General
January 22nd, 2012 | Posted in General
Q: I’d like to do freelance illustration and cartooning for a career, but I hate marketing and invoicing and dealing with the business side of things. I just want to draw. How do you handle all that business stuff? A: There is supposedly a scientific reason for a highly creative person not liking (or in some cases being any good at) the business side of art. Most people have heard of the concept of “right-brained” and “left-brained” people. As the theory goes, people who’s brains are left-side dominant are more analytical and logical, and are generally better at math and other structured concepts. Those who… READ MORE
January 17th, 2012 | Posted in General
Michael Cavna of the Washington Post‘s Comic Riffs blog on cartoons, comics and culture posted his list of the Top 12 Books of 2011 That Made Us Smile… and The Mad Art of Caricature! tops the list! Thanks, Michael! READ MORE
January 13th, 2012 | Posted in General
I read over on Mark Evanier‘s excellent blog that the short lived Bob Newhart sitcom series Bob is about to become available on DVD. It’s billed as “The Complete Series”, which is a bit of a joke as it only lasted 33 episodes, or about a season and a half. I remember the show very distinctly because it was, in a way, a moment of TV fame for the little group of theme park caricaturists I was a part of. Kind of. Sort of. We went with it, anyway. Set in present day (at the time 1992), the show’s premise was that star Bob Newhart’s… READ MORE
January 10th, 2012 | Posted in General
The National Cartoonists Society is starting it’s annual call for entries for consideration for their NCS Divisional Awards recognizing excellence in professional cartooning. As always, you DO NOT have to be a member of the NCS to have your work considered for a divisional award… all that is required is that the work be eligible as detailed below. New this year is a division for Online Comic Strip… see this post for the details on this new category. Below you will find a list of the juries which will judge the categories, the jury chair and the address to which you will send your entry.… READ MORE
January 9th, 2012 | Posted in General
As many readers here may know, I am the current president of the National Cartoonists Society, a title affectionately known as “the office nobody else wanted or were dumb enough to take on”. The president does a lot of stuff, like plan the annual NCS Reuben award weekend, help co-ordinate the awards, provide snacks at the NCS board meetings… you know, presidential crap. Occasionally the NCS board even does something new, exciting and important…like this: It’s been a long-time coming, but the NCS will have a web-comics division for the Reuben Awards this year. Awards membership chairman Sean Parkes and I, along with input from… READ MORE
January 5th, 2012 | Posted in General
The fine people at Wells & Drew have generously published these awesome, free “shortcut cheat sheets” for the users of Adobe Illustrator and Indesign: Brought to you by Wells & Drew, makers of fine engraved stationery. Courtesy of Business Stationery Click on them to go to their website and get versions in various resolutions or in PDF form. Nice that they have both Windows and Mac versions listed. No real instruction here, just a very handy list of shortcuts. I wish I’d had that Indesign one when I was designing the book. I basically went from 0 to 100 mph in knowledge of Indesign, thanks… READ MORE
January 2nd, 2012 | Posted in General
Comic Book Resources recently published an all-MAD edition of their enjoyable “Comic Book Legends Revealed” feature. In it, they tackle three legends (or myths if you prefer) about MAD: Alfred E. Neuman existed well before Mad Magazine ever came about. Mad Magazine used to sell actual straight jackets! Every Mad cover has an easter egg of the letters “ind” to form “Mad Mind”. Check it out here! They even linked back to one of my posts here on The MAD Blog concerning legend number one (Thanks, CBR!), but they also debunk my explanation of the “ind” legend… you decide which explanation is true. READ MORE
January 1st, 2012 | Posted in General
Happy 2012! Let the annual three weeks or so of angrily crossing out “11” and writing in “12” on all my checks begin. READ MORE
