On the same day that Richard Thompson passed away, Jack Davis also passed. You may not know the name but if you read Mad magazine you have seen his work and his art graced TV Guide for many years. Just looking at the covers from TV Guide brings back my childhood. These images were seared in my head at the time and just looking at them brings back so many memories. He was the master of crowd scenes.
Here are a few. For so many more, check out Drew Friedman’s blog here.
Richard Thompson is best known for his Cul de Sac comic strip. The strip started running in newspapers in 2007 and ended in 2012 due to his Parkinson’s Disease, which he was diagnosed with in 2009. Cruel irony for a fantastic cartoonist.
More here.
Here’s an enjoyable video called “The Art of Richard Thompson.”
The Art of Richard Thompson from GVI on Vimeo.
This is a rerun of the cartoon I did for when Hillary won Iowa. I just changed the text. 🙂
Saw this on Twitter, I think it was taken by Jason Kvinna, a comic book artist.
It reminds me of a story I did for the Huffington Post called “A Cause to Pause,” where I shared some uplifting messages I saw at a construction site once in New York City.
I like Jason’s work, I may try to interview him (with his permission, of course, well, how can I do it without his permission, actually) for a new series I’m contemplating for the Huffingon Post. I’m thinking of starting this interview series called “Tea with Tom” or something like that, where I interview up and coming artists similar to Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee show, only we’ll get tea and it won’t be comedians, it will be artists and we won’t film it, it will be published online and possibly print.
But the questions will be silly and not even pertain to their art or art at all.
I have some people in mind for this already.
Maybe “Ten With Tom” for the title, it could mean ten minutes or 10 questions.
Miami Art Week during Art Basel can be daunting, hell, just the fact that I have to leave the Grove is a chore in itself. It’s a lot to digest – the noise, the art, the people, it’s a non-stop week that is a lot for the senses. Most of the art begins to look the same after a bit, there is a lot of pop art and a lot of classic, there are sculptures as well as collages and paintings and they all get jumbled together, but this year, one art style and one artist stuck out to me. Literally. That’s Max Zorn, Tape Artist, shown here.
Max’s work appears to be photographs, but the whole image is made from brown masking tape on acrylic glass sheets with light behind it! As I passed by his booth at the Spectrum Art Fair, I noticed that there was tape on one of the images he was working on, I couldn’t figure out what was going on at first, I thought he was putting tape on various areas of a photograph, then it dawned on me that the whole image was made from masking tape!
Max got the idea one night when he put tape on top of a street light, he then stared playing with the tape and as he added more layers, it changed coloring, getting darker as he added tape on top of tape. And his Tape Art was born from that.
“The European tape is different than American tape and I find it interesting and challenging at first when I change tapes in the different countries. The thickness is different,” said Max, who lives in Amsterdam and shows his work around the world.
Max will be at the Spectrum Art Show all weekend, until December 6, which is at 1700 NE 2nd Avenue (new location this year, along with the Red Dot Fair). There is parking across the street, it’s easy to get to and park.
A gallery of Max’s art can be seen here at his website.
I just got off the L train. I met my cousins in Ridgewood, Queens, and took the L from Union Square to Myrtle-Wyckoff Avenues. Ridgewood is the new up and coming neighborhood in New York. There was SoHo, then the Lower East Side, the Meat Packing District and Williamsburg and now it’s Ridgewood. The L train is the train into Hipsterland, but not so long ago, it was the link between Manhattan and a working class Brooklyn.
As I took the train this time and usually when I take the L train, I think of days past, days before my time, and I think of the ghosts of the subway and the Brooklyn neighborhoods that we pass through. Bedford, Graham Avenue, Lorimar Street, Montrose Avenue and so on. They are names from my past, you see my father and his sister and their mother (my grandmother) and a lot of our relatives lived here so many years ago. I picture them in Brooklyn 1945 and thinking of them on this same subway line. The trains of course, were different and they called it the BMT, (Brooklyn Manhattan Transfer), my aunt told me Saturday – they changed it later to the LL, rather than L, to differentiate it from the EL, which was the elevated train. But it was the same route, the same stops and even the same tiles on the wall that spell out the stations. Those same exact tiles were seen and perhaps touched by my father and grandmother 70 and 80 years ago.
I had an old aunt, who in the 1980s, told me about the first day the line opened in 1905 and how that first week the rides were free to the public; they were a nickle after that. She told me of her first hand experience, remembering it vividly, she must have been seven years old at the time. I read a book once called “When Brooklyn Was the World.” That’s the time period I think of as I ride the L train today. To me the train is “The footprint of a lost world,” a quote I got from Anthony Bourdain.
Now as I ride the line I see hipsters who have taken over the neighborhood. There they are with their ipods and iphones and skateboards and beards and manbuns and fedoras; acting all cool and as if they have discovered something new. Do they ever think about the people who were there before them? Probably not.
It’s the same with all the train lines in the city, there is so much history, but visiting Graham Avenue and Lorimar Street and Bedford, as a child and hearing so many stories of my father’s childhood, it makes me think of all those ghosts of times past. My mother grew up near Coney Island, so those train lines have meaning too, but I don’t take them as often as I take the L train. I think of my father taking the train to Ebbets Field, or my grandmother taking him to the doctor’s office or visiting relatives, in a time that was much simpler.
People have come and gone, but the subway lines are still running, on the same routes on the same tracks, among all those ghosts of happy times past.
Here is an old film of the 1905 subway in New York. It isn’t the L line, but you can get the idea of the time period.
The Sunday Comics is a new project – a return to yesteryear – where the Sunday comics section was the focus of weekend mornings. Millions of people – grownups and kids – spread the comics pages out and spent quality time reading their favorite comic strips and panels. I can’t forget Dick Tracy being the front page of the New York Daily News. The color comics wrapped the whole newspaper. Dondi was the back page. Inside was Little Orphan Annie and Smokie Stover, Moon Mullins, and so many more.
Well, Golden Bell Entertainment announced recently that they will launch their first collaborative arts project called The Sunday Comics. The start of this project begins with “The Sunday Comics,” a monthly 15″ x 22″ inch newspaper publication reminiscent of the comics sections we grew up with. A nice large broad sheet you can lay out on the floor and enjoy, just like when you were a kid.
The Sunday Comics includes work from over 300 artists with hundreds of pages of full color content. This project officially launched on Kickstarter on November 24, 2015 with astounding success, the goal was surpassed by 300% on the first day.
Where The Sunday Comics truly shines is in its partnerships with creators throughout the entertainment industry. With writers of “LOST” and “Batman: The Animated Series” Paul Dini, Oscar Nominated animator and Cannes Grand Prize Winner Bill Plympton, Eisner Award Winner Bill Sienkiewicz, Glenn McCoy storyboard artist for “Minions,” Director of the Netflix series “Dragons” John Sanford, Storyboard artist of “Doctor Who” Mike Collins, and Director of “The Book of Life” Jorge Gutierrez, The Sunday Comics plans to empower creators through a unique, new platform to showcase innovative stories in a well known, timeless format.
Additionally, Golden Bell is working with The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum to bring original copies of comic strips such as Little Nemo in Slumberland, the Passing Show, and many more back to their original format. The Sunday Comics will also be collaborating with various syndicates to bring classic titles such as Garfield, Peanuts, Dennis the Menace, Archie, Tarzan, Dick Tracy, Prince Valiant, Rugrats, and many others back to their original publication platform, like this 1960 New York Daily News Sunday comics section.
The Sunday Comics sees itself as a hub for cutting-edge comic ideas and intends to honor the rich history of comic books by merging what’s become entirely separate industries back to one. It’s a great way to receive the comics delivered right to your home in a large style format.
Golden Bell Entertainment has received the rights from Jim Davis and Paws, Inc. to create original Garfield comics, which has never been done before. Additionally, Playtonic Games, creators of Banjo-Kazooie, has given Golden Bell Entertainment the rights to create the official companion to their game. The “Yooka-Laylee” comics will debut in The Sunday Comics. The Sunday Comics plans to empower creators through a unique new platform to showcase innovative stories all under one publication. All of the amazing artists are working hand-in-hand with The Sunday Comics to express themselves in a way never seen before in the industry.
Marc Goldner, Founder of Golden Bell Entertainment has said that, “To create a renaissance in comics, you need to look outside of what’s being done today. You must not only go abroad, but look at other mediums and see the most creative and effective way to bring people together. Creating timeless masterpieces doesn’t come overnight, it’s something you must work for constantly. With every new idea, you need an equally creative way to execute a vision.”
I am happy to say that my “Tomversation” comic panel is part of this project. To follow “The Sunday Comics” on their Kickstarter please visit them here.