FLOG! Entries tagged 'misc'

Steven Weissman in The Stranger

TheJenVaughn

Most Seattlelites recognize the cartoons of Steven Weissman since he's been drawing I, Anonymous for the Seattle Stranger for quite awhile. In this weekly letter column, he pens the diatribes of the angry, bitter, self-loathing and oblivious. Last month's was a favorite of mine, a huge fan of the C-word, handled with the utmost care (see above). Weissman's love of duotone, gray shading and dot-matrix-heavy shading makes his drawings perfect for print and they look hella fine on the web too. Weissman was sweet enough to answer some questions about how he approaches the weekly illustrations.

Q: Do the letters appear on your doorstep in a huge sack just steeped in vitriol?

A: [Art Director] Aaron Huffman sends me a letter sometime between Wednesday and Friday each week after Stranger associate editor David Schmader or some shadowy 'they' pick the letters.

Q: What is your process like for a weekly drawing based on someone else's ideas?

A: I've usually scanned the letter once by Friday. I'll print it out on Sunday night, underline key phrases and make a couple of sketches. By Monday morning, I have a pretty clear idea of what I'm drawing.

Sometimes the Seattle-specific letters can be puzzling (I'm in Los Angeles), but I can only think of one where I was completely stumped, and all I remember about that one is my solution being some guy eating a toaster waffle.

Q: Have you ever been contacted by the people who wrote the letters or the ones who figured out they were the subject?

A: I've sold drawings to people related to the letters before. They make great gifts for friends recovering from messy breakups (35% of I, Anonymous letters are breakups). Original art is also a great way to say "I'm sorry I gave you V.D."

What a Weiss-ass! More of those illustrations are available for sale via Weissman's Pinterest board as are his books, Barack Hussein Obama, Chocolate Cheeks, Chewing Gum in Church.

Beer And Movie Fest All Month Long in Portland

TheJenVaughn

BAM, BeerAndMovie Fest, returns for its 4th year in the Portland market. Sponsored exclusively by Ninkasi Brewing and Fantagraphics Books, BAM takes place April 5-11 at the Academy Theater, and April 5-May 2 at the Laurelhurst Theater. Sexy Time editor Jacques Boyreau tells you why you need to be there:

With BAM (BeerAndMovie) in its 4th year, can BAB (BeerAndBook) be far off? Let's hope it ain't! If the alignment design (by Olga Lopata) between Fantagraphics Books and Ninkasi Brewing that adorns our marquee is any omen, expect BAB soon.

Back to BAM...as the info posits, we got some cool movies ready to go. Speaking to the mosh of BAM, what fest has ever existed that so neatly connected ANNIE HALL with THE DUELLISTS (portraits of obsession); or HARD BOILED with PATHS OF GLORY (studies of body counts); or WHERE EAGLES DARE with STARSHIP TROOPERS (paragons of WW2 fetish); or ROAD HOUSE with KELLY'S HEROES (macho magical realism meets feminine absurdity). Yes it is so---BAM occupies the most potentially integrated, schizoidal zone of Pop Rep Cinema known to man or venue...Zoinx! All you need do is recall that in our first year we paired BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA with ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING.

The Academy series comprises 4 titles showing every day, April 5-11: ANNIE HALL (1977), STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997), ROAD HOUSE (1989), and HARD BOILED (1992). All Academy titles are on 35mm film.

The Laurelhurst series runs 4 consecutive weeks, with each title playing for the whole week: April 5-11 WHERE EAGLES DARE (1968), April 12-18 PATHS OF GLORY (1957), April 19-25 KELLY'S HEROES(1970), April 26-May 2 THE DUELLISTS (1977). All Laurelhurst titles are digital prints.

So sit your butts in some seats for sweet films and win some Fantagraphics books while you're there! Brew Views says "it’s still a great excuse to gather with a group of friends, the Swayze and some giant bugs for a beer—or six." There's even an art contest called "Interpreting Patrick Swayze" going on during the fest. Wanna draw the Swaze? You can turn in your art in the theater during any show or email it directly to Boyreau. Here are some of early entries:

Tim Colley captures the Road House homoeroticism between Swayze's "Dalton" character and the mysteriously named "Jimmy" (played by Marshall R. Teague).

Tim Colley channels The Swayze in sensitive black and white.

Colley goes "meta" with this Swayze-as-tat piece.

Venue Information:

Academy Theater
7818 SE Stark Street
Portland, OR 97215
503.252.0500
contact@academytheater.com

Laurelhurst Theater
2735 East Burnside Street
Portland, OR 97214
503.232.5511
bogey@laurelhursttheater.com

The Bizarre Art of F**king

TheJenVaughn

Bizarre Magazine recently ran an article by Stephen Daultrey featuring some primo "JUICY" posters from our arty porn poster book Sexytime, edited by Jacques Boyreau and Peter Van Horne. Seeking to celebrate "the age of trashy porn with tales of enemas, garage lube, balcony wanking" and Sexytime, Daultrey and Boyreau's words effectively magic a nostalgia within the reader that I didn't think possible.

The 1960s brought on such a world that "Grindhouse movie producers had begun competing about who could up the filth factor," Boyreau points out. This pushed the crazitude of poster art to a higher level, porny and punny. Think enemas, pumps and dumps.

Daultrey laments the availibility of VHS tapes and internet porn meant a lessening need for "suggestive and sometimes absurd posters [that] made the films even more trendy and often operated as standalone works of art that were almost entirely autonomous from the fuck films they promoted."

But that's the beauty of the posters seen in Sexytime says Boyreau, "They activated their own post-porn, personal narratives. They're much like how Impressionist paintings or religious, symbolic paintings can induce visionary relationships between body and soul."

To read more, pick up the next Bizarre Magazine for the full article and buy a copy of Sexytime. That one at the library has at least '69 holds' on it and is smelling a wee bit ripe.

You Can Run But You Can't Hide

Eric

So, I've been in Florida for the past week visiting my wife's family for the holidays. Needless to say, I did a doubletake when I noticed this Honda parked next to our rental car outside a shopping mall in Naples:

I am dying to know whose car this is. Mort Walker? Jeff Mason? The guy from CrossGen? Anyone?

No Comment.

Eric

R.I.P., Dave Niehaus

Eric

Not comics, but a lot of us Seattlites will miss him greatly.

Photo from the Fantagraphics Warehouse we just moved out of, located a few blocks south of Safeco Field.

What the Hell is Going On Here?!

Eric

This single panel from Neal Adams' BATMAN ODYSSEY #4 sums up what strikes me as being the most unintentionally hilarious mainstream comic I've possibly ever read. It's bafflingly crazy.

I should note that the subsequent panel, not pictured, reveals that Alfred is not actually showing Bruce how to bounce the ol' pogo stick, but instead is playing the "World's Smallest Violin".

You all know the "World's Smallest Violin" joke, right? Everyone does. So I ask you, is this how you would draw the act? Is that how you would draw the person on the receiving end?

Also, note the cleavage at top from the adjoining panel, and Bruce Wayne oogling his own penis in the lower-right.

How much of this is conscious? And if so, to what end? This is craziest comic I've come across in years. Please, someone smarter than me, review this series.

Rejection is a Bitch

Eric

From the files, Item #1,075,763,294. Over the years, we've tried virtually every approach to "rejection" letters that I can think of: supreme diplomacy, false hope, honest criticism, scorched earth rejection, and everything in between. So I'm not sure which kind prompted this reply from an aspiring cartoonist*, but it makes me laugh every time I see it (it's been hanging on a basement wall for years):

* full name edited to protect us more than him.

Hulk Need R&R

Eric

From Defenders #48, Marvel Comics, 1972.

Don't ask, Just Buy!

Eric

This is a somewhat cheesy post, but hey, I'm desperate. I'm selling 300 Gasoline Alley Sunday newspaper tearsheets by Frank King from 1935-1950 on eBay and you should bid on them! I'm also selling a copy of COMIX 2000 from L'Association and a Crumb portfolio. Baby needs a new pair of shoes!

The Hate Bat

Eric

Soggy Not-Yet-Spring Office Steps

Eric

ATTN: Tacoma Weekly

Eric

Journalism FAIL.*

Sincerely,

Seattle's Fantagraphics Books

* See: 3rd graph in story.

S. Clay Wilson Pool Cue

Eric

An underground comics fan and billiards lover with $30K to burn? This is for you.

Help Giant Robot

Eric

I'm a bit late with this, it somehow escaped me until last night, but the fine folks at Giant Robot need your help. Peggy Burns at D&Q already made a better case than I could as to why you might want to do this, so I'll simply direct you to her if you need reasons to help. I wholeheartedly concur with everything she wrote.

Glamourpuss

Eric

So, Tuesday nights are band practice. We get together in a seedy old building in Seattle's Ballard district, an old theater of some kind that's been subdivided into a bunch of nonsensical, Winchester Mystery House-style rooms and stairways. The Grunge Era lives on here, where garbage bags filled with empty beer cans are piled in the main "lobby" about ten feet high by at least as wide. The cavernous, pitch black hallways that lead to the restroom can make you feel like you're in an indoor version of "The Blair Witch Project". The bathroom stall is splattered with red paint for dramatic effect. You need a lighter or iPhone to light the way. Walls are routinely tagged, there's new stuff on them almost every week. Imagine my surprise last night when I came upon these faces staring me down in one of the hallways:

Very creepy. I was afraid that Dave Sim was going to come through a door and rape me for not being more manly. I ran back to our room and locked it. We might need to explore a new practice venue.

We all live in...

Eric

Photo by my pal Kurt Schlosser.

Bailey/Coy: Fantagraphics Salutes You

Eric

The landscape for literature in Seattle took a major turn for the uglier yesterday when news leaked that the venerable indie bookstore Bailey/Coy, a mainstay on Seattle's Capitol Hill for 26 years, would be closing at the end of the month. This might be the single most alarming sign I've seen yet in regard to the future of independent bookstores and publishers. If the most literate neighborhood in the most literate city in the country can't support a great store like Bailey/Coy, it makes me think we're all doomed. We will greatly miss B/C, a longtime supporter of Fantagraphics and home to numerous Fanta events over the last 19 years or so. One of the only downsides to opening up our own retail space almost three years ago is that I haven't had the opportunity to work with B/C owner Michael Wells as much as I'd like the last few years, but I've always been grateful that he's never been nothing but encouraging and enthusiastic about us opening our own space. He's one of the true class acts in this racket and his store's closing will make the culture of Capitol Hill and Seattle that much less vibrant. If you're in Seattle, go do some early Christmas shopping at B/C, as the store will shut its doors at the end of this month.

Above image: One of the handbills for one of the seemingly dozens of successful Ellen Forney events that B/C hosted over the years.

The Glenn Beck Diaper Mask

Eric

Courtesy Ethan Persoff. Happy Halloween!

Random Comics Quote of the Day

Eric

Paul McCartney on "illegitimate" artforms, in discussing the forthcoming Beatles Rock Band: "Rock 'n' roll, or the Beatles, started as just sort of hillbilly music, just a passing phase, but now it's revered as an art form because so much has been done in it. Same with comics, and I think same with video games." From the New York Times. What graphic novels do you think Paul McCartney reads?!?