations such as a comic-con or other gatherings of that nature an appropriate venue to try and foster such contacts? Those with booths and tables are likely there primarily to sell their own work, so would they view that sort of thing as an annoyance or an opportunity?
A: Comic cons are weird animals, to be certain. I actually haven’t been to that many cons, but I think I know what you are driving at. You want to know if it’s worth attending a comic con as a way to network in the pursuit of bigger and better things.
The short answer is that it depends what you want to get out of it. If your goal is to directly find and pursue work, then you will likely be disappointed. If your goal is to get people in the industry to know who you are and to in turn get to know people, then comic cons are a great place to be.
Like any large gathering of people from a single industry, there are a wide variety of types of individual in attendance at a comic con. As you observe, a lot of artists are at these conventions to make a buck selling their latest self published comic or book or what have you. In fact, the majority of those in attendance are selling something. A few are there to promote their latest project they have produced themselves or for a publisher. Some just go to meet their fans and to socialize. A small few are editors or art directors and of them almost none are interested in seriously considering an artist’s portfolio, although some may look to be polite. There is almost zero direct contact for work going on at a comic con.
That’s not to say it’s not worth attending one. As you observe, networking itself is valuable. It’s smart to get out of your cave and meet other people in the industry. Not everything has to be about getting jobs… just getting to know people and have them know of you and your work is a good thing. In that context, comic cons are great. They are highly social, and you can burn through a good stack of business cards over a weekend.
Comic cons used to be places where aspiring artists brought their porfolios to show editors of comic book publishers. There would be set times for portfolio reviews, and long lines of eager artists with bad Batman drawings under their arms. Not so anymore. While people do bring their portfolios around to cons it is more about asking for opinions on the work than the pursuit of work. Editors don’t go there looking for talent.
If you are looking to do some networking, go to one of the smaller cons as opposed to the big one in San Diego. It’s easier to meet people at the smaller shows. Have a promo piece/postcard made up to give away. Introduce yourself about. If you keep your eyes and ears open you can learn a lot about the type of projects and work going on, and that might apply to some ideas of your own.
Actually I have to revise my thoughts on this a bit after attending the San Diego Comic-Con this year. This show in particular has a great deal of panels and seminars on getting into the business, what you need to have and show in your portfolio and instructional seminars on a variety of subjects and techniques. There are also a few structured portfolio “talent search” sessions by companies like DC which are obviously good places for feedback. I still stand by my opinion that very few publishers come to something like Comic-Con LOOKING for new talent, however.
Thanks to Patrick LaMontagne 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!
A big thanks to the many (okay… sevaral… okay… three) folks who came looking for me at one of the booths I was at on Friday at the Comic-Con. Great to met you and I am glad you enjoy the MAD Blog.
I was so busy drawing and meeting people yesterday I barely got to do anything at the con itself, but I had to sneak away and catch the presentation done by Pearls Before Swine creator Stephan Pastis. Pearls is one of those comic strips that makes me laugh almost every day, and while I enjoy and appreciate many strips that is a rare thing these days… and I’m not just saying that because Pastis owes me money. I shot a short video of part of his presentation. It’s practically worthless as you cannot see the cartoons he’s projecting, but here it is anyway.
He’s explaining several strips he did making fun of The Family Circus cartoon strip. On the chair next to me happened to be Jeff Keane, the son of Family Circus creator Bil Keane and the current writer/artist of the long running strip. Jeff is also a good friend of mine and of Stephan’s, so when Stephan was asked by an audience member if any of the strip creators he’s poked fun of has gotten upset, he said they have (mostly) all loved it and pointed Jeff out as one who did. To this Jeff yelled in reply: “SCREW YOU, PASTIS!” Those crazy cartoonists!
Number One Son Thomas also saw a panel on the TV show “The Big Bang Theory” with all the show’s stars which he said was hilarious.
Today I will be at the National Cartoonist’s Society booth from 9:30- 11:00 and then again from 12:30 -2:00 (going to catch the highly entertaining “Quick Draw” panel) and then again at the Toonseum booth from 2:00- 4:00. Not sure what is up after that.
While Number One Son Thomas went to varied World of Warcraft/Halo/Gaming panels I signed copies of MAD and did sketches at the DC Comics booth with fellow MAD man John Kovaleski and did caricatures and pimped some MAD originals at the NCS booth. Here are some pictures from Comic Con:
I think that guy is a little too curious about Bumblebee’s plumbing…
Here’s my signing schedule for the rest of the weekend:
Friday:
10-1- National Cartoonist’s Society Booth (1307)
2-4- The ToonSeum Booth (Mezzanine 8 )
Saturday:
2-4- The ToonSeum Booth (Mezzanine 8 )
4:30-6:30- National Cartoonist’s Society Booth (1307)
Sunday:
11:30-12:30- DC Comics Booth
12:45-5:00- Supercapers Booth
That last one is a maybe, as the creators of the Supercapers movie MIGHT have access to a booth for the day on Sunday.
Hey, I am only the 100,000th blogger to be blogging “live” from San Diego during Comic-Con! Woot!
For anyone who might be interested, I will be drawing caricatures and have original pages of MAD art for sale at the National Cartoonist’s Society booth (pictured above, space 1307) for a few hours every day, and be doing the same at the ToonSeum booth on the mezzanine level, space 8. No set schedule for either place.
Otherwise I will be hobbling around desperately looking for a place to sit down the rest of the weekend.
As promised, here is my sketch of the great Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes and Edward Hardwicke as Dr. Watson from the Granada TV series. I have been enjoying the show on DVD. Brett creates one of the greatest and most convincing portrayals of the Great Detective ever, and he deserves all the accolades he has garnered for his work.
Tonight is the reception for my show at the ToonSeum, part of the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh located at 10 Children’s Way, Pittsburgh, PA. The reception is from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. and is by invitation only, but if you are interested in attending contact Joe Wos at joe@toonseum.com.
