My Big Mouth

Check out my interview with Tom Racine at Tall Tale Radio!  He makes me sound smart!

Let's celebrate by listening to Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.

Interview part 3

Here's part three of the continuing interview I did covering my artistic career, my influences, and many great, interesting, and sometimes hilarious moments along the way.

Part four will be posted next week, part five the week after that, and so on all the way to the end!

Interview With Brad Diller Part II

Here's part 2 of my video interview.  It's almost like it's interesting.

To Hell With The Trophy! Give Me Money!

It's been a while since I posted anything from my portfolio, so I thought I'd write about an illustration I created when I worked at the Nashville Banner.  The story was about how to train your voice for public speaking.

My original sketch was a character doing a version of a bicep curl with his tongue.  One of my fellow designers suggested the speed bag work out on the uvula.  It was a much easier image for the reader to instantly 'get' and made for a far better page layout.  The final art was created in Macromedia Freehand and the page layout was QuarkXpress (I didn't design the page).

This image won an award from the Society of News Design, an organization whose recognition I found deeply flattering.  However, it didn't include a raise, much to my dismay.

Later, when I became a freelance artist, I took the vector file and imported it into PhotoShop and played around with it.  I still use this as a showcase piece when anyone asks about my prior career.

You've Got My Attention!

I thought I'd give you folks a peak at the online viewing I do on a weekly basis.  This is a list of the blogs, journals, podcasts and cartoons I think are intriguing.

•Webcomics Weekly•  A podcast with four creators about their experiences as online creators.  Scott Kurtz, Brad Guigar, Dave Kellet and Kris Straub are all excellent cartoonists who were at the forefront of online comics.  Their conversations are lively, insightful and sometimes profane.

•Tall Tale Features•  Tom Racine does excellent podcasts and video interviews with both online and syndicated creators.  He also features insiders in the newspaper syndication business that makes this especially well rounded.  The best broadcasting standard of any podcast I've heard so far.

•Comic Riffs•  Washington Post writer Michael Cavna's blog about all things surrounding comics, animation, movies or cartoons.  This blog is always on top as far as the latest scoop in any of the above and Mr. Cavna is a great writer.

•The Daily Cartoonist•  Alan Gardner launched TDC in 2005 as an open forum to all things cartoon related.  The comments section is especially interesting reading as the pros express themselves in what used to be newsroom only rants.

•Dan Piraro•  The Bizarro creator uses his blog to talk about the inspiration behind his cartoons, as well as a manifesto for his personal views on politics, religion, music or whatever else he considers interesting.  His writing is as funny as his cartoons.

•Rina Piccolo•  Funny, honest and candid, Ms. Piccolo's accomplishments are enviable.  She writes three comic strips (Tina's Groove, Six Chix, Velia, Dear), has been published in the New Yorker, as well as maintaining a highly entertaining blog.  All are executed with amazing quality.

•David-Wasting-Paper•  A great peek at the creators behind all kinds of comics and cartoons.


•Mike Lynch•  Daily news and deep trivia from a guy earning his living as a magazine cartoonist.  He obviously loves the art form.


•Webcomic Alliance•  Four creators deliver a weekly podcast describing the problems and (hopefully) solutions that arise for online creators.

There are a lot more folks online that I read, but this list is primarily where I go for inspiration, education and insight.  I hope there's something relevant in this for you.  Enjoy!

Toon Talk - Honing My Craft

A recent podcast by the Webcomics Weekly crew about an article in the Economist has created a rather heated conversation in the webcomics community.  The debate on the Daily Cartoonist revolves around the question, "What is a cartoonist?"

This got me to consider the craft of cartooning and what is important to me.  There are lots of cartoonists on the web I enjoy who don't display enviable drawing skills, but I get a lot out of their humor and their point of view.

Here's two examples of the same cartoon I did back in the nineties.  The first image is my original finished drawing.  This was ready to be printed, but something wasn't 'complete' for me.  I liked the idea, but thought the final gag lacked visual punch.  Because it seemed cluttered, the joke took too long to 'get.'

The second image was my final thought.  The artwork  stood out on the page much better with the solid blacks dominating the picture.  This particular cartoon was a turning point in how I looked at my own work and trying to figure out how the audience saw it also.

As for the online debate, I try to stay out of circuitous arguments.  There's merit to both sides, but the upside is, the conflict made me think about my craft, my presentation and what I value when doing my own work.

Toon Talk - Just "Do" It!

Most of my cartoons seem to come to me in a flash.  I see the picture and hear the gag line as a finished image in my head and sketch it out very quickly.  But... some have a long gestation.

Today's review goes back over 25 years.  When in our twenties, my brother and I were bartenders in our hometown.  There was a young woman who frequented the clubs we worked and she had one of the most interesting hairdos I can remember.  The shape of her hair was like a sphere on her head bluntly cut off at the base of her neck.  She looked like she'd lowered her head into a very soft pillow - her face on the verge of sinking into the quicksand of her hair.  The overall appearance of this ozone depleting dome resembled the helmets of New Guinea's Asaro River  mudmen.

 The most fascinating aspect was the color.  The back half of her head was brunette and the front half was blond, as though she'd lowered her face into a washtub of peroxide - like a half moon sitting atop her shoulders.  

We never knew her name, so my brother referred to her as 'bundt cake.'

Last year, my wife and I were at the movies and a young woman I saw had teased and brutalized her hair into this Amy Winehouse hornet's nest on her head and my memory flashed back to the girl in the bar from 30 years ago, complete with the nickname - and this cartoon instantly flashed in my head.  The drawing took a few iterations before I felt it had the clarity to instantly get the joke.  Had it not been for my brother's offhand remark, I'm not sure if this would ever have seen the light of day.  Blame him.

Toon Talk - Hitting The Big Time

Today's nostalgic rambling is significant for me because this cartoon was the first time I felt like I'd hit the big time.  What I mean by the 'big time' is when someone cuts out a toon from the paper and hangs it up.  Refrigerators are the MoMA for cartoonists.

I submerged myself in jazz for a while and had to order a lot of compact discs from a record store on the west end of my hometown.  I'd stopped in to pick up an order that had come in and went to the back office with the owner to pick up my purchase.  Taped to the wall next to the time clock was this cartoon.  He had no idea I was the artist.  He just thought the cartoon was funny enough to save and put up on the wall.

This particular cartoon is also noteworthy, because it was the first time my main characters came to life.  Although they would got through a lot of evolution before I decided on their final appearance, this was where the 'relationship' started.

The curlers in the woman's hair were based on the memory of my older sister.  When she went to junior high school, the style was to roll your hair in discarded cans from frozen orange juice.  While the wife would evolve over time to tighter rollers and simpler slippers, the husband is almost complete in how he looks today.

Toon Talk

When I tell someone I draw cartoons, invariably, the question comes up, "Where do you get your ideas?"  I thought I'd take Mondays and pull a cartoon from my archive and give you an idea as to how I came up with it.

Today's cartoon is based on an old vaudeville joke.  The gag went like this:

Did you hear about the man with five penises?

His pants fit like a glove.

I always thought this joke was funny, but I knew it wasn't appropriate for a newspaper.  The 'fit like a glove' line gave me a snapshot in my head and I drew the cartoon around the suit actually being a glove.  By the way, the tailor in the drawing is an old friend of mine.  I used him over and over in various forms until I came up with the Funday family I use today.  Where the name, Mr. Abernathy, came from, I have no clue.