Book Review

Rudy Panucci, a journalist and blogger from my hometown of Charleston, WV has reviewed my book! Please take a gander, folks!

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.

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.

Drawing On The Past - Cover Up

One of the main problems I ran into when I was designing a newspaper tabloid, was coming up with fresh ideas on a yearly cycle.  Whether the subject was Christmas happenings around town, autumn festivals or Easter celebrations, eventually I would have to cover the same subject matter.  This weeks rewind was a cover about upcoming summer events.

The first image was something I created for my own amusement.  I had an acquaintance who told me a story about a relative in a vaudeville act and the novelty was playing giant harmonicas.  I was also studying music and was interested in examining harmony, so I created this image.  I was also immersed in trying different techniques in Photo Shop.  A major issue when working at a daily newspaper is the deadline, so the symmetry afforded speed in execution.

The second image was the cover I created based on drawing number one.  I was out of fresh ideas, so I borrowed an old concept from myself.  This was as close to an homage to psychedelic art as I was ever able to come up with.

I don't think my editor was too happy with the final cover, but it was quite striking when displayed in the distribution racks.

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.

Drawing On The Past - From My Portfolio

I was the art director for an entertainment tabloid at a newspaper for two years, which afforded me a lot of freedom to do features illustrations.  This was a cover I did for a Christmas issue.  I drew the image on paper, scanned it and redrew it in Free Hand.  This way, I could scale the drawing to size once it was finished and not loose any resolution.  This image looks grainy when it's blown up because it was a scan from the printed page, rather than an archive of the digital art.

I then exported the file over to Photo Shop and put in all the dimensional shading with the dodge and burn tool.  The final tiff was imported into QuarkXpress and the type was set.

It's tough to remember how long this took, as I would start a Christmas issue somewhere around the beginning of October to give myself the luxury of time.  Also, the editors and myself were sure to be in agreement as to what the final product looked like.

Flashback

This week's flashback is a magazine cover I created that was axed at the last minute.  I was an art director for the weekly entertainment tabloid that appeared on Fridays in the local paper.  

This particular piece was about Van's Warped Tour, but the editor decided to go with another feature at the last minute and my unfinished illustration (no strings on the guitar and the blank left side is where the story promos go) was relegated to the 'never ran' files.

A Ghost Of Christmas Past

 

This week's portfolio review goes back a long way.  I'm not sure if you can see the date in the top left corner, but this is a tear sheet from 1989.  I didn't know how to draw with a computer at this point, so the art was done with colored pencil and inked over top.  A black and white copy was pasted on to the page for placement with the galley of type in position.

The image was done on 9X12 bristol board.  I can't remember for certain, but I think this took about two days to complete.  An interesting note:  I still have this drawing and because of the waxy nature of the colored pencil, the ink has never fully dried.

The Man Behind The Curtain

I had a recent surge of inquiries on Face Book about my illustration portfolio.  It occurred to me that, while I mentioned my non-cartooning work in my bio, I've never presented any of it.  So, every Wednesday, until I run out of samples, I'll post an old drawing I've done and give a bit of background on why I did it.

Today's image was for a feature story about how our memory works.  Originally, there was to be a photo to accompany the story, but, either the images weren't very exciting or (most likely) not shot at all.  The features editor gave me the copy and asked if I could come up with anything, so I sketched a rough for this in about five minutes and submitted it for approval.  The whole process from sketch to photo shop finale took about two hours from start to finish and ran the next day.