The cartoon blog of Andertoons cartoonist Mark Anderson. He discusses his cartoons, cartooning, comics and, oddly enough, LEGO.
The United States Department of Defense has teamed with Marvel Comics to create a comic book for U.S. troops.
According to the New York Times (sign in required)…
“…the story features the Fantastic Four and the New Avengers on a mission to discover the origin of an ancient spacecraft found in Louisiana.”
Over one million copies will be printed and distributed to troops as part of the D.O.D.’s “America Supports You” campaign.
Why do I see Operation Clobberin’ Time in our military’s future?
The Incredibles is one of my recent favorite movies, animated or no, in recent memory, so I’m glad to report that The Art of The Incredibles is great too.
There’s not a lot of text, but, to be fair, you don’t get a book like this to ‘read’ per se. This is a book you just want to gape at and revel in pure graphic splendor.
Organized into three main sections (“Meet the Parrs,” “The Golden Years” and “Showtime”), you get an in-depth look at gobs of sketches and concept art presented big and beautifully.
Favorite art of mine included production designer (and voice of Bernie Kropp) Lou Romano’s beautiful gouache work, and character designer Teddy Newton’s pencil/markers and fascinating collages.
Fans of the movie will really enjoy this, as well as illustration and design devotees.
I don’t know if I’d pay $25.00 for The Art of The Incredibles, but if you can get you local public library to order it (hint hint!), by all means do!
Saturday was 24 Hour Comics Day and cartoonists all over the world took the challenge.
Throughout the event/ordeal cartoonists chimed in via blog.
Here are some random quotes I found entertaining:
“With the Governator in charge of Sacramento, he comes to the rescue and solves our alien crash dilemma.”
“Four words: Have a coffee bitch.”
“There’s weird smells coming from outside. Kind of distracting, but also encouraging the artists to work that little bit faster.”
“Zander: I totally set up a plot device that never got used at all.
Quillan: That’s the best part, the gift that keeps on giving.
Shad: What are you even saying Quillan?
Quillan: What does it say to you?”“Here’s the stripeless zebra. It’s a horse. It’s a @&%@#^ horse.â€
“What I wouldn’t do for a hand massage…”
Maybe I gotta try this next year…
Anyway, give the whole blog a read. It’s a lot of fun.
Cartoonist Mark Heath wrote a really nice blog the other day entitled “Love and Obsession” about the last freelance cartoon he sold and his ensuing obsession with the then unpublished Spot the Frog.
Mark explains how he immersed himself in Spot for several months, although, as with all submissions, the chances of it being picked up by a syndicate were small.
“It was crazy to spend so much time on a strip that contributed nothing to the bills, and would eventually be thrown into the blades of a syndicate’s submission shredder (or so I supposed, based on my previous 12 submissions.) But I couldn’t stop thinking about Spot and Karl and the rest.”
I’ve recently been working on a new strip of my own, but had shelved it as of late. There’s an awful lot of gloom and doom out there among cartoonists (myself included) about the current state of the comics and syndication, and it’s easy to think ‘why should I even bother?!’ But Mark’s post helped me rally, and I’m really excited about this strip again.
OK, it probably hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in hell of actually being picked up, but there’s real joy in just making the attempt too, and it’s nice to be reminded of that.
Papercutz is apparently publishing a new series of Nancy Drew graphic novels.
This from the Chicago Sun-Times article:
In her comic debut, Nancy wears hip clothes (and what looks like a Wonderbra), carries a cell phone and a laptop, and drives a hybrid car.
I’m prediciting Nancy will be unable to solve “The Mystery of the Missing Profits.”