• blog
  • art
  • illustration
  • comics
  • exhibitions
  • info
  • home

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Part 3 of my interview with Daily Crosshatch

I didn't know this went up the other day.

So, go read through the rest of my stumbling answers in the last installment of my interview with Brian Heater.

Read More...

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Weekly Comic Strip: #7



A reminder to anyone in L.A. this month- the first 15 strips are all up at Black Maria Gallery. They are also for sale through their website. The originals are 12 by 30 inches on heavy archival 500lb watercolor paper.

Read More...

Monday, February 25, 2008

33

I share my birthday with:
Painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Cartoonist Arnold Roth
Actor Jim Backus (best known as Thurston Howell III)
Novelist Anthony Burgess
Beatle George Harrison
Wrestler Ric Flair
Musician John Doe of X
Actress Tea Leoni
Hobbit and Goonie Sean Astin
Brother Zeppo Marx
Annoyance Carrot Top

I'll be spending my birthday at the new BCAM building at LACMA.

UPDATE: I just returned from the BCAM. What a waste. A waste of a nice birthday afternoon. Yeesh! Other than a few nice Basquiats, Rauschenbergs and Twombleys I was completely uninspired by the whole thing. At one point I found myself more interested in the scrapes on the concrete floor caused by the installation of Richard Serra's sculptures than I was in any of the art. If anything, this BCAM building is a tribute to everything that is wrong with the last half of 20th Century art- a time when artists became clever jokers who fooled billionaires into investing in their shallow bullshit. It makes me long for L.A. to have a museum as great as the Met in NYC where we could go see some real art.

Read More...

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Igloo Tornado Opening Night

The opening of the Igloo Tornado show was a good night. Despite the rain we had a good crowd, some artwork sold, and fun was had by all. Check the Igloo Tornado blog for more photos of the evening.


Read More...

Friday, February 22, 2008

LAist Interview with the Igloo Tornado


Go read this LAist interview and find out why Levon is the most loveable among us.

Read More...

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Part 2 of my interview with Daily Crosshatch

Part 2 of my interview with Brian Heater is up at the Daily Crosshatch. Go read Part 2.

Read More...

Weekly Comic Strip: #4, 5 & 6

This week, I'm giving you 2 bonus strips to promote my art show this weekend.
The Igloo Tornado is an Art Fraternity that includes me, Scot Nobles, Gin Stevens and Levon Jihanian.
We have our second show together opening this Saturday at Black Maria Gallery.

The opening reception is Saturday, Feb. 23rd from 7-10:30 pm
Aaron Turner (of ISIS) is DJing the party.
There will be booze and crackers.

For my part of the show, I have the first 15 of my comic strip poems on display.
Scot, Levon and Matthew all have some amazing stuff to show as well.
I'll be posting some more images from the installation of the show tomorrow.

So, don't let the rain scare you- come out to see our show!
Did I mention there will be booze?

Now this week's strips:



Read More...

Monday, February 18, 2008

Mention in Douglas Wolk interview

I got a nice mention from Douglas Wolk in his interview with Tom Spurgeon over at The Comics Reporter:

SPURGEON: Your chapter on emerging seemed to me more about categorization than discussing anyone's work. Could you identify maybe one or two cartoonists younger than 35 whose work specifically interests you? Or maybe one or two books from younger cartoonists that you think are really valuable. You touch on it lightly at the beginning of the chapter, but do you think the way these artists are coming up, for instance without the market opportunity for many of them to do one-cartoonist serial comics, is going to have an effect on how their work develops?

WOLK: As far as younger cartoonists go, besides Kevin Huizenga and Hope Larson, who got their own chapters in the book (both practically unaltered from their Salon incarnations!), and Bryan Lee O'Malley, who's not exactly a big secret... I follow Laura Park's Flickr page, and I'd love to see her do more narrative stuff, but I'll happily look at anything she draws. Tom Neely's The Blot makes me eager to see what he's going to do next. (Also: Anders Nilsen's 35, I think, but a couple people have mentioned that I seemed to be dismissive about his work, and I'm sorry to have given that impression--I love a lot of his stuff, and even when I don't I'm impressed with how hard he's pushing himself.) Yes, I think the market conditions for non-mainstream serial comics are making a lot harder for some kinds of young cartoonists to develop their voice across a substantial body of work -- I can't see something like Neat Stuff or Lloyd Llewellyn flying now, for instance. On the other hand, when people really, really need to make comics, sometimes it happens even without decent market conditions, which is why The Blot exists.


Read the rest of the interview here. And go get his book Reading Comics. I liked it a lot.

Read More...

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Weekly Comic Strip: #3


(click for larger view)

Read More...

Monday, February 11, 2008

Conquest, War, Pestilence, and Death!



The Four Man-horsies of the Apocalypse return with another stellar art show February 23rd!

IGLOO TORNADO at Black Maria Gallery.

Opening Reception:
7- 10:30 pm
Monsters, Elvis, Birdies and other mysterious visual delights!
Wine and Beer!
D.J. Aaron Turner will be playing music!

DEATH TO THE ART WORLD!
ALL SHALL PERISH!
WE LOVE YOU!
YOUR MOM IS FAT!

Read More...

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Weekly Comic Strip: #1 & 2

To kick off my weekly comic strip poems, I decided to give you two to give you an idea of what they'll be like.

(Click on them for larger view)




Check back every Wednesday for a new comic strip poem.

Read More...

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Coming Soon: Weekly Comic Strip


Tomorrow I intend to begin a weekly comic strip on this blog.

I've been working on a number of pieces that I see as sort of "comic strip poems." I think most people expect comic strips to be funny, and those people will be disappointed with my strip. There's nothing really funny in these strips... well, I think some of them are funny, but my fiancée is always quick to point out that my sense of humor is skewed toward the surreal and thus not funny to anyone outside of my head... These strip-poems are more personal, contemplative and mysterious, I guess.

Anyway, I'm really excited about these "poems." I've restricted myself to the 4 panel format of the comic strip as an exercise in minimalist story-telling. This is also a challenge to myself in the use of words in my comics, since I usually make "silent" comics. Each "poem" is self contained, but as I'm working on the series, many of them are beginning to draw sub-conscious connections to each other. So, perhaps they will all tell some kind of non-linear story in the end- who knows?

I hope to be posting them every Wednesday (Wednesday is new comic book day for all of us geeks) beginning tomorrow and lasting as long as I can keep up with them. But I guarantee at least 16 of them to arrive on time because that's how many I've drawn so far.

I hope you enjoy them. Please feel free to make comments.

Read More...

Friday, February 01, 2008

BEASTS II!

Jacob Covey edited an awesome book for Fantagraphics called Beasts! It includes 90 artists doing their own interpretations of mythical monsters and beasts from around the world. The book was so successful, that he's decided to do a sequel: Beasts! 2. And I'm gonna be in it.

I chose the Skinwalker for my beast. It's sort of the Navajo (and Norse) version of a werewolf, but they can change into other things like hawks, coyotes, bears, etc.

Here is my version of a Skinwalker sort of in the middle of transformation:


The book should be out sometime this summer.

Read More...