Your Unnecessary Magazine Illustration for Today

I drew this for the New Yorker during the investigation into the Enron scandal (which today seems quaint) and it was such a crummy experience that I realized subconsciously, inchoately*, that the bloom was off the rose and it was time to quit the illustration game. Briefly, from l. to r. there's Fastow, Lay and Skilling, the chief perpetrators.

I remember more about the drama behind the drawing. The sketch was okayed, but then came back to me for revisions. They FedExed it overnight to me for Saturday delivery. I waited on the front step for the package. The FedEx truck came and did not deliver anything, but parked next door. The driver was blaring opera (why do I remember that?). Just before he pulled away I ran down the hill and hammered on his door. It turned out that he had almost misdelivered the package and was quite upset by it (he kept saying "Oh Lordy!" like it was a major crime). I was just glad to get the package. The changes were all minor. They said Ken Lay looked like he had a black eye so I fixed that with some gouache (I actually rather like fixing boo-boos; it appeals to my fussy side), and had it in the mail the next Monday.

It was going to be a full page illustration so I was disappointed when the issue came out - it had shrunk to spot size. By then I was starting not to care. The things you can do in Photoshop allow an editor or art director to tinker endlessly with your work or force you to tinker endlessly with your work, and deadlines are mutable.

So like I said, the bloom was off the rose and it was about time to change careers. But gradually. Gimme, like, 4 or 5 years.

*"Inchoately" is a $25 word.

Mutt & Jeff

Here's an early caricature cover for the Post's National Edition to illustrate an article on Edwin Meese and George Schultz. I used to do covers for them fairly often, and this was the first, from about 1987-8. The National edition was (is?) a weekly tabloid that reprinted the week's stories, etc.; sort of like a magazine. And, for a cover like this, they'd pay the handsome sum of $200. So I was inspired. If it had been any more money, I'd've been worried.

In doing this, I filled two pads of my then-favorite paper, Bienfang Ad-Art, a translucent layout paper I liked before I started using a lightbox. At 100 sheets per pad, we're talking a serious emotional investment, probably due to inexperience and the kind of panic that hits at 4 a.m. when you've got a drawing due that day and you imagine a magazine with a blank cover  and your byline. (one guess what my reoccurring nightmare is).  My only clear memory of those two days (well, nights) is poring over works by Sorel, Steadman and other, better artists who knew what they were doing to see how to do it.

Finally, along about 4 a.m. on the second, penultimate night, something clicked. And after drawing these two bozos umpty-ump times it was probably my sanity. Suddenly, I had them both on one page. I added some colored pencil (enough to show it was supposed to be in color), Metroed down to the Post (from Gaithersburg, Md, where I then lived about 20 miles) and turned it in.

Later, this got into the Society of Illustrators' 2nd Humor show, and still later my brother was rear ended in Georgetown by Edwin Meese's limo.

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Art in Illustration

Here's an issue I've never seen addressed anywhere, so it's either too tough or it's nonexistent.  I mean, of course, using Art in illustration. I've made known my theories of Art for quite  some time. With maddening deliberation, I remove my pince-nez and quote myself (picture Edward Van Sloan in Lugosi's Dracula), "Comics is a bastard medium (embarrassed laughter).  Image marries Language, then tires of his nonstop chatter, dumps him, and runs off with  Commerce. Then, a couple years later, Image realizes she's stuck in a double-wide with this lummox and a bastard child (cries of "Here now!" and "There's a good fellow!") Commerce's heavy drinking and uncertain paycheck force Image to work at an unsavory dog track and loses her looks. (cries of, "Resign!") So Commerce runs off with Telemarketing (pandemonium and gunfire), And that, gentlemen, is my answer to the question - Are Comics Art? Which, sadly has nothing to do with the subject at hand. Let's have a photo of Edward Van Sloan with a link.

No, I mean when you draw stuff that's already been drawn, like this-

Or this-

Or even this-

But not this-

Your Unnecessary Magazine Illustration for Today

I know, this is really a sneaky way to get an illo for the  Art of Whatsis, pad this blog and waste everyone's time repurposing old, stale art. Yeah, so? Watcha gonna do about it, four-eyes?

I don't remember what magazine this was done for, only that I turned it in to Bono Mitchell. Some screed against smoking would be my guess. I do recall that it was, "they're all smoking." And that I did it very quickly. Probably because it's just out-and-out ugly, and nothing fires up a cartoonist's muse as the Ugly.   

 I used oil on paper, which is not recommended for longevity, but I used Liquin, a thixotropic, resin-based medium that took the place of linseed oil. I worked in my normal mantra for this technique, dabbing half-heartedly at it with the foam rubber padding they use under carpets (this is true). 

The rest must wait till the Art of Carpet Sample.

.

Small things

Here's another teaser quote from that impatiently-awaited, incipient best-seller the Art of Whosis (as  seen on TV!*), But this time I include some actual text, taken from an actual PDF of the actual book, to sweeten the deal! Once again the part of "BW" is played by Bill Watterson while I assay the rôll of "RT" (we did funny accents),

This is what I was trying to get at in the previous post about the specific vs. the general. A comic strip is the ideal medium to bear small ideas (no jokes, please), especially one with little kids in it. I'll show you; here's a strip from the Post Magazine that's not in the Complete Cul de Sac because I forgot about it, even though it's one of my favorites; I gave it to my brother for Christmas. He kindly lent it back for use in the Art book. 

That's taken from a true, well I hate to call it a "story"; it's barely an anecdote. But both of us remembered it, that one inch gap between iron and shirt that made the animatronic maid's efforts so stupidly poignant. Woodie's windows were an important part of Christmastime for us as it was for many in the DC area, so I knew this would resonate back when CdS was a local strip.

Here's perhaps the height, or nadir, of smallness. For a week Dill followed that bug. You can't get much punier. Yet in  the last year of CdS, I tried some microscopic gags, all to make producing  the strip easier.

This is a rough for Stacy Curtis to ink. A week of repeating the same scene led to this-

 

In short, the constant search for Ways to Do Things Faster, the Shortcuts to Fill the Page, make smallness ideal.  Look at one of my favorites-

There's so little movement in it that I used the same rough for 8 panels! Alice is the only movement, and she's just fidgeting around. And the smallness is carried through the dialog; casual chitchat that goes nowhere. I'm almost embarrassed to've constructed a whole strip around this.

But that's my other point; that a comic can be made up out  of the mist desultory, small, nothing  banter imaginable and successfully present a legitimate funny, universal idea. And there's a chance you'll make your deadline.

* THAT PART ABOUT IT BEING ON TV ISN'T TRUE.

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Agreed; The Specific is Funnier Than The General

In the last chapter of the forthcoming must-have book of the year, the Art of Some Guy, I bloviate, dilate & expound on comic strips at excruciating length with Bill Watterson, with a few unrelated ventures into global politics, sports and fashion. At one point, there's this exchange;

RT: I remember one of the first interviews I gave to some reporter somewhere. She called and I told her "the particular is always more funny than the general." And she said, "could you be more specific?" (BW and  RT laugh). And I couldn't! I hemmed and hawed for ten minutes! (Laughter).

My point is not that I can hem & haw for ten minutes (my current personal best for hemming & hawing is 24 hours). My point is the Specific is funnier than the General. It's axiomatic, whatever that means, and I still can't think of any specific examples. So let's run some strips to distract you and make you think you've learned something.

Be sure to watch for future helpful & informative tutorials on the comic arts!

The Poodle in the Playground

Here's something so old I'd almost forgotten it. For the Post Magazine of  June 21,1998 I did a piece suggested by my friend Bruce Guthrie, a close student of history, taken from a tourist guidebook to odd places. I even went to the playground so the drawing would be accurate. Strangely, this listing was gone in the next edition. My thanks to Mike Rhode for ferreting this out.

LAST CHANCE TO PANIC

I hate to alarm anybody but there are only ten copies of Richard's Poor Almanac left on the planet. I had 500, bought at firesale rates from a sinking publisher, but now those are gone. Like the passenger pigeon they once darkened the skies, but, alas, no longer. And who is to blame? All the greedy people who're hoarding copies of RPA in false walls, toasters, attics and under floorboards, like in Fahrenheit 451.

But panic no further! Those of you wanting a copy of this understandably scarce book will be happy to hear that now you can snag a copy for a reasonable sum. One More Page Books, my friendly neighborhood bookstore that also stocks the Collected CdS, has a supply of RPAs on hand, all signed by me. Copies are going for $15 (I think) and they'll ship your book right to your door for just $4. Run on over to 2200 N. Westmoreland Street, Suite 101 Arlington, VA,  22213 or call 703-300-9746 or email info@onemorepagebooks.com and tell 'em to send you a copy and quick, or you'll have some kind of Richard's Poor Almanac-related syncope.

These charts once appeared on Amazon's RPA page. I have no idea what they mean.

"BABY BLUES" Artist Comes Unglued- A Blog Exclusive

We have photographic proof that the well-known adult cartoonist Rick Kirkman has had an "episode" which has left him a virtual four-year-old. He is seen dancing around on a manhole cover holding some unidentified colorful  objects, possibly an explosive device. The landscape appears to be volcanic, leading experts to speculate he may have fallen, or been  pushed,  into  a caldera while playing tea party or maybe it was bath time.

Whatever, lock your doors.

Creating Character

 IN HEROIC MODE, ANDRE STRIKES KIRBY-ESQUE POSES.

Character is a mystery. Someone said that the shallowest human being is infinitely more complex than even the best-written creation, so what's the use? I always scared myself off trying a comic strip because it seemed too difficult and incomprehensible. How could I build a water-tight character that'd walk off the page and respond in ways that'd surprise me? Then I'd see Walt Kelly do it with ease, and I'd want to punch him.

I think part of the trick is to start small and to work with opposites; Alice & Petey worked as foils because they were total opposites. I called them the Irresistible Force and the Immovable Object. Also, they liked each other, or at least tolerated each other; early on, they were more argumentative and it wasn't funny. Stand outside your own work when it seems to get too thick and it clogs up, y'know?

Petey Otterloop may have been my Magnum Opus in character design, as some would say, but he's really  a list of opposites with enough of me thrown in to make him hold together. He's the anti-Bart Simpson, the mirror image of cool. I even chose the name Petey because it 's got a finger-snappin', G-droppin' quality that's so alien... What can I say? irony's good for a laff.. 

No, where I think I got it right is in Petey's cohorts from Cartoon Camp; Loris Slothrop & especially Andre Chang (the connection to Andre the Giant didn't occur to me). Loris is kinda one-joke: she's fast and full of energy. But Andre has depth. They were designed out of necessity; Petey needed a milieu, he was surrounded by nothing but little kids and he needed somebody his own size to pick on him. I had to think-what would a friend of Petey's look like or be like? The same but the opposite. Large where Petey is small and loud where Petey'd be quiet.

I am absurdly proud of Andre. 

HEROESCON 2014

I drew this logo for the blog in 2008, a simpler time, before economic malaise, before newspapers were being sold to internet jackanapes, before my kids heard of X-box 360s, before Deep Brain Stimulation, before Cherrydale Rehab Facility, before Parkinson's or before anything bad had even been thought of,  and logos could proudly flaunt their black-and-whiteness because the designer was lazy.

So here's to Heroescon 2014, and all the heroes gathered in Charlotte this weekend. Wish I were there.

 

Illustration Art

David Apatoff is a confusing guy;  one moment he's dressed like an undertaker and analyzing whether the accounting practices of a multinational organization satisfied the control requirements of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,  then suddenly he's posting some silly cartoon thing on his blog, Illustration Art.

for the Class of 2014

I've never been to a college graduation, but I've been to lots of high school graduations. This is one of my favorite old Almanacs and it's now up on GoComics. I thought of the BC joke first, although Galactus' mortarboard  makes me laugh harder.

That Wyeth Guy

They're having a show at the National Gallery of some of Andrew Wyeth's calendar-ready brown paintings, so I went down for a quick spin through it with some friends. The gift shop was very tasteful. My friend Nick likes Wyeth a lot, and one of the visiting firemen with us was okay with him, though he preferred Jamie, the cute one. I've always had problems with most Wyeths, except N.C. So I drew this, but didn't know what to do with it, about 20 years ago. I still like it.

The Tenth Pie

Phil Nel, bon vivant, globe-trotter, author, visionary topiarist, comics fan, writes about Cul de Sac in his blog, Nine Kinds of Pie.

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Otterloopiana

These are two pages of caracter drawings I did for Universal Press (I'm stuck on the old name) for the strip's sales kit in 2007. Syndicate salesman send these brochures, with samples, descriptions, etc., to propspective newspapers. The cover of the first book, This Exit, is from the cover of the sales kit.

I was real happy with the way these characters turned out, especially Ms. Otterloop, who I always had trouble drawing, as she's rather formless. I even fooled myself into thinking I'd figured out how to draw them.