Thursday, November 18, 2010

The Daily Cartoonist

There's a lot of cartooning/cartoonist blogs out there, but one of the very best is Alan Gardner's “The Daily Cartoonist". Any and ALL cartooning related news can be found here, and it covers most of the various disciplines in the field very effectively and professionally, although, oddly, it overlooks the greeting card industry, which employs an astounding number of cartoonists and humorous illustrators. Part of this seems to be a somewhat slavish predilection towards the syndication crowd, who in many cases, dominate the comment sections with flame wars over fairly innocuous issues. Not for the faint of heart, and oftentimes, breathtakingly juvenile and very clique-ish. All I get from that aspect is how socially ignorant many otherwise talented individuals are, who seem to relish their fleeting moments of internet glory. Truly no fun to read and about as insightful as Browns/ Steelers fans screaming at each other in a bar. The only difference is said posters bravely sit in front of a computer taking their shots. Real tough.

As mentioned above, TDC mysteriously overlooks the greeting card industry, and I’m not quite sure why that is. Obviously, I’m somewhat partial here, but as a site dedicated to all things cartooning, from craft and technique to freelance and employment etc., it seems somewhat antithetical to the site’s apparent mission to overlook this segment of the field, which, quite frankly, employs far more cartoonists and humorous illustrators (not to mention graphic designers in general) than every syndicate combined.

All of the above aside, don’t be fooled - TDC is THE best source for most industry-related news, the gold-standard in fact, and is a must-stop for beginners and professionals alike. Visit often and be sure to donate – it takes a lot of work to keep a site like this running. Save yourself the tedium of the comments/posts, though – root canals are way more fun.

http://dailycartoonist.com/


Friday, November 5, 2010

recent band graphics...




As mentioned in previous posts, I do all the graphics for my band, The Rhythm Syndicate, and enjoy putting together fun posters for each gig. I try to have a different one for every appearance - here's a few recent pieces...

Friday, October 22, 2010

Not everything gets published...


Oftentimes, when working on somewhat 'exploratory' programs, I'll do a design that, for whatever reason, doesn't fit the program, but is still a pretty cool looking piece of art.  This is a perfect example - the production piece looks nothing like it (I'll post when it actually hits the market) and I actually preferred this version. 

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Rubber City gig...


I do a lot of design work for my band and I try to do different posters for each gig...here's a recent one for an appearance at Northside, a blues club in Akron, Ohio...

Monday, October 18, 2010

some caricature stuff...






I get called on to do caricatures quite a bit. Back in the day, they were rather traditional looking, amusement park type stuff, utilizing markers or even brush work. In recent years though, I've switched over to a somewhat more stylized, vector approach. This method actually captures 'nuance' rather than specificity, and is quite a bit more expressionistic. In any event, I love working in this way - here's a few recent ones of some of my colleagues...

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

recent stuff






Here's a variety of recent card designs I've done for American Greetings...I like to vary my styles a bit depending on the caption or the tone of the copy...

Sunday, June 6, 2010

gore/bush 2000


Back in 2000, we did a line of political cards at American Greetings to coincide with the election...this particular design was actually two cards, the left side has Gore with various Dem politicos and was printed as a single card...the right side has Bush and his Republican supporters and was also printed separately...I think the idea was you were supposed to buy both 'coz you wanted to impress the receiver of the card(s) showing how savvy you were about current events and politics...Of course, the 2000 election became a lot more interesting afterwards...

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Sunday, May 2, 2010

kucinich / lieberman

These were done for a greeting card design a few years ago - both guys are kinda fun to draw and for this piece I wanted to do the gestural/retro thing...

More retro-type stuff...this one has kind of a 1960's "Simplicity/McCall's" vibe. Well...something like that...

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Kirstie and Kiefer


Some caricature work...it's my 'gestural' style...I use a Windsor Newton #2 on frosted acetate for the linework and then make a good solid black line photocopy - scan it into P-shop, and aw-a-a-a-ay we go...

Casual Friday on a Sunday
























Here's a few samples from a strip I developed a while back...it's called Casual Friday...

random sketchbook pages...


Saturday, April 24, 2010












I use a pretty 'retro-y' approach to some of the children's book stuff...I start with inking the linework and then double back with a thick 'perimeter' line...kinda time-consuming...lol...

children's book stuff....



Samples from a children's book I illustrated called "Mrs. Riley Bought Five Itchy Aardvarks"...