December 7th, 2008 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: You have a great skill for likeness, Every time that I look at your “park” caricatures I can really see the likeness in it. But, if you were asked to do a “realistic” illustration of someone, do you think you would be able to “carry their likeness” to the illustration? I’ve always felt that, a great caricaturist can be able to be a great portrait artist. How do you feel about this matter? Is it harder to do an portrait than to do a cartoon? or its the contrary? A: I read or heard a quote by someone somewhere once that described a caricature… READ MORE
December 6th, 2008 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Finally recovering from what might be to date the toughest assignment I’ve ever gotten from MAD in terms of complexity of the job and shortness of deadline… with Thanksgiving and my grandfather’s funeral tossed in. This bonus sketch o’the week is another very quick study I did but ended up not using on a recent job. It’s of conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. READ MORE
December 5th, 2008 | Posted in General
My “job shadow” watches as I ink a MAD job I do a fair amount of speaking to local middle school, high school and occasionally college classes about cartooning and illustration… usually a handful of times a year or so. I also host internships for college art students at my theme park operations where they work as caricaturists for the summer and get college credits. This past week I did something I’ve never done before: “job shadow”. Job shadow is a high school program where a student finds a professional working in whatever field interests them and then “shadows” them on the job for all… READ MORE
December 4th, 2008 | Posted in General
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December 3rd, 2008 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Still killing myself working on a brutally involved, short deadline job for MAD, so no time this week for a proper “sketch o’the week”. Here is a quick study of former vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin done as a preliminary part of an upcoming project. READ MORE
December 2nd, 2008 | Posted in News
One last post on the Orphan Works / Illustrator’s Partnership front, then no more for a while, I promise. It’s hard to believe, but the Graphic Artist’s Guild, that venerable organization that is supposed to be looking out for the needs and rights of artists everywhere, is actually suing the Illustrator’s Partnership of America and five specific defendants for damages of a million dollars for what they call “defamatory public comments about GAG’s activities and use of industry reprographic royalties”. I have tried to read up on the issue, which involved funds the GAG has apparently been collecting for years for “reprographic royalties”, which are… READ MORE
December 2nd, 2008 | Posted in News
Used with permission Regular readers of my blog know I have been very vocal in opposing the Orphan Works Act in it’s various forms. It’s my opinion that only someone with another agenda to serve would believe this law is a good thing for anyone but those seeking to use intellectual property without paying the creator for the right to use it, or those who want to profit by forcing those creators to pay to register all their work in private databases. The poor excuse of being able to legally copy great grandma’s wedding pictures and to archive deteriorating creative works is not enough to… READ MORE
December 2nd, 2008 | Posted in General
More background info and history on the Orphan Works Act: FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP Orphan Works: A Lame Duck Countdown: Part II. The Legislative Blueprint 12.02.08 The “legislative blueprint” for the Orphan Works Act was not drafted by the Copyright Office after their year-long Orphan Works study, but before it, by law students at the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic. Their Copyright Clearance Initiative (CCI) is the document that first proposed the “limitation on remedies” that would radically change international copyright law. From page 5 of the CCI proposal: “Under no circumstances will Sec. 504(c) statutory damages, attorney’s fees, damages based on the user’s profits… READ MORE
