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Archive for September, 2009


This Saturday!

Be sure to check for events in your area at ComicsPro’s official site and check out my own info page about the 24 Hour Comic and its history here.

I’ll be drawing all day myself, though on the graphic novel (my reward for having started the ball rolling all those years ago is that I only had to do it once) but if you’ve never tried the 24 hour comics challenge, I do recommend it.

For those coming in late, I started the challenge in 1990, but it was Nat Gertler who first came up with the idea of a 24 Hour Comics Day in 2004 to promote an anthology I edited. In 2008, Nat handed it off to ComicsPro.

One of my favorite aspects of my weird little inventions is the way they tend to take on a life of their own over time. This one definitely qualifies.


Just Your Average Danish Super-Harbor Comic

Kyle Latino in Tuesday’s comments section alerted us to this comics-style architectural pitch for a the construction of a Danish Super-Harbor. Just click on the opening image to read.


Oh! And a New Webcomic by John Allison Too

Must be new webcomics week. Check out Mr. Allison’s latest here.

Strangely, it also begins with the protagonist in bed (see yesterday’s post below). Hmm…


DKK

Tom spotted it first: A new webcomic by Derek Kirk Kim with a new panel added every day. Looks cool so far. Check it out.


Does This Cover Mean Anything to You?

For American mainstream comics fans born in the early ’70s, it seems that the answer is a resounding “yes!” This silent issue of G.I. Joe (a series my crowd dismissed as a forgettable toy tie-in comic) by Larry Hama was apparently an important moment in the young lives of future (male?) comics artists of the generation a decade after mine.

I think it was Larry Marder who first directed my attention to this weird phenomenon, but the wise and witty Shaenon Garrity has now penned the definitive write-up (with a cameo by Your Truly in the role of Mary Poppins).

I saw Shaenon and Andrew Farago last week before hopping my flight home from San Francisco, when I realized that my UX Week hotel was just three blocks from the Cartoon Art Museum where Andrew works.

Be sure to check out Shaenon’s own new book collecting the first run of her great new strip Skin Horse.

[thanks to Heidi for the heads-up]


Power Strip

Multiple random plugs (get it? Hanh? HANH?):

One of my favorite This American Life segments: David Rakoff’s heartbreaking “Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace,” Act Three of Episode 389 – Frenemies. If you agree with me that TAL is one of the best shows ever on radio, consider a donation.

Had a surprisingly good time watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Probably helped to be sitting between two kids who were laughing at all the genuinely smart and/or bizarre gags. Way better movie than it needed to be to fill it’s demographic slot.

Whole family is enjoying Glee and rooting for it to get better already.

“Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” by Das Racist/Wallpaper. Find it. Listen to it. Hate me forever for making you do it.



How Many Schools in Laos have You Helped Build Today?

Now available through BreadPig, with their profits going to Room to Read. And if you need a reminder of why everybody loves this strip, today’s entry ought to do it.


Checking Back with Live Labs

Artists have continued to toy with the Infinite Canvas engine from Microsoft’s Live Labs since we last checked in. In the current “featured”category is “Amhot” by Tam, a cool set of Vignettes worth checking out.

Also of interest, below the fold, is a long list of other recent comics, art projects, and random screwing around which use the engine.

As before, the comics themselves are a mixed bag, using a smattering of navigational models, some of which work better than others, but they point in interesting directions.

I’ll be curious to see what surprises might emerge from the slushpile in the future.


Interview with a Mensch

Steve Lieber interviewed by and adapted into comics by Mike Russell (with inks and colors by Bill Mudron). [via Tom]

Whenever Steve Lieber’s name comes up in the comics circles I frequent, someone will always add something about liking Steve, or that Steve is a “good guy.” Happens every time. It’s like how when someone mentions Amy Winehouse, you know that at least one person will lower their head and slowly shake it from side to side.

Haven’t seen the movie yet. Like Will Eisner and many other smart cartoonists before him, Steve doesn’t get too emotionally invested in Hollywood or confuse a movie’s successes or failures with his own. (Will’s attitude was that if they optioned The Spirit every year for the rest of his life and never made a movie he’d be okay with that).

***

In other news, I’m off to San Francisco tomorrow for UXWeek and my lecture Wednesday. Just a quick trip (only 28 hours in transit), then back to making comics.


Barney Banks: Extra Life!

New Tom Hart comic! Everything is right with the world.

[Thanks to Heidi for the heads-up]