As always, I am preempting the Sunday Mailbag on the day after the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Awards  to list the results: Winners are in red:

TELEVISION ANIMATION

• Dave Filoni – Supervising Director / Production Designer, “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”
• Dan Krall – Art Director, “Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated”
• Scott Wills – Art Director, “Sym-Bionic Titan”

FEATURE ANIMATION

• Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders, Directors, “How to Train Your Dragon”
• Glen Keane, Animation Director, “Tangled”
• Nicolas Marlet, Character Designer, “How to Train Your Dragon”

NEWSPAPER ILLUSTRATION

• Sean Kelly
• Michael McParlane
• Dave Whamond

GAG CARTOONS

• Bob Eckstein
• Zachary Kanin
• Gary McCoy

GREETING CARDS

• Jim Benton
• Dan Collins
• Teresa Roberts Logan

NEWSPAPER COMIC STRIPS

• Brian Bassett “Red and Rover”
• Jeff Parker and Steve Kelley “Dustin”
• Richard Thompson “Cul de Sac”

NEWSPAPER PANEL CARTOONS

• Doug Bratton “Pop Culture Therapy”
• Chad Carpenter- “Tundra”
• Glenn McCoy “Flying McCoys”

MAGAZINE FEATURE/MAGAZINE ILLUSTRATION

• Lou Brooks
• Anton Emdin
• Tom Richmond

BOOK ILLUSTRATION

• Sandra Boynton “Amazing Cows”
• Jared Lee “The 3 Wise Guys”
• Mike Lester “The Butt Book”

EDITORIAL CARTOONS

• Bob Gorrell
• Mike Lester
• Gary Varvel

ADVERTISING ILLUSTRATION

• Anton Emdin
• Jack Pittman
• Dave Whamond

COMIC BOOKS

• Stan Sakai “Usagi Yojimbo”
• Chris Samnee “Thor the Mighty Avenger”
• Jill Thompson “Beasts of Burden”

GRAPHIC NOVELS

• Darwyn Cooke- “The Outfit”
• Joyce Farmer “Special Exits”
• James Sturm- “Market Day”

And the winner of the 2010 Reuben Award for ‘Cartoonist of the Year”:

• Glen Keane
• Stephan Pastis
• Richard Thompson

Congratulations to all the winners and the nominees!

The official ballots have been issued to all professional members of the National Cartoonists Society, and the nominees for the Reuben Award for “Cartoonist of the Year” are:

• Glen Keane
• Stephan Pastis
• Richard Thompson

Glen Keane is an animator, author, illustrator and director who’s credits include The Little Mermaid (Ariel), Aladdin (Aladdin), Beauty and the Beast (Beast), Tarzan (Tarzan) and most recently Tangled (Rapunzel) for Walt Disney Studios. He has recieved the received the 1992 Annie Award for character animation and the 2007 Winsor McCay Award for lifetime contribution to the field of animation. This is Glen’s first nomination

Stephan Pastis is the artist/writer/creator of  the daily comic strip “Pearls Before Swine”, syndicated by United Feature Syndicate. He won the NCS divisional award for “Best Comic Strip” in 2003 and 2006. This is Stephan’s third nomination.

Richard Thompson is the artist/writer/creator of  the daily comic strip “Cul de Sac” syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate, as well as an illustrator and cartoonist on other features. He is the creator of the weekly cartoon series “Poor Richard’s Almanac” which runs in the Washington Post, and his illustrations have appeared in numerous publications including U.S. News and World Report, National Geographic and The New Yorker. He has won NCS divisional awards for Magazine and Book Illustration in 1995 and Newspaper Illustration also in 1995. He won a Gold and a Silver Funny Bone Award in 1989 from the Society of Illustrators for humorous illustration. This is Richard’s second nomination.

The winner of the 2010 “Cartoonist of the year” will be announced on May 28th at the annual NCS Reuben Awards dinner in Boston, MA.

Congrats on the nominations!

Artwork by Patrick McDonnell

The nominees for the divisional awards from the National Cartoonists Society are officially announced:

TELEVISION ANIMATION

• Kevin Deters – “Walt Disney Prep and Landing”
• Mike Gray – “The Infinite Goliath”
• Seth McFarlane – “Family Guy”

FEATURE ANIMATION

• Ronnie del Carmen – Storyboard Artist – “Up”
• Tomm Moore – Director – “The Secret of Kells”
• Barry Reynolds – Character Designer – “The Secret of Kells”

NEWSPAPER ILLUSTRATION

• Bob Rich
• Tom Richmond
• Robert Sanchuk

GAG CARTOONS

• Glenn McCoy
• VG Myers
• Dave Whamond

GREETING CARDS

• Glenn McCoy
• Kieran Meehan
• Debbie Tomassi

NEWSPAPER COMIC STRIPS

• John Hambrock – “The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee”
• Wiley Miller – “Non Sequitur”
• Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman – “Zits”

NEWSPAPER PANEL CARTOONS

• Dave Blazek – “Loose Parts”
• Tony Carillo – “FMinus”
• Hilary Price – “Rhymes with Orange”

MAGAZINE FEATURE/ MAGAZINE ILLUSTRATION

• Ray Alma
• Anton Emdin
• Tom Richmond

BOOK ILLUSTRATION

• Lou Brooks – “Twimericks”
• Tom Richmond – “Bo Confidential”
• Dave Whamond – “My Think-A-Ma-Jink”

EDITORIAL CARTOONS

• Nick Anderson
• Rob Rogers
• John Sherffius

ADVERTISING ILLUSTRATION

• Steve Brodner
• Randall Enos
• Mort Gerberg

COMIC BOOKS

• Terry Moore – “Echo”
• Paul Pope – “Strange Adventures”
• JH Williams – “Detective Comics”

GRAPHIC NOVELS

• David Mazzucchelli – “Asterios Polyp”
• Seth – “George Sprott”
• David Small – “Stitches”

As previously announced, the nominees for The Reuben Award for “Cartoonist of the Year” are:

• Stephen Pastis
• Dan Piraro
• Richard Thompson

The winners will be announced at the 64th annual Reuben Awards on May 29th.

I am overwhelmed (and in fact in deep disbelief) to see that I am nominated in three different categories this year… surely there will be some sort of “hanging chad” controversy over it. Any nomination is of course a huge honor, and I am suitably humbled. Congratulations to all the nominees! You can see the list complete with links to images from many of the artists at the NCS website.

Sundays at the Reuben Weekend are always the most laid back and relaxed of the event. Any pressure of the shows, awards, speakers or other parts of the weekend are behind us and it’s time to just kick back and enjoy the company.

This year NCS luminary Cathy Guisewite generously opened her nearby home to the members for a backyard picnic dinner. She allowed everybody to tour her home, studio and guest house while the grounds were transformed into party area with catered Mexican food and cocktails. Needless to say, as one of the most successful cartoonists in the last several decades, her home was beautiful.

We had an opportunity to see her studio, which she had set up with a step by step of how she does her cartoons.

Cathy’s doppleganger is frustrated with work today

Here’s where Cathy draws her dailies

Here’s Cathy’s steps to doing a daily cartoon:

A close up of her light table

Sunday’s are also the day the sketchbooks come out and the cartoonists do drawings for other cartoonists, their spouses, kids, etc. The Lovely Anna has many scrapbook albums she has done over the years, and is not shy about accosting people to draw for her.

Minnesota illustrator Cedric Hohnstadt

Hallmark artist David Mowder

“The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee” creator John Hambrock

Animator Gary Goldstein

“Loose Parts” panel cartoonist Dave Blazek

“Ginger Meggs” Aussie cartoonist Jason Chatfield

Jeff and Melinda Keane

Cathy took a page from Mell Lazarus‘s book and had a giant urn and a smaller scale toy piano for the cartoonists to doodle on.

Me drawing on Cathy’s urn

I also got roped into doing the “blindfold” drawing that NCS photomaster David Folkman and company have been getting people to do for the last couple of years for the publication “Hogan’s Alley”. Patterned after a challenge some notable cartoonists did in the 40′s where they had to live up to their claim they could draw their characters “blindfolded”, and they were asked to do just that. They have artists do a drawing of their cartoon character blindfolded on the left side of a page, and then do the same thing without the blindfold on the right. Of course I don’t really have a “character”, so I drew Alfred E. Neuman. I really hate drawing Alfred cold because it’s very difficult to draw him right without looking at a picture of him… he’s got a bizarre asymmetry to his face that defies easy reproduction. I did it anyway… the blindfolded one turned out better.

Me doing a bad Alfred drawing

Us with our generous host, Cathy Guisewite

After a wonderful afternoon at Cathy’s we bussed back to the hotel and went up to a private event at a nightclub next door called “Level 3″, where we were treated to the sounds of Pulitzer prize winning cartoonist Michael Ramirez‘s band (who were fantastic) followed by the traditional karaoke.

Steve Silver, me and Keelan Parham

Lovely NCS ladies Melinda Keane, Barbie Parham, Heidi Silver and Anna

Jay Kennedy Scholarship winner Chris Houghton and his girl friday Kassandra

Karaoke NCS style

Another fantastic Reubens weekend. Many thanks to the board and especially to the hard working Jeff Keane for doing so much to make it so enjoyable.

As promised here are a frew pictures from the awards dinner last night at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles:

Bill Amend (Foxtrot) and Jerry Van Amerongen (Ballard Street)

Good friends Barbie and Keelan Parham

The Lovely Anna and I with new member James Hungaski and his wife Kelly

More good friends Steve and Heidi Silver

NCS President Jeff Keane (The Family Circus)

Mell Lazarus and Bil Keane (with Melinda Keane) accept their
NCS Hall of Fame “Gold Key” awards

Sam Viviano accepts his award for the Magazine Illustration division

Dave Coverly and his Reuben for “Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year”

Sam Viviano and me

The 2009 Reuben award dinner took place last night, preceeded by several seminars and tht traditional cocktail party. I’ll post some pictures a bit later today, but here is the list of winners:

TELEVISION ANIMATION

• Sandra Equihua and Jorge Gutierrez – Creators – “El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera”

FEATURE ANIMATION

• Nicolas Marlet – Character Designer – “Kung Fu Panda”

BOOK ILLUSTRATION

• Mike Lester- Cool Daddy Rat

NEWSPAPER ILLUSTRATION

• Mark Marturello

GAG CARTOONS

• Mort Gerberg

GREETING CARDS

• Jem Sullivan

NEWSPAPER COMIC STRIPS

• Mark Tatulli – “Lio”

NEWSPAPER PANEL CARTOONS

• Mark Parisi- “Off the Mark”

MAGAZINE FEATURE/MAGAZINE ILLUSTRATION

• Sam Viviano

EDITORIAL CARTOONS

• Michael Ramirez

ADVERTISING ILLUSTRATION

• Craig McKay

COMIC BOOKS

• Cyril Pedrosa- THREE SHADOWS

The Reuben award for “Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year” went to Dave Coverly (Speed Bump).

Friday at the Reubens usually features several seminars/presentations by guest speakers, followed by a welcome party. This year the speaker line up typically stellar with three presentations.

First up was Steve Moore. Steve is the creator of the syndicated feature “In the Bleachers” and the hit feature film “Open Season”. He talked about his experiences in translating “print” ideas and properties into other media including television and feature films.

Legendary animator Eric Goldberg spoke about his work and process. Eric worked on such Disney projects as “Aladdin”, “Rhapsody in Blue” from Fantasia 2000 and directed “Pocahontas” and “Looney Tunes: Back in Action”. He talked about his upcoming Disney film “The Frog Prince”.

Finally, movie poster artist extraordinaire Drew Struzan did a great presentation showcasing his work. Drew has illustrated hundreds of major movie posters, book covers, video game packaging and his work is instantly recognizable all around the world. He had a very informal talk that consisted of answering audience questions as his work was projected on the screen. He had lots of stories about working with “Hollywood” and some of the difficulties and challenges associated with that industry.

Illustrator Drew Struzan

Following the seminars was the welcome party, by the pool on the roof of the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel. It’s always fun to hang out with all these famous cartoonists and people you have admired your whole life. It does not get old.

Sorry I don’t have many decent pictures of the seminars or the party… I’ll do better today.

The Lovely Anna and I are headed out to Los Angeles today to attend the annual National Cartoonists Society Reuben Awards Weekend. As hard as I tried I couldn’t completely finish this book job I am working on so, as usual, I will be spending some time in the hotel room working on a job while I am there. No inking this time, though. Actually I decided to just do one more total all nighter and finish the book, with the exception of the cover which is still in review, before I left… so it’s all party now, baby. I will release details about the book when it’s permissible with the publisher.

I will be doing daily blogs from the weekend complete with pictures and reports, and will be doing live Twittering of the Saturday evening Reuben awards themselves announcing divisional winners and the winner of the “Cartoonist of the Year” as they happen… so follow me on Twitter (link in the blogroll on the right) to get the scoop.

Clockwise from bottom left: Jeff Keane, Mike Luckovich, Michael Ramirez,
Dan Piraro, Stephen Pastis, Dave Coverly, Steve Moore, Eric Goldberg,
Drew Struzan and Cathy Guisewite. Click image for a closer look...

For the last 6 years I have been honored to do an illustration for the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Awards Weekend that they use on the official T-Shirt and sometimes on the tote bags, programs, in the Reuben Journal, etc. Usually it has involved the guest speakers and some scene related to that year’s event location. This year the Reubens will be in Los Angeles, AKA “Hollywood”, so I went with a movie set theme, and in addition to the guest speakers cartoonist Steve Moore (In the Bleachers), animator Eric Goldberg, movie poster illustrator Drew Struzan and Pulitzer prize winning editorial cartoonist Michael Ramirez, we added award program emcee Mike Luckovich (another Pulitzer prize winning editorial cartoonist), NCS President Jeff Keane (The Family Circus) “Cartoonist of the Year” nominees Dan Piraro, (Bizarro), Stephen Pastis (Pearls Before Swine) and Dave Coverly (Speed Bump), and Reuben party hostess Cathy Guisewite (Cathy).

Above is the finished art, which was just released via a promo e-mail to members so I’m clear to share it here.

This is something I look forward to doing every year (or for as long as they want me to). The NCS has been very good to me and I am glad to do contribute back in even such a small way.

Here are the previous 6 years of Reuben illustrations. I don’t believe I have ever posted some of the older ones:

2008- New Orleans, LA

2007- Orlando, FL

2006- Chicago, IL

2005- Scottsdale, AZ

2004- Kansas City, MO

2003- San Francisco, CA

Sorry about that last one… the digital file disappeared into the black hole that was my destroyed hard drive some years back. This is a scan of a print.

Art by Sean Parks

The 63rd Annual National Cartoonist Society’s Reuben Awards weekend is shaping up for this spring.

The event will be held in Los Angeles on May 22nd-24th at the Renaissaince Hollywood Hotel. Guest speakers include “In The Bleachers” cartoonist Steve Moore, animator Eric Goldberg, movie poster illustrator Drew Struzan and Pulitzer prize winning editorial cartoonist Michael Ramirez. The Reuben Awards Master of Ceremonies will be another Pulitzer prize winning editorial cartoonist named Mike… Mike Luchovich.

As mentioned before, the finalists for “Cartonnist of the Year” are  Dave Coverly (“Speedbump”), Stephan Pastis (“Pearls Before Swine”) and Dan Piraro (“Bizarro”).

The NCS just released the nominees in the divisional categories:

TELEVISION ANIMATION

• Bryan Arnett – Character Design – “The Mighty B!”
• Ben Balistreri – Character Design – “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends”
• Sandra Equihua and Jorge Gutierrez – Creators – “El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera”

FEATURE ANIMATION

• James Baxter – 2D Character Animator – “Kung Fu Panda”
• Clay Kaytis – Supervising Animator, Rhino – “Bolt”
• Nicolas Marlet – Character Designer – “Kung Fu Panda”

BOOK ILLUSTRATION

• Jim Benton- Cherise the Niece
• Stacy Curtis- Raymond and Graham Rule the School
• Mike Lester- Cool Daddy Rat

NEWSPAPER ILLUSTRATION

• Lars Leetaru
• Mark Marturello
• Sean Kelly

GAG CARTOONS

• Pat Byrnes
• Mort Gerberg
• Werner Wejp-Olsen

GREETING CARDS

• Kevin Ahern
• Jem Sullivan
• Debbie Tomassi

NEWSPAPER COMIC STRIPS

• Stephan Pastis – “Pearls Before Swine”
• Mark Tatulli – “Lio”
• Richard Thompson – “Cul de Sac”

NEWSPAPER PANEL CARTOONS

• Vic Lee- “Pardon My Planet”
• Mark Parisi- “Off the Mark”
• Jeff Stahler- “Moderately Confused”

MAGAZINE FEATURE/MAGAZINE ILLUSTRATION

• Daryl Collins
• Bob Staake
• Sam Viviano

EDITORIAL CARTOONS

• Mike Luckovich
• Jeff Parker
• Michael Ramirez

ADVERTISING ILLUSTRATION

• Roy Doty
• Craig McKay
• Jack Pittman

COMIC BOOKS

• Chris Blain- GUS & HIS GANG
• Matthew Forsythe- OJINGOGO
• Cyril Pedrosa- THREE SHADOWS

Great to see my friend and mentor Sam Viviano with a nomination in “Magazine Illustration”.  The competition is fierce in these divisions and a nomination is an honor unto itself. The Lovely Anna and I will be rooting for him on the 23rd in L.A.!