New (Weekly?) Strip

New Projects Dept: Make a weekly comic strip. This is the first one, for the week of November 26 thru December 2, 2007. We'll see if 12/3-12/9 materializes. I got no job, and I wrote three or four strips this morning, just need to draw them--I'd be a real slob if I didn't get a second one done at the very least. Wish me luck!

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Today's Sketchbook

A four-panel strip I was working on last night. Not too sure if it's funny enough, but I'm satisfied with the drawing so far, which may compensate for any lack of laffs

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Today's Sketchbook

More from that comic strip I've been working on.

Things I Have Bought Lately

The Speedball Text Book from 1948, 88 pages. Jam packed with sample alphabets and instructions for the letterer. I broke out the speedball nibs I have and did a page's worth of practicing, and it wasn't too bad. I improved right away...

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Today's Sketchbook

This is part of a comic strip I've been working on. I have lots of time to work on it lately, so it's coming along pretty fast.

Popeye Ad

Just playing around with this Popeye movie ad that was posted on Cartoon Brew today. I'm trying to create the most high-contrast black and white blog on the internet.

Ralph Barton

I nabbed this Ralph Barton gag from the Library of Congress' site. I doctored it a little to make a print-ready black & white file from it. See the unadulterated scan here.

The Library of Congress site has tons of material if you're willing to dig a little. I've found that they don't always give you easy access to the highest quality images, you instead have to go to the root directory and navigate to the bigger file (like this one, for instance). Happy hunting.

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Today's Sketchbook

Not actually sketchbook, but rather slick polished finished drawing-work.

Today's Sketchbook

I don't have a job now, so the sketchbook's seeing some action. Up above I was fooling around with a drawing style that nobody really does anymore. It could be considered the "lightbulb head' school of cartooning. Down there is just some random character stuff. Hope you like it!

By the way, I know I don't have a huge readership here, but if you're looking via RSS please leave a comment, just to give me an idea whether I'm liked or not.

Things I Have Bought Lately

I bought the following books yesterday at Bargain Books in Van Nuys, CA. There was a copy of VIP's Bottle Fatigue there for $3, but I left it behind since I already have a paperback copy. If you want it, get a move on!

OK, check 'em out:

This is New Letters and Lettering (1943) by Paul Carlyle and Guy Oring. It includes instruction for the professional letterer and sample typefaces. It's wire-o bound so you can drag it on the job with you and it won't fall apart. Some great letters in here, I'll post some one of these days.

Here's Ever Since Adam and Eve (1957) edited, with contributions, by Alfred Andriola and Mel Casson. Lots of battle-of-the-sexes themed gags in here, with some rarities by strip artists like Schulz, Capp and Frank King and some international people like Searle, Taizo Yokoyama, Andre Francois. It claims to have 86 different cartoonists; I didn't count but there's a huge variety.

As I said the store had this, Virgil Partch's Man the Beast (1953), and a copy of Bottle Fatigue in the same format. Inside the cover it lists those two along with Here We Go Again and The Wild Wild Women, presumably as a matching set. Man the Beast is described thus:

"Vip depicts Man as the always eager predator, usually his own worst enemy. Especially at sea, in bars and offices, on desert islands, etc."

Sounds funny, huh??