Recently I’ve started an email correspondence with a creative director who was laid off from a large agency. She’s looking for some freelance work to keep the bills paid and is thinking about possibly launching out on her own full-time. With the economy continuing to flounder stories like hers are becoming more and more common. I sat down to type up a list of resources for her and decided it would make a pretty good blog post. (more…)
Australian designer Jenica Smith publishes designmontage.com, a website which brings together an eclectic mix of creative goodies from all corners of the internet – design, illustration, photography, animation, and the like. She’s just posted a short interview with me about my illustration work and career. I encourage all my blog readers to take a poke around the site. There’s some really neat stuff, and I’m very flattered to be included.
For several years I’ve enjoyed being a member of the National Cartoonists Society. Two or three times a year I travel across the Midwest to spend a couple of days hanging out with other members of my chapter. You can take this to the bank: Getting a few cartoonists together over drinks is never dull.
One of our members is John Hambrock. His strip, “The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee”, is relatively new (it debuted in 2006) and is syndicated by King Features. In 2009 the strip was nominated by the National Cartoonists Society for Best Comic Strip. John’s a terrific guy and I’ve enjoyed getting to know him.
Recently we swapped some cartoon-related items. For his part John sent me an original “Edison Lee” strip, and I definitely got the better part of the bargain. I’ve just framed it and very soon it will be hanging proudly in my studio. I couldn’t locate the final published strip online but if you click the photo you should be able to read the enlarged version. Hope it gives you a good chuckle.
If you still read a daily newspaper and if “The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee” doesn’t appear in yours, contact your local editor to request it. If you’d rather read your comics online you can follow “Edison Lee” by subscribing to King Features’ Daily Ink service. Or, you can read a collection of strips in book form by ordering “The Edison Files: Notes From The Lab”.
Yesterday I was sketching up some doodles as part of a new promotional campaign I’m working on. I liked how this bear turned out so I decided to clean it up and color it in Photoshop. If you’d like to purchase the rights to use this image please contact me.
A picture really is worth a thousand words.
Tonight I saw “The Artist”, a feature film getting a lot of buzz. It just won three Golden Globe including best film (musical or comedy) and some say it deserves an Oscar for Best Picture. I wouldn’t quite go that far but it is a very good film.
What’s makes “The Artist” especially remarkable is that it’s a black and white silent film. The soundtrack consists almost entirely of music and sound effects. On the rare occasion when characters do speak their dialogue is written out on old-timey title cards, just like a Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton film. I know that sounds awful but trust me, it works. In a way the absence of dialogue actually improves the film because all of the other storytelling devices have to work harder to pick up the slack. The actions have to be clearer, the acting more expressive, the editing sharper, and being forced to say everything with pictures alone makes for some very creative and compelling visuals.
As an illustrator I found “The Artist” to be a powerful reminder that a tremendous amount can be said simply and elegantly with pictures alone. The right poses, expressions, and body language can communicate great depth and feeling without saying a single word. The movie really inspired me to think more deeply about the power of my drawings to communicate, entertain, and even to move people. The next time I sit down to draw the film will still be reverberating in my mind, challenging me to think harder about how I can say more with my drawings.
If, like me, you make your living drawing pictures then you absolutely must see this film. Study it. Replay it in your mind. Especially if you work in storyboards, comics, animation, or other storytelling mediums.
Here’s the official trailer:
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I illustrated this popular cartoon gospel tract. Over 5 million copies have been printed in twenty languages. Read it here:
...or watch the animated version I produced:
