Looks like superhero movies are yesterday. The start date for Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark on Broadway is set for Feb 18, 2010. Music and Lyric by none other than Bono and The Edge of U2. Hey it worked for Elton John so why not Bono. Besides Disney found new life for its characters on Broadway, so will it be too long before we Superman Cirque Du Soleil?
More on the story here
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When you think about Cincinnati cartoonists, most people think of recently retired Jim Borgman. But for those of us who have a Jerry Dowling original hanging in our house or eat at Arthurs on occassion, Jerry also is a Cincinnati cartooning icon.
For years he worked at the Cincinnati Enquirer and has focused mainly on single panel sports cartoons. In the past several years, his work can still be seen weekly in the local indie paper City Beat. He has pulled together his years of doing Pete Rose cartoons – from the Big Red Machine to the Big Ugly Banishment – and put them in a book with baseball writer Hal McCoy called Drawing Pete. You can read an article about it from co-author Hal McCoy by following this link.
I know you can get it at Amazon (click picture) or at local Cincinnati book retailers.
Another site to check out while I am vacationing from cartooning is Taztee.com.
It’s a free software program that allows you to use your voice to accomplish many functions on your computer.
Got itunes running and want it to pause so you can answer the phone. Don’t fumble for your mouse. Just program Taztee to pause when you say “pause”.
Bunch of different techy crap you can do with Facebook, Google, Myspace etc.
Going to be away from the computer this week so no cartoons. Decided to give another shout out to a blog that I have come to enjoy. I found it as part of the blog roll at unemployeddad cartoon website. Its called the Daily Elephant and it is written by a Chicagoan named Brit (may be short for Britney, Brittany, Britain, Encyclopedia Britannica…not sure).
Honestly, I am not sure what her blog is about…and apparently she doesn’t either (this blog really has no clear point or agenda”). But that’s the fun in it. From What Not to Buy for Valentines Day to talking up some “friend” of hers named Kenny, which we are all waiting for that day when she posts that she slept with Kenny in a senseless state of drunkenness.
Anyway…check it out (the four of you who come by my blog).
OK..they have nothing in common but today is VD as I like to call (please don’t spread it).
Tom Richmond has an interesting post about the two judges who were taking kickbacks for sending teens to lockup for minor offenses. One of them was a girl who was sent up for four weeks for merely drawing caricatures of her principal.
So the other day I wrote about trying to draw Barack Obama in cartoon form for future editorial cartoons.
I decided to scan just two of the many pages of doodles. None of them I was happy with but still a work in progress.
Thanks to this great tip at www.drawn.ca, there is a online tool called YourFonts.com where you can create a font of your own handwriting.
A great tool, especially for cartoonists who do all/most of their work on the computer. All you need to do is go to the website (or click on this image)
The process is easy:
Two things to think about. One, I think I would have better results to my liking if I found a medium point versus a fine point pen. Second, pay attention to the hash marks so you keep your lettering the same size. The first time I tried it, I didn’t pay enough attention to that and when I typed a sentence, it looked like a rollercoaster.
So introducing the Bearman Font:
My small little piece of blog real estate gets an OK stream of viewers but yesterday I noticed that I was breaking all kinds of my own records for views. Much of the thanks goes to two websites which linked to my post about Obama’s Economic Plan.
First was someone that goes by the name of Rhino at the Daily Paul (dedicated to congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul) and the other was Robin at The Swap which is a place for Homeschoolers to swap curriculum.
Thanks to you both and thanks to all who support my hack cartoons!
There has been some press about Mad Magazine going quarterly from a monthly publication due to lack of sales.
Tom Richmond does a great job of explaining the perspective on the news from the point of view of a current illustrator for the magazine. He says many of the naysayers don’t understand the publishing industry or haven’t read it in a long time.
Referencing the changes to the publishing industry are similar to that of the Television industry. The networks aren’t getting nearly the ratings they did in the 50’s-80’s merely because of the explosion of digital cable television and the internet. With so many more options for news/entertainment, the market has been fragmented.
But being one who hasn’t picked up a Mad for several years and haven’t bought every copy since I was a kid, I purchase the most recent copy. (see the cover on Tom’s blog).
Here is what I think:
1. Overall…great stuff. Mad, Cracked and the daily newspaper comics helped me get excited about learning to read because there were a lot of sight gags that didn’t require much reading to figure it out. Now that I am an avid reader, the quick gags are still a favorite.
2. Many lament the loss of the “old writers and illustrators”. I miss Dave Berg and Don Martin too but am glad to see Al Jaffee and Sergio Aragones are still active. But moving past the nostalgia, I don’t think the new illustrators/writers have lost anything (loved “When Adults Say”, “Mad word of…”, and “Monroe).
3. For those who think it has become too political and esp anti-Bush. I can’t speak for much of the content during the Bush Admin but I hope overall the magazine doesn’t try to become political satire versus just satire. From this issue, sure there were Obama sections but it was spread throughout and didn’t seem overly abundant. It’s funny how you can find those on the Left and the Right talking up the current issue though.
Unlike a Bill Maher, I think Mad has proven over the decades that its intent is to skewer all views and not just the one’s its individual writers agree with.
4. For those who are upset about advertising. I don’t mind the ads because they fill up an entire page therefore not diluting the content of what I am trying to read and there were FOUR…count em FOUR paid ads in the entire magazine. Get over yourself.
5. No parodies. Ok I know I am in the minority of those who were never big on the Parodies of Movies/TV but esp those I never saw, I couldn’t relate to the humor. (Plus typically too many words)
What didn’t work for me:
1. Spy versus Spy. Love the writing and drawing of the classic strip now done by Peter Kuper. Just not a big fan of the airbrushed coloring. I had to look closely at the page to realize that the colored print on the page simply hadn’t smudged from the printing press.
2. An ad for Tatoo Removal. I mean who is the target audience for Mad. At first I was trying to tell if it was a classic spoof ad but realized it was real. Damn 12 year olds and their tattoo regret.
3. What’s the difference feature. Not original enough to stay a Mad staple.
4. Outtakes. This feature shows actual photos from film/tv (in this case Twilight) and puts funny photo captions on them. Several of them were funny but don’t think you can replace the illustrators.
5. I enjoy Sergio Aragones‘ Mad Marginals. The small sight gags in the margins of different pages. HOWEVER, I swear some of them I remember from 1982.
