Classes Future and Students Past

This amazing "Noodling Worksheet" is by the amazing Daniel Pucca,
rendered over a line drawing by yours truly.

This spring, I'll once again teach the Inking Comics course, alongside my regularly scheduled Cartooning Basics class at SVA, making this a good time to follow up on this earlier post. An impressive number of former students are making me proud and making their excellent work available online.

A group of inking students, notably Daniel Pucca (above), Van Hong, and Ken Frederick, continue their studies on the Drinking and Inking blog.

Ken Frederick is also active in Pronto comics, along with Earl Barrett-Holloway and Dominic Sparano.

Zachary Snyder's web comic Stupid Inventor, was a finalist in The Washington Post's America's Next Great Cartoonist contest. Zachary also has a YouTube channel, Stupid Inventions.

Meanwhile, Bill Roundy has a strip running in The Brooklyn Paper, Bar Scrawl, that combines cartooning with bar hopping. How fun is that?

Mark Weisner, aka Max West, has a blog and website of his Sunnyville Stories.

Adam Markiewicz' "The Insomniac" blog features must-see comics and sexy pin-up girls.

A personal favorite: Alexander Rothman makes poetic broadsheet comics on his Versequential blog and participates in Tapir Tooth along with Andrea Tsurumi.

Have I forgotten anybody? Send me a link!

Another Recent Strip

This one is a rare attempt at ink wash, which I think turned out okay.

Upcoming Appearance-- UVM

I'm slated to show work from my forthcoming book, The Golden Ass (being published by David R Godine), at the University of Vermont this Monday. If you know anyone around Burlington, tell them to come see!

And while I'm up there, I'll be speaking to a couple of graphic novel classes. I feel honored.

Made Out of "Mac"

I'm stoked to hear a reading of new poems by Harry Mathews at 192 Books tonight. In honor of that, here are my newest installments in the "Made Out of 'Mac' " series of Oulipo cartoons (I'm not sure whether they qualify as Oubapo).

I've already posted others in the series, including two Mathews's Algorithm examples here and here.

The first collection can still be purchased here. This collection, by the way, was listed among the "Notable Comics of 2009" in the latest edition of Best American Comics.

NYCC sketches

The bigger the New York Comic Con gets, the less it seems to offer a minicomic fan like me. I was grateful for the small amount of quality programming I found in the time I spent there:


J. J. Sedelmaier hosted this panel on political cartooning, featuring Mike Lester, Ann Telnaes, and Steve Brodner. The level of draftsmanship of these artists really blew me away.


This panel on indie comics, "Indie Cred," was moderated by Chris Radke and featured cartoonists Alex Robinson, Jason Little, Julia Wertz, and Mike Dawson.

Don Oriolo and Craig Yoe discussed new collections of Felix the Cat comics and Dick Briefer's Frankenstein.


And here's an academic author from Brazil, Fabio Luiz Carneiro Mourilhe Silva, discussing comic adaptations of the stories of Poe.

Panel Discussions

Comics and Form. Ben Katchor, Jillian Tamaki, Karen Green, and Robert Berry. Brooklyn Book Festival, 9/12/2010.

I've fallen way behind on posting my sketches from panel discussions. With the New York Comic Con coming up this weekend, I may get swamped with more. So here, newest to oldest, are my latest...

At the Brooklyn Book Festival last September, I was listening to a very fine panel on The International Graphic Novel with Jessica Abel, Matt Madden, Josh Neufeld, and Nick Abadzis, when it started to rain on my sketch paper. Then I got a text from my wife that my daughter, Molly, was helping Chris Raschka read a book at the kids' tent, so I dashed over there and ended up sketching Raschka. Later was the Comics and Form panel pictured above.


Jessica Abel, Matt Madden, Josh Neufeld, Nick Abadzis. Brooklyn Book Festival, 9/12/2010.


Chris Raschka, 9/12/2010



Last December, 12/5/09, the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival in Williamsburg hosted this panel called Flatlands: Comics on the Picture Plane featuring Mark Newgarden, David Sandlin, Lisa Hanawalt, and Ron Rege Jr, and moderated by Bill Kartalopoulos, followed by a live comics drawing session with Robert Sikoryak, Frank Santoro, and Gabrielle Bell.





At King Con, Brooklyn, 11/7/09, I sat in on this panel, Europe to Brooklyn, moderated by Thomas Baehr, and featuring Vasilis Lolos, Simon Fraser, and Amir Moye.




Before that, there was the Robert Crumb interview conducted by Francoise Mouly at the Union Square Barnes and Noble on October 23, 2009. I showed up ten minutes early to get a good seat. Sheesh. I guess my head's stuck in the 1980s. I can't get it through my head that comics are respected now.



Back on September 28, 2009, I made it to the New York Anime Festival, and attended this interview and slide show with fashion designers from Baby, The Stars Shine Bright. Included in this picture are designers Miho Satoh and Masumi Kanoh, moderator Jessica Kam (in plaid), and Viz Media president Seichi Horoguchi. Special thanks to Andrea Tsurumi for helping me with these attributions.



And on September 12, 2009, Andrei Molotiu moderated a panel at the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art on Abstract Comics. Left to right we see Alexey Sokolin, Henrik Rehr, Richard Hahn, Janusz Jaworski, Patrick McDonnell, Anders Pearson, Derik Badman, Andrei Molotiu, and MoCCA Director, Karl Erickson.



And way back on August 12, 2009, was this panel called Lines On Paper: Drawing for Comics at Union Pool in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, moderated by Bill Kartalopoulos and featuring Austin English, Lisa Hanawalt, and Dash Shaw.

Whew. Now I'm ready to go sketch some more.

Doodle Diary

I haven't posted doodles in a while. Here are some fairly recent ones.

"What pen do you use?"

Honey Manko at Dr. Sketchy's NYC

Almost every day, a stranger stops me while I'm sketching to ask about the pen I'm using. Here it is.

The Pentel Pocket Brush Pen is an extremely sensitive drawing tool, refillable, portable, and seems like it'll last forever. It's my favorite toy these days. I don't go anywhere without it.

Pentel is also rolling out a line of fine line india ink pens to compete with Microns, only these take a beating and don't dry out. Check 'em out.

Cay Izumi vs. Kaiju Big Battel

I just uploaded a number of new life drawings to my Deviant Art page. Have a look!
Also, check out more art from Dr. Sketchy's.

Another Recent Strip

Secrets of Unprofessional Cartooning

Like most cartoonists, I suppose I can be touchy about giving away trade secrets. But since I'm doing a lot of teaching, its important that I set a good example. So here you have it, the "keys to the kingdom."

Cliff's Notes Illustrated

Here's this series of pages I did back in the mid 1980s. The idea was to take ponderous works of literature and modernize and miniaturize them. So the great white whale became the Big Bee, the crown of England became a coin, and the hordes of Greece became a little league team. And I tried here and there to explicate the meanings of the works, as found in the Cliff's Notes.

The first four ran in a zine called nada. The fifth one didn't see print until they were collected in Acme Comics #10 in 1994. That anthology can still be purchased from The Squid Works.

The artwork is a bit naive and punkish, but I think it succeeds on its own terms. Click on these images and they should finally appear big enough to comfortably read.


Cliff Notes Faust


Mo Bee


The Complete Works of Shakespeare


Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung" cycle of operas


The Iliad and The Odyssey


Thank you for your time.

Harvey Pekar, Rest In Peace

Recent Tragic Strips

Upcoming Classes

I'm teaching kids this month and next on Saturday mornings at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. Tell some kids.

Also, my SVA Cartooning Basics class starts in just over a week. It's almost full.

Update: the SVA class filled with a waiting list, but the kid's class didn't enroll after all. Drat. Another time, perhaps...

Yep, That Was Me

Photo by Cheese Hasselberger

The posters have mostly come down now, but for a couple of months this year, I was honored to be one of six SVA Continuing Education instructors featured in their Spring ad campaign. My picture appeared in subway trains all over the city and in a full page ad in the Village Voice.


Photo by Elinor Carucci

The subways also had these closeup shots of my hand doodling.


Photo by Elinor Carucci

Was that ever cool.

Photo by Elinor Carucci

Click here to see the whole campaign.

Comic Attack's Artist of the Month

I spilled my guts a bit in this interview on Comic Attack dot net. Read it if you dare.