The Boys and the Subway

People often ask me for directions in the subway. Even though I know my way around rather well, I still have to defer to Arthur very often. Yet it seems people don’t trust the advice of a preschooler. They should.

Christoph Niemann's story about his kids and the New York City subway. I wish I was so well-versed.

Contractual Ne'er-do-wells

There is a lot of buzz in the comics blogs about the evil Tokyopop contract. Contracts and business stuff are the boring, unglamorous side of commercial art-making and, frankly, sort of exists as a grey area when it comes to some illustration stuff. But I think linking to some of the commentaries surrounding this particular case is useful, especially since I know a lot of you are probably art students. Maintaining high standards for your work not only benefits you, but the entire community.

Would Skim have blogged?

Here is a Slate slideshow about the idea of technology in children's books. Most of it concerns technology depicted through illustration. Personally I kind of hate drawing computers and cell phones (I find laptops the least obnoxious). I think it probably comes down to simple nostalgia, but I also think that there's a weird "micro-dating" thing that goes on with the newer technology... in my mind a clunky cell with an antenna looks more dated than a rotary dial telephone.

P.S. Sorry for the occasional crappy grammar on this blog.

Vivienne Flesher

Vivienne Flesher is one of my favourite illustrators.

Read this interview.

End.

Yoshitaka Amano and Pingmag

This dude I know is really obsessed with Amano and so he's grown on me too. Here's an interview with him at Pingmag (if only to look at the pretty pictures). This is a good Amano book, if you're interested.

Pingmag posts some pretty cool stuff so poke around. I like Pingmag MAKE, which profiles Japanese craftsmen and artisans.

Paper Rad

PAPER RAD VIDEOS.

That is all.

Raymond Pettibon, NYTimes Op-Art: Spring

Raymond Pettibon, No Title (“Dateline: any town, anytime”), ink on paper, 2007. 

Photo Joshua White. Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles.

Dr. Seuss

Test your knowledge of Dr. Seuss. How odd to do an illustration about an illustrator.

19th Century Japanese Toy Design

Via BibliOdyssey.

You've seen the James Jean Prada stuff. The SoHo store is basically a giant, fabulous shrine to him. James, you are truly a champion! Read Chris Butcher's rundown on the whole Prada deal. It's an exhaustive little post.

I've noticed a growing trend of illustration colliding with high fashion. I collected some pictures for you.

(I don't know how to do the "behind the jump" thing.)

On Crappy Graphic Novels

Chris Butcher ponders the 3300+ graphic novels released last year (that represents almost a 20% increase from 2006). He knows of what he speaks: Chris is the manager at The Beguiling, in Toronto.

Design and the Elastic Mind

Origami Remote, Hayeon Yoo

In the past few decades, individuals have experienced dramatic changes in some of the most established dimensions of human life: time, space, matter, and individuality. Working across several time zones, traveling with relative ease between satellite maps and nanoscale images, gleefully drowning in information, acting fast in order to preserve some slow downtime, people cope daily with dozens of changes in scale. Minds adapt and acquire enough elasticity to be able to synthesize such abundance. One of design's most fundamental tasks is to stand between revolutions and life, and to help people deal with change. Designers have coped with these displacements by contributing thoughtful concepts that can provide guidance and ease as science and technology evolve. Several of them—the Mosaic graphic user's interface for the Internet, for instance—have truly changed the world. Design and the Elastic Mind is a survey of the latest developments in the field. It focuses on designers' ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and social mores, changes that will demand or reflect major adjustments in human behavior, and convert them into objects and systems that people understand and use.

Another reason to visit the MoMa. I love these conceptual design shows they put on. The exhibit has a very interesting and interactive accompanying website (it's worth the load time).

Link via Chris Makris.

"Color Chart"

I just spent the last 12 hours painstaking choosing a colour palette and manipulating balances. So it was strangely liberating to read about this new show at the MoMa about Found Colour. Here's the slideshow.

Usually I shy away from the idea of "straight out of the bottle" colour in my own work. However, at this moment, "colour as a ready-made" seems like a shot of fresh air. MODERNISM!

Skim Redux!

A fun piece of Skim Fan Art from Simon Häußle! It is wonderful (and really really weird) to see little ol' Skim re-imagined.

Some press is starting to trickle in, including this Quill and Quire starred review. (pdf)

I will have more information about Skim and promotional events in Toronto within the next few weeks. So stay tuned.

Robert Weaver

Amazing Robert Weaver slideshow on the NY Times website. How much more awesome would it be to look at these in a magazine, as opposed to a series of photos?

Between the Sexes

(Elliott Erwitt / Magnum Photos)

A Slate slideshow on the theme of "the differences and similarities between the sexes."

Photography really fascinates me, although I'm not a great photographer myself. I love Slate's Magnum daily photo feature... I check it every day. The albums are themed: thinkers, telephones, Poe-inspired, etc. When something strikes me, I squirrel it away in my big reference folder. I go there for help: for colour, faces, composition, objects, animals, and concepts (what a great concept in the photo above–look closely).

Maniac, Maniac

Test your knowledge of Dance Movies. Then watch the clip below (kinda NSFW!). Yay Friday!

My Friend Frank

Frank Stockton also did a beast for the Beast! book. And, like mine, genitalia was to be had!

Frank has a great bloggy-news section in which he details his impressive process and also gives very sage and energetic advice to fellow illustrators. There is something very Mr. Miyagi-like about Frank.

Skim News!

There is some new stuff to report about Skim, our graphic novel due out (next?) month.

-First off, a review from Publisher's Weekly! Scroll up from the bottom of the page and you'll hit it faster.

-An audio/podcast review from the Friends of Lulu. Thank you to Marion Vitus and Valerie D'Orazio. By the way, not sure why this gross hyper-saturated version of the cover is circulating on the internet. My heart breaks a little bit each time I see it.

-Some initial information about the Launch Party in Toronto has been released! It will be at the Gladstone Hotel on March 26. It'll be a This Is Not A Reading Series event, sponsored by Pages Books. I'll post more info/the official invite when it becomes available.

-Skim is available for pre-order at Amazon.

-Mariko and I will be at MoCCA, APE, and SPX this year. If you are too, please come visit us. 

I got the hardcover copy of the book in the mail the other day. I'm a bit nervous, but I can't wait to share it with the world (and hear what you think!). Remember, I cross-post newsy bits on my illustration website, under the "news" section.

Julie Doucet

Introduction to Julie Doucet's work (comics and post-comics) at CBC Arts.

More Tanuki

More Tanuki sketches. I'm contributing this character to the new volume of the BEASTS! book. Tanuki are a trickster in Japanese folklore and have the most amusing ability to enlarge their scrotums. Thus expanded, the scrotum becomes useful for a variety of functions such as fishing and serving as a picnic blanket or store sign. Don't believe me?

John Currin

A small Slate slideshow on the work of John Currin (with a bit of a discussion about the return of the figure in art). I have some mixed feelings about John Currin; many of my hang-ups are touched upon in the slideshow. Not that John Currin cares, 'cause he's a millionaire.

Outsider Art

An "Outsider Art Fair"? "Outsider Art Dealers"? My goodness. Such a crazy strange world we live in.

Here is a NYTimes slideshow of some of that Outsider Art. For more, I suggest the American Folk Museum in Midtown.

Above, an image by Henry Darger, who seems to be a very common reference point for many in the illustration world these days.

NC-17

Since I'm posting rude drawings today, might as well share this one too... click here for the full version, which I contributed to Rabid Rabbit's pornogrpahy comics mini-anthology. Unfortunately when they ran it, they cropped out "Picasso's Erotic Etchings", which I thought was the funniest part of the drawing.

Maps

I really love maps. I think they're such an engaging way of conveying information. I occasionally do illustrated maps, though I'm by no means a virtuoso mapmaker. I'm currently working on one for National Geographic Adventure magazine and stumbled upon this amazing site called Strange Maps, which catalogues maps of all different kinds including:

The Illustrated


The Satirical ("How Japan Sees America" map)


and The Fantastic ("The Land of Oz"... shaped like Kansas)


Below are a few of my illustrated maps.

Persepolis

Hi guys, sorry I haven't been posting a lot of sketchbook stuff lately... I have been very busy with editorial stuff, but hopefully that'll mean lots of cool new portfolio pieces (right?!).

Anyhow, here's a NYTimes Slideshow about the movie Persepolis narrated by Marjane Satrapi and Vincet Paronnaud. Sam and I saw the movie a few weeks ago and thought it quite a good adaptation; the slideshow shows quite a bit of the beautiful artwork. I love how they translated and embellished upon the original drawings. I read some reviews of the graphic novels that felt that the art was too crude or simplified, but I thought they were effective. They were almost pictograms, and the rawness reflected the content.

(P.S. If you're going to be at the ALA conference in Philadelphia this weekend, stop by and see me at the Groundwood/House of Anansi table!)

Artists Against the War

Slideshow from the Society of Illustrators.

Italian Vogue

Sometimes you just see something that touches your Aesthetic Soul. Full photoshoot by Steven Meisel here.

Steven Heller on Decoration

A short essay on Design Observer about the "D" word: Decoration. It's from a design slant, but it easily applies to Illustration as well. Personally I think ornamentation is a bit of a masturbatory exercise, but the essay does make some excellent points worth considering.

Dorothy

Test your knowledge of the Children's Fantasy genre.

William Steig at the Jewish Museum

NY Times slideshow on the work of William Steig. I'm going to try to check out the show when I get back to NY.

Leif: Keeping It Real

Of course, you are familiar with the illustration work of Leif Parsons. Now he's been posting some of his very good personal work.

Drawing From New Sources

Yo, what's with the educational posts lately? Here is a great little animated short about alternative energy. It reminds me of vintage Sesame Street. Geoff McFetridge was involved in the animation.

A Brief Message

Not a lot of posts lately. It's been super crazy. Super Duper crazy. But here's something new and educational to boot! Read a short article on design that I illustrated over at A Brief Message. And, if you have time, check out the back archives... I'm loving the "Under 200 Words" format.

Thanks to Khoi Vinh!

The Animated Life

After that last post, I thought this was appropriate. It's a small collection of short experimental animations that really highlight the power of The Incidental.

I think this must be the guy that did the animation that they play before all the movies at the IFC Center?

If you only watch one, I'd recommend this one.

Winter Fashion in Japan

New York Times Slideshow. Sigh!

Intro to Kara Walker

Slideshow with commentary; you'll have to watch a short unfortunate ad before you reach the content.

Seurat

I'm going to try to see the Seurat drawing show tomorrow at the MoMA. I was sort of surprised, after reading the press surrounding the show, as to how exquisite his drawings are. It's funny your opinion can really change about someone's work as you develop as a creator and viewer. You can read about the show on the NYTimes site, and view an audio slideshow of the work. Particularly helpful if you can't see it in person; she sort of does a "virtual tour".

Arctic Art

The new issue of The Walrus Magazine, 'The Arctic Issue', features a lot of work by some of the best contemporary Inuit artists. Amazing. Check it out if you can.

(You can find The Walrus in the "Current Affairs/News" section of the newsstand in both The States in Canada, typically filed with the New Yorker and Harper's.)

Below, a lithograph by Suvinai Ashoona.

Seth on Style

Here's an interview Seth gave a while ago, pegged to the Tin Tin doc that was on PBS> I think I may have posted it before. I thought of it when I read a bit of In the Studio: Visits with Contemporary Cartoonists yesterday in a bookstore. In that book, he spoke of the shorthand one develops as an illustrator, the visual "tricks" one knows will play well with Art Directors, and how it can lead to bad illustration. Gaudy, happy colours and people that are ultimately empty. Actually I find I really identify to a lot of Seth's outlook and thoughts. He says some very piquant things about Style and Influence in the linked interview... two things I know are of interest to a lot of students.

Story-telling in Comics

An interesting Opinion piece by Heidi MacDonald over at The Beat.

Rutu Modan

God, I love this woman's work! She had a series of columns in the Times recently.

M. Kalman

Maira Kalman feature for the New York Times.

I really love this woman's work... it embodies a lot of the ideas I find interesting. Hopefully one day I will be able to incorporate more of that sense of chance and process into my "finished" work.

Laura Park's Sketchbook

The above image isn't mine, but I wish it was. I met Laura Park at MoCCA last week... I'm incredibly jealous of her sketchbook work. It's so intimate and she actually knows how to crosshatch. Very inspirational for both the technique and prolificacy.

See more here.