It's been a long time in the waiting, but finally it is up. The artist I grew up admiring. The one who filled the gutters of every Mad Magazine. Discovering this site brought one of those twinkly little smiles to my face, like a baby with gas. Sergio Aragones.
February 2003 Archives
One Illustrator I have admired for some time for their work as being outstanding is Bill Mayer. I don't know if many know him by name but when you see his work you certainly know it by nature. I found out he has a website now, albeit a bit too flashy. Obviously designed by a web tech rather than a designer. It crashed my browser when I clicked to see his BIO details. Anyway, check out his version of monsters in his portfolio. He truly stands out as a great Illustrator.
Sometimes freelancing can get a little lonely. I've been a first time cat owner for just over a year now. Taya had her 1st birthday last Saturday. I don't know what it is but having an animal around can help greatly. With deadlines looming, I think she has helped and hindered in many ways to my work.
A rather small fit into the in tray.
This image shows how we had to put her in a harness. Mainly because she was so damn quick. It was hard to keep her nailed down.
And of course the relative size comparison photo.View image
She really hasn't grown much since then. Thankfully. I don't have enough room on my desk.
The story of the Little Mole who knew it was none of his business
ISBN 9780732256494
Here is the blurb :
A terrible catastrophe befalls the little mole one bright sunny morning. It looks a little like a sausage, and the worst thing is that it lands right on his head. He sets out to find who has left their business on his head.
If there isn't enough hassles tring to get published in the children's book market, now we have to contend with Celebrities doing their worst to ruin the lists. I've yet to see a decent book from any Celebrity. Hard words but more made from the frustration that publishers are willing to print their crap unedited.
The upside to having them out there for us to laugh at not with, is that they make us look incredibly talented. Many readers in the US are now realising these vanity published Celebrities will only ever see their tripe published once. And with a very high price on the book purely for scrapping left overs. I never knew why books cost so much until I asked a friend at a major publisher here in Sydney, the answer was they build in a cost to the retail price for scrapping the unsold books. So (and this is from memory) the price of $19.95 in retail has a tag of around $6.00 set aside to cover the cost of shredding those unsold. Technically if you could publish according to pre-sales only and printed the sold amount it would reduce your cost by one third or more. Amazon has a brilliant strategy that not many realise. They are monitoring sales and building a list of people to sell to using their many tools that we think are cool as they help us find what we want or make suggestions. All the while they are making headway in to what could be called Direct Publishing. Imagine being able to pre order Episode 3 or maybe 10 of Star Wars by George Lucas well in advance. Amazon would be able to gauge the reaction of pre orders and then prompt the writer with an advance from pre orders up front to write the book. They could then publish the exact number of books to meet orders. This will change book publishing over the next few years.
If there is one thing I have come across in drawing cartoons is that women hate being drawn realistically. The last live performance caricature gig I did was at the Ritz Carlton in Double Bay. Every woman I drew wanted bigger boobs or better noses. Well frankly I'm no Cosmetic Surgeon so I had to softly explain that I exaggerate the obvious. But not to the extent they ask.
This is a drawing I had done for a Hen's night invitation where they were staying at a holiday house on the coast.
I gave up trying to draw women too realistic in my cartoons and preferred to instead make sure they had large breasts and big noses. Two of the funniest things known to mankind. Next to farts of course. Which is also a real thigh slapper when you need to beef up the drawing a little. Always draw farts as musical notes emmenating from the bum. Comedy at its best. Big noses have always been funny, don't quite know why.
I have always since starting out owned a copy of Aldus Illustrator, or more commonly now known as Adobe Illustrator. I just never had time to go in to the depths of using it. I found I spent most of my time in Photoshop with my work. Now I am getting the hang of it and at last making up for the cost of buying it. I haven't as yet gone too far into the new bits of version 10 but I'm sure it won't make too much of a difference. Here is a work colleague I caricatured recently :
I guess the cool part of this is being able to import to Flash and then animate the caricature as well. A huge bonus if you're doing multimedia type stuff. I could have worked this drawing up a bit more but I like the simplistic style of it. Reminds me of early cel type animation.
I was hoping to do a Flash animation for this years Valentines Day but time has been scarce recently. I have however made a comic strip, even though it is a little late to be posting now. You'll still get it.
Recently a popular kid's magazine conducted a study with amazing results. From the study I would like to quote, "Australian Kid's aged six to eleven are influenced by the media, are tech-savvy and spend their pocket money on themselves."
Well that was worth the money for research. Is it just me or is the media lacking in ideas ?
With the slow decline in comic strips appearing in published media and an increase in Crosswords in their place I wonder where the valuable editors have gone. Don't get me wrong though, I deal with some very outstanding editors. But the fact is that the newbies have no talent and lack complete understanding of the importance in having cartoons appear in the media. Older generation editors that are now entering the retirement stage have noone to pass the skill on to. I've seen so many journo's come in to the chance/opportunity of taking the role of editor but lack any knowledge of what it involves. A little background in to the history of the role would do wonders for the entire community. I'm afraid that even today, we are seeing more newspapers becoming nothing but a catalogue of ads with the chance of some news being inserted in every 4th or 5th page. Yesterday's paper I picked up was literally the previous day's news reprinted and large quantities of ads. Now I understand the need to pay for the publication's costs etc.. but fair is fair. I spoke to one editor who is part of a larger nationwide group and he informed me of the profit made each publication. You could buy a fleet of Ferrari's with it. But his hands are tied to any outsourced expense and couldn't afford to hire me.
So I have to ask, when was the last time you were out socialising and prompted conversation with "Did you see those specials at Liquorland in the paper?" or "How was today's crossword ? hardy wasn't it ?".
Sorry but those to blame will soon realise when it is too late that content is king and they are in control. People want a laugh or need the boggling explained in a simple manner. That is why we have cartoonists. People who can communicate visually and translate the complex in the quickest and funniest manner. People who can make your day by giving you a laugh.
Bottom line for most media is money. Maybe some day they'll realise readership is what keeps them alive. Hopefully there will be a rise of quality leadership and the focus will be on providing top content and be more appreciative of those content providers. Some day the bad editors will get a huge bite on the arse by their readership. Some day they'll notice why newspapers like the LA Times wrap their daily with the Comics as a selling point. Some day they'll understand why in Europe people like cartoonists are treated with celebrity status. Some day they'll understand they have been ignorant and see they've been making a huge mistake.
So I got my letter from Tropfest yesterday asking for me to collect my submission as I was unsuccessful at being a finalist. That's obviously one winner that won't be seen at the film festival then eh ?
For those interested in seeing the masterpiece featuring the voice talents of the young and impressionable Keith Scott, you may view Comedy at its greatest here.
Other than that, I keep getting asked for my profile. So here it is.
Not true to my real skin tone due to web safe colouring.
I'm sorry but this is just getting out of hand. What a pack of weirdos. I remember working with a woman once who never let her children read comic books as they were Satan's means of communication.
Check out the site, worth the entertainment value. Losers.
I find it incredibly remarkable that the media can focus so much on one thing that everyone else can turn their eyes to with blinkers on. So where is Osama Bin Laden now ?
I think that may be a question that we'll see on the TV show 'Where are they now'. But even scarier is that the Athens Olympics 2004 is nearly upon us already. I can't believe I'm drawing a cartoon about it now.
I often wonder how far you can push the limit in political cartooning before things get ugly. Not that I'm trying to make something out of it or anything. No fights being picked here ladies and gentlemen.
Found an awesome website with amazing composition, colour and sense of drama. If you like cartoons and the japanese style of drawing you should check out the Little Ninjai. This stuff is absolutely brilliant. Check out the Flash animations too.
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