Monday, August 30, 2010

Not Op-Art


I'm sure somewhere on the Internets there's a site that will create one of those monster images made up of thousands of your tiny JPEG files.  Until I get the urge to do that, here's a cute little cluster that doesn't form an image no matter how hard you stare.  It's for a gray background for an upcoming image I was working on today.

The Clovis and the Fury


If you squint your eyes and peer at your computer through a magnifying glass you will see a guest appearance in yesterday's Sunday strip.  There, in a frame on the wall in panel five stares the disturbing face of Clovis from Imagine This, the embodiment of all anger.  The new Imagine This book is available here.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Penguins Against Environmental Destruction

The amazingly wonderful Arctic Circle celebrates three years of syndication this week.  Congratulations to Alex Hallatt for her great strip, one of my top favorites.  She writes a fascinating piece on her blog about her quick launch with King Features and how her strip has developed.  I was was recently honored to meet the fantastically talented Alex on her trip round the world.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

European Water Voles Against Magic

Today's Monty features the ever popular rabbit-in-a-hat theme.  This is one of my favorite strips to visit daily.  I've been a fan ever since it was called Robotman and Bill Watterson turned down the chance to draw it.  Jim Meddick is known in the profession as the "cartoonist's cartoonist" and for good reason.  There's a super cool Robotman fan site here.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

I Seem to Have This Rabbit


James Thurber was a writer, cartoonist and general all-round wit who basically invented the New Yorker magazine style before becoming a curmudgeon and going blind.  His career as a cartoonist began in 1930 when another famous writer, E.B. White found some of Thurber's drawings in a trash can at the New Yorker office and submitted them for publication.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Sticker Festival!


Unless you happen to be in Buenos Aires between 23rd September and 2nd October you won't be attending this week-long exhibit but you can certainly admire the awesomeness of the poster.  I believe the artist here is the always fantastic Liniers.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Book Review


A haughty shout out and shameless plug for "Dewey Defeats Truman" by my fellow Tall Tale Feature creature Lucas Turnbloom who draws the most astoundingly excellent Imagine This (mentioned numerous times on this blog before and once again today).  This is the second collection of Imagine This strips (although somehow I seem to have three books) and it includes a whole bunch of slick extras including a new seventeen page never seen before story, a bunch of guest strips by other illustrious and famous artists plus a foreword from the legendary Richard Thompson of Cul-de-Sac. I just got my copy in the mail and it oozes wonderfulness. Get your copy here.


One of the guest strips is by yours truly, which eerily foretold the book title on the newspaper in the last panel. Lucas talks about the book on this weeks episode of Comic's Coast to Coast.  And while on the subject of guest strips, I've been busy! Keep an eye for Irma Eriksson's much anticipated new Imy collection coming soon.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Déjà Viewed

It's a strange world in the universe of comic strip ideas.  Every day about 400 cartoonists in the US try to come up with an original idea and very often they unintentionally come up with the same, or very similar jokes. In the past I've pointed out some other synchronicitous cartooning coincidences. Over at GoComics today, someone pointed out that my strip  resembled a The Dogs of C Kennel strip from February 6th 2008.



The most excellent strip is drawn by the Mastroianni brothers Mick and Mason and I hadn't seen it before although the resemblance seems to be only in the fact that an animal other than a hamster appears inside a plastic ball.

It's been an interesting week of unintentional coincidences.  Check out Bizarro from Monday:


And here's a Rabbits strip from December aught eight.   It makes me feel good to know that I came up with the roughly the same joke as this years Reuben Award winner and excellent all-round nice guy Dan Pirarro.


Then a couple of days later came this.


Which is a much better version of my strip from February last year.


And just to make it interesting here's the Tundra strip from Monday.


I was thinking migrating ducks back in July, 2006.


Obviously my big mistake was leaving out the "Wheeeee!"

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

DeFur


This delightful picture is from my new favorite blog Tiny Bunny Woman.