Look at this. Amazing.
Japanese artist Chie Hitotsuyama makes intricate animals from newsprint. She uses rolled strips of wet newspaper.
“More than anything else, I’m particular about the realistic feel of the animals,” she says.
Author: tomversation
It’s all about the casting
Here are two of the characters from a new comic strip I’m working on. This is Hal and Benilda. For the longest time, I wasn’t happy with Benilda, I was sort of writing her out of the strip after just a few episodes. There was something I just didn’t like.
I’m not going to show you the old image, but this is the new Benilda. I like her. I really did not like the old Benilda.
If she was an actress in a tv show or movie, the old Benilda would have been fired because she wasn’t right for the part. This new Benilda is just right.
It’s amazing how casting, even in comic strips, makes a big difference.
Breaking Bad, et al
I DVR’d all of Breaking Bad when there was a marathon on AMC and for the past month I have been holding off on watching the final five episodes. I don’t want it to end. I know how it ends because it was all over the news the next day after the final episode. But still, those five final episodes are precious to me.
I’m not sure why I never watched it when it was on the air, I never saw Game of Thrones or Ray Donovan either. Not sure why, I used to watch all those Sunday night shows on HBO, True Blood, The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire. I know Ray is on Showtime.
I guess one of these will be my next DVD- binge watch thing.
I’m always drawn to the desert Southwest – you know, Albuquerque, Phoenix, etc. Maybe I lived there in another life, who knows. I was talking to my cousin the other night and out of the blue she tells me that one of her sons is drawn to the desert, too. Like when he sees a scene in the movies or on tv, like in Breaking Bad for instance, he is drawn to it. Crazy right?
My thing with these tv shows is that I watch mostly reality tv, not sure why, so I don’t see much scripted stuff.
Russia Wants Bulgarians to Stop Painting Soviet Monuments To Look Like American Superheroes
This struck me as so funny. Russia wants Bulgarians to stop painting the Soviet monuments to look like American super heroes. But it’s been painted over and over again as other things, too. There is one monument that is defaced often. It was painted bright pink to commemorate the anniversary of the Prague Spring and it was painted blue and yellow which are Ukrainian colors. But I think the super heroes are so funny, just the fact that they are American heroes (and Ronald McDonald) makes it hilarious to me.
Bad comic strips
Ever read a comic strip daily, just because it’s bad?
I’m not going to mention any names and for all I know, my own work is in this horrible category, but I’ve noticed that I’ve always been drawn to terrible work. Of course, I love all the classics and read the best of the best, but for some reason, I am drawn to the bad ones. I’m not sure if it’s the content, the writing or the drawing, but I read these bad strips often. Many I see on Facebook, they pop up in my feed. I don’t seek them out.
When I was a kid, we used to get a few newspapers (I miss those old daily newspaper days), and some newspapers ran the lower-end comics, I guess they weren’t as popular and they were cheaper to purchase for the newspapers than say “Doonesbury” or “Peanuts.” So there was room for everyone back then with the multitude of newspapers and features.
We used to get the Miami Herald daily and the South Dade News Leader and I would sometimes buy the Miami News. We also had access to the Hollywood Sun-Tattler (love that name) and the Ft. Lauderdale News and Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. So we had daily access to six daily newspapers and if I would travel through the south end of our state, I would read the Naples Daily News and Key West Citizen. Lots of newspapers.
The South Dade News Leader had the lower end comics, most from the NEA Syndicate and I would read these and enjoyed them. I also remember free weekly newspapers that had the worst comics, but I looked forward to them.
Today online, I see comics that make me shudder. I don’t ever want to put down a fellow cartoonist, so I don’t ever put them down outside my head, but yet I read them, so there is something there. And I guess posting on Facebook works because I always click on them and read them.
Maybe it’s like a bad tv commercial. It may be terrible, but you remember the product.
Loving Vincent
A new movie just opened called “Loving Vincent,” about my favorite painter, Vincent Van Gogh (I sleep with Starry Night over my bed). I have not seen it yet but it looks amazing. It’s the first fully oil painted feature film; the images are all copies of Vincent’s own hand, using 120 of his paintings and the characters in them, including landscapes that move from the iconic paintings.
Every single frame is hand painted and come to life on screen. Actual actors morf into the paintings. One second of film can take weeks to produce. Each of the film’s 60,000 frames is a painting!
The story looks to be compelling too, as they are trying to figure out the mystery of his death from a gun shot wound.
Charles Schulz’s house burned down
As the fires burn Santa Rose, CA, I couldn’t help but think of Charles Schulz, I think he made Santa Rosa famous for me. Sadly, his house burned down yesterday in those massive wildfires taking over that region of California.
His wife, Jean, got out safely, but the house is gone.
According to Monte Schulz, Charles’s son “All of the memorabilia and everything is gone.”
But the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, which is also located in Santa Rosa, says that the work that is there is safe and not damaged. Most of the original art is there. That’s the good news, if there is any good news out of this.
My nightmare plane trip
NY Comic Con week was great. My favorite week of the year, but coming up was not fun. I got back to Miami on Monday, but the trip was not as easy as it usually is.
For one thing, I got to the airport very early because they have been working on the bridge and tunnel in and out of the city, when I arrived last Saturday, there was a half hour delay at the Midtown tunnel, traffic was at a standstill. And with all the major construction at La Guardia, I didn’t want to miss my flight, so I added extra time, but too much extra time, as I left the hotel at 6 am for a 9:30 flight, which ended up leaving at about 11 am because of planes backed up on the tarmac.
But the worst part was this little kid, maybe 2 years old, who cried and screamed from inside the terminal, through the whole tarmac wait and for the three hour trip to Miami.
He was a spiteful little creep because he knew what he was doing – screeching, at high decibles. He would cry and then SCREECH, where it went right through you. He knew what he was doing. I don’t know what he wanted or why he was crying non-stop, but his parents ignored it.
Everyone on the plane was going nuts and saying things under their breath, but no one said anything to the parents or the airline crew. We were all afraid to say anything for fear of being thrown off the plane. You know how that goes. Say something and they turn the plane around.
So it was basically six hours of non stop, screaming, crying and throwing a tantrum, he stopped for a bit, maybe to eat, but 99% of the trip was him carrying on.
I took a video, but it does not do the six hour tantrum justice so I won’t post it here, as you may think I am exaggerating.
Where did all the classic comic characters go?
So this column was supposed to be a sort of feature/photo thing with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Spider-man.
I had planned to take three or four photos of people that were dressed up as these characters at New York Comic Con and show them side by side, just to see the different variations of the same characters. I thought these four main characters would be well represented as in previous years, but that wasn’t the case this year. I was sure there would be many tributes to Adam West’s Batman, but nope. There weren’t many this year, they were few and far between, I did get this Batman and Superman the first day, but didn’t see many of them the next few days.
Comic Con was very well attended this year, the visitors are expected to surpass 200,000, they are right on the heals of San Diego Comic Con which draws a larger crowd at this point.
New York Comic Con started in 2006 with 33,000 visitors, last year, 21016 it was over 180,000.
The enjoyable fall, October weather in New York City was not to be this year. It’s been in the low 80s and humid; more like July than October. And the crisp October air is a big part of New York Comic Con for me, it’s like one big experience; the begging of the fall season. Maybe next year.
NY Comic Con is back!
New York Comic Con is back for the weekend – it started Thursday and runs through Sunday. As usual, it takes up a weekend in October at the Jacob Javits Center. It is sold out, there are people scalping tickets near the convention center.
Guests this year include Alfonso Herrera from The Exorcist, Amber Nash from Archer; Alex Roe from Siren; Andrew Lincoln from The Walking Dead; John Krasinski from The Office; and Doctor Who himself, Peter Capaldi.
That is just a tiny fraction of the guests this year who will be signing autographs and taking part in meet and greets and panel discussions.
Comic Guests which number in the dozens, include Alex Maleev of Daredevil; Chad Hardin of Harley Quinn; Chris Claremont from X-Men and David Finch from Batman. Many can be found in Artist Alley.
For the whole list of guests and times and everything NY Comic Con, go to: https://www.newyorkcomiccon.com/
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