Visual Influence

Here are some images I like to look at:

THESIS, UPDATES, COMICS

IN THAT ORDER.

Hi. It's been a while. How have you been? I've been better myself, but at least I have my voice back. A nasty cold seems to have been making its rounds of the entire population of Cincinnati, it seems, and I am no exception.

So, first things first: THESIS. I just turned in my draft to my professors, and had my visual critique. I'm in the second round of the Dry Run show so I have a week to think about presentation and hanging the work... but I'll leave you with some images of my favorite pieces, and a link to the google doc of the draft if you feel inclined to read it.

UPDATES: I have been working on gifs in my photography class, and I think they're turning out pretty rad if I do say so myself. They're big, so I'll post one here (EDIT: I'm not sure why this one isn't animating but just go to my tumblr and look at them, guh).

Also, Cry-Baby and The Big Lebowski are coming up soon. Here's where you'll find more information on that.

COMICS: I've been working on the Order of the Golden Bear wordpress site, and while it's not quite up and running yet, I did put up all of Third Culture Kid. So go and read, and follow, and be on the lookout for more things! Also, Alison Bechdel will have a new book out soon and I've never been so excited.

What I did on the Net today

As this is a usual schoolday, my Net time so far has been limited. Before English I scrolled through tumblr on my iPod Touch, but didn't get very far. Since class was canceled after we turned in our papers, I ran an errand and came back home to scroll further through tumblr while making soup for lunch. The soup was disappointing but tumblr delivered, as always. Someday I'll do an entry on tumblr specifically, but since that is a Nippert-stadium-sized can of worms, I'll leave it for now. Suffice to say, tumblr delivered as usual.

Since then I've quickly cleared out my deviantart watch list (rolling my eyes and wondering why I follow most of these artists but not actively doing anything to un-watch them), checked my email, checked my facebook (again, quickly attending to notifications and getting the hell out of there), and scanned the Swedish tabloid site Aftonbladet since my dad sent me a link to some article about a dog defending its wounded friend (heart-wrenching, but the effect is spoiled somewhat by pop-ups and blaring ads).

I'm in Internet Art class currently and we've been talking about artists: Duncan Alexander, Alain Barthelemy, jodi.org and Jaime Martinez... as well as threeframes and if we don't, remember me.

Also, watching this video, which I have posted before but is still hilarious--it led us to this site, which reminds me of a video blogger I found when working on my screenshot project earlier in the year. It was a girl in her middle/ late teens making videos to Ke$ha songs that were clearly meant to be sexy and provocative but just came across as sort of sad and desperate--the videos are set in what looks like her grandmother's house, and she's trying so hard to be sexy but she's small and sort of childlike still and it's almost uncomfortable to watch.

I digress. I'll probably spend more time on tumblr before the day is out, and sort through my usual rounds of webcomics. But that's what I've been doing on the Net today.

This was the cover for my Visual Arts Concepts paper.

Collaboration

So on Thursday internet artist Chris Collins came to DAAP to lead a collaborative workshop and to give a lecture. I attended both. For the workshop we used google sketchup to create virtual sculptures (mine is the gigantic pink thing with the cat head in the back):

Which we then sent to Chris to insert into a program called Unity which is used to create virtual spaces within games. While he was doing that, we created two google draw documents: one for the floor, and one for the sky. And we recorded some audio. I'm not going to tell you what song we sang, I'll leave that to you to figure out. The result is a virtual sculpture garden, complete with setting and ambiance. The download is available here for both PC and Mac.

A group of us went to lunch afterwards, and getting to sit around, eat sushi, and hear Chris describe his resume to Jordan Tate (who was to introduce him at the lecture later) was pretty sweet.

At the lecture Chris went through his work, all of which can be found here. I think I like this one best:

Just for the sheer ridiculousness. The Lion King one is pretty fantastic, too.

Click on all the links I've provided, each one leads to something amazing, I promise.

COLLAGE COMIC

NOW AVAILABLE ON MY TUMBLR.

GO READ IT PLEASE IT TOOK FOREVER.

This might be the best thing I've seen all day

Goggles. You need firefox or chrome to use it, but... now you can DRAW on people's webpages! Have at it!

Comics class with Carol Tyler

Definitely promises to be amazing this quarter. Our projects are: collage/ sculptural comics, "out there" comics (installations), an ergot (a giant one-pager in full color), and the veterans' project. The veterans' project is definitely the biggest one, we team up with a veteran and create a two-pager about his/ her experiences and stories.

I sat down and drew/ inked a proper comic yesterday, just for the heck of it. It's not fancy, just a daily what-I-did-today comic... but it felt good to get out my dip pens and sable brushes and to lay out my panels with a ruler (though apparently I can't count and managed to mess up the sizes, oops).

(Click to view full-size!)

SPACE Columbus- the artists!

Well, right off the bat, I started following Katie Omberg at her blog. She does a comic called "The Very Real Story of a Real Gay Kid," an autobiographical comic following the story of her own coming out. The drawing style is cute, loose but not sloppy. Go look at her work, it's on her blog and on The New Gay.

Next up is Nate Powell, whose style really reminds me of Jillian Tamaki's. I bought his "Please Release" comic, but after reading it, I wish I had bought at least one other one. It is autobiographical, thoughtful and definitely worth a few more reads to take it all in. Look at his gallery of illustrations as well as his comics, I think they're really freakin awesome.

Ryan Dow won the SPACE prize last year for best webcomic, and I totally see why. In the spirit of Sinfest, but more personal at the same time, his Lil Buddha comics are hilarious and honest.

I got really excited when I saw Michael R. Neno's "Pictures of Benevolence" minicomics, because they are really similar to what I'm working on currently. His are more specific (and more ambiguous at the same time). I can't really describe them properly, but he can.

John Porcellino's King-Cat Comics are also autobiographical in nature, more anecdotal than some of the others in this list, but still really thoughtful. His drawings are sparse, but well executed and buoyed by his excellent writing. I got two of his and I'm thinking of getting some of the earlier issues, too. Here is his publishing blog.

I really loved one of the many free comics I received, called "FYI, IDK," by Max Ink. The drawing are lovely and the characters really well-formed.

Another free comic I received was titled "Sacred Heart" by one Liz Suburbia. I loved the character design, it kind of reminded me of Damon Albarn's Gorillaz designs, and also of Daniel Clowes' Ghost World. (Side note on two things--I bought myself a copy of Ghost World at Half-Price books while I was in Columbus, yay, and Gorillaz has some new tracks up here, holy smokes!)

There were a few people at SPACE doing hand-bound comics and one of the nicest was by Jessi Zarbarsky (and I'm not talking staples here, it was really nice paper bound in the 5-stitch method). I bought the one titled "Thursday," which has this adorable little out-of-panel character hanging out just outside the panel border on some of the pages. The drawing style is distinct and very clean, I'm definitely going to explore her work some more.

The last comic artist I bought a comic from is Nathan Kissel, who has really really nice color work. I bought his "Deserted Aisles" comic about a grocery store clerk who meets a magic genie, and it's well written and the main character is so forlorn-looking you just want to give him a hug.

I got some sweet business cards from about a kazillion people, so I'll just roll out a short list here, click at your leisure:

Evan Yeti by Mat Washburn.

Kenn Minter, comics and graphic design.

Peculiar Comics (this guy was handing out mustaches, I wore mine around until it started to itch).

E.J. Barnes had the cutest/ funniest greeting cards ever for sale. Example A.

I could go on and on and ON, but those were the highlights. Here is a picture of our table, with Carol Tyler's books there at the front.

From right to left: Allison Weyda, Amanda Ashley's coat (I have no idea where she went, she managed to avoid my camera the whole trip), Meredith Waddell.

SPACE Columbus

Goodness gracious me. I have so many people to talk about, I might have to do a whole second post on the comic artists whose work I got to see/ buy at SPACE.

Carol Tyler was there, of course, she was at the table with us and had her lovely books (You'll Never Know parts 1 and 2!) next to our sad little portfolios (next time I will DEFINITELY have some printed comics to give away or sell--the business cards were a wonderful idea). As it was, I managed to sell a few of my mini drawings, which I thought was neat since I hadn't intended to sell anything at SPACE and only brought my little box of mini drawings on a whim.

"The Boys" and "injury 1," examples of my tiny drawings. These are both about 2" x 2"--the image on your screen is presumably larger than the actual physical drawing. These are not the ones I sold, I have those scanned and hidden in a folder somewhere, eventually I'll find them and post them as well.

Along with the tiny drawings I had my final comic (featured in an older post) and some doodles and things from my advanced drawing class up. And I had my advanced drawing sketchbooks out. I scanned one of them, below are some of the pages.

These are not quite comics, I think, but I brought them along anyway. I have two more, which I will share later (there must be a faster way to scan them, sigh). I'm still working with the screen, and having multiple windows open (remember my photobooth self-portrait drawing), but in a less literal sense. And I get to make my own books by hand, which is always really fun.

I'll post tomorrow with a list of people I met/ got comics from, and with more pictures of the actual event (and of Columbus, we saw some sights that really cannot be described adequately in words). One last thing before I go, though... Gordon McAlpin of Multiplex was there, and I'm afraid I fangirled a little at his table for a while. Multiplex has great art AND great storytelling, definitely check it out.

Research

At Langsam they have a considerable graphic novel collection (at least, considering that I didn't expect there to be one at all), so I went ahead and took some out.

Click on any image to make it bigger!

Here they are all stacked on my desk. From top to bottom: Contract with God by Will Eisner; One Hundred Demons by Lynda Barry; Ice Haven by Daniel Clowes; Ghost World by Daniel Clowes; Mira Caligraphiae Monumenta; Palookaville by Seth; A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi;
American Splendor by Harvey Pekar (and others); It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken by Seth; Dogs and Water by Anders Nilsen; Britten and Brulightly by Hannah Berry; Wilson by Daniel Clowes; George Sprott by Seth.

A Contract with God by Will Eisner. A fantastic study of place and people, by one of the undisputed masters (and some say the father) of graphic novels.

He does his drawings entirely with a Sable brush, which explains why they're so lush.

Lynda Barry's One Hundred Demons. She does her work on legal pads, with collage and other media thrown in. Autobiographical and hilarious.

I wish I could see the originals--they'd be so textured and human.

 Ice Haven by Daniel Clowes. Told from different perspectives, thoughtful and thoughtless depending on who's talking.

Ghost World by Daniel Clowes. Possibly my favorite of all the books I borrowed. A coming-of-age story set in the 90s. Reading this is sort of like watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia--the people in it are so horrible you feel pretty good about yourself after.

Of course on a second read you realize they're just young and stupid, like we all were/ are.

 Mira Calligrahpiae Monumenta. Actually a book about and of a set of illuminated books from the late 1500s. The script and the illustrations were done by two separate men. They're both just fantastic.

 Some of the pages have this trompe l'oeil going on that's really quite clever.

 The translucent quality of the vellum must have made it quite amazing in person, especially back then.

Palookaville by Seth. This particular volume has both the comics and some explanations of his process, which I always find interesting.

 A Drifting Life by Yoshiro Tatsumi. Have not actually read this yet, but definitely looks promising.

 American Splendor by Harvey Pekar. Different artists worked on this comic so Harvey always looks different. This one is by Kevin Brown.

Harvey Pekar by Greg Budgett and Gary Dumm.

 Harvey Pekar by Gerry Shamray

It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken by Seth. The main character reminds me of myself.

 Dogs & Water by Anders Nilsen. A weird one, kind of sad. The illustrations are sparse and there are no borders, which reflects the sort of nonlinear timeline and the lack of significant plot.

 Britten and Brulightly by Hannah Berry. This one I didn't like as much, mostly because it was sad with very little humor. The art is nice, but I kept getting distracted by the glossy paper. Maybe that's just a me thing.

 Wilson by Daniel Clowes. Again, funny in that It's Always Sunny sort of way. Changes in drawing style add to the tone.

 Quimby the Mouse by F.C. Ware. Disjointed, sometimes tragic, sometimes sad, sometimes senseless.

George Sprott by Seth. Very Canadian, funny and thoughtful. Not as broody as It's a Good Life.

 Skim by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki. This wasn't in the pile but I felt I should include it because I recently discovered it and it is one of my favorite graphic novels ever. It's also a coming-of-age story set in the 90s, but more thoughtful than Ghost World by Daniel Clowes.

Covers. The asterisks indicate my top five favorites.

This was a giant monster of a post, I'll do something of an equal nature on my photographic work later.