How Superman II Should Have Ended

I love this re-cut ending to Superman II. Instead of the cheesy "amnesia kiss" that Superman gave to Lois Lane, making her forget Clark Kent is Superman, the movie would have been better if it ended like THIS:

Drawing Guides From Days Gone By

This is a nifty guide I found online for use by military personnel who produced newspapers, booklets and guides for the armed forces. It's pretty dated, but a most of the lessons in this book are just as helpful today as they were during Word War II, when this was printed.

To open a super-sized view of each page, do the following:

1. Right click on the page and open in new tab (or new window)
2. Click on that image to get the huge size, perfect for printing
3. Print. Presto! Instant tutorial on facial expressions.

   

 

 

Rube Goldberg's Incredible Inventions

...and his incredible inventions

Have you ever heard something described as a "Rube Goldberg" machine?

Or, have you ever seen a ridiculously complicated contraption that accomplished a simple task?

Then you have seen Rube Goldberg's influence.

Rube Goldberg was a sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor, but is best known for a series of popular cartoons he created depicting complex devices that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways – now known as Rube Goldberg machines.



Below are video clips of Rube Goldberg machines:

This one uses only photographic equipment, and is one of the best I've seen:

Goldberg drew cartoons that featured all sorts of wacky ideas for doing the simplest of tasks, and there are now Rube Goldberg machine building events and contests held at high school science fairs and other venues around the country. Building a Rube Goldberg machine is time consuming, complicated and takes a lot of trial and error, but watching one work is enormously fun.

Here's another one, an older video from Sesame Street:

Here's one more fine video:

To read more about Rube Goldberg, click HERE 
The official Rube Goldberg site is located HERE

Dragoncon - More Pictures

My friend Ken was one of the people I hung out with at Dragoncon, and he took even more pictures than I did. On Sunday night we went walking around Atlanta taking pictures in my Snake Plissken costume. Here are a few of the pictures Ken took. (click on each picture for a larger view)  Below are other Dragoncon links as well:

To see a selection of Dragoncon links to artists, pictures and panels, click HERE.

To get more information about my costume, Snake Plissken, click HERE.

This year I was the only Snake Plissken there. Snake Plissken is an iconic character in sci-fi, from the cult movie Escape From New York, directed by the legendary John Carpenter

Below: marching in the Dragoncon parade

60 Years of Peanuts

Saturday was the 60th anniversary of Peanuts, Charles Schultz's iconic comic strip, a strip he drew for an incredible fifty years, totaling 17,897 strips. 

Arguably the most popular comic strip in history, Peanuts became a cultural icon, published all over the world and leading to a thriving merchandising enterprise. Schultz's characters were used to sell cars, snack foods, even life insurance, and merchandising items included everything from bed sheets to mugs, dolls, calendars, posters...you name it. In fact Bill Watterson, creator of my personal favorite Calvin and Hobbes, was at the other end of the spectrum, refusing to license his characters or let them be used for commercial purposes. In his mind, such usage cheapened the strip and robbed it of its impact, since there would be pressure to tone down controversial viewpoints, lest the sponsors get upset.

Cnet's Daniel Terdiman has an excellent article about the 60th anniversary of Peanuts, along with a lot of great pictures of the Peanuts museum, in Santa Rosa, California. It's definitely worth a read! Click HERE to read the article.

Facial Expressions

Facial expressions in comic books and illustrations don't have to be complicated; in many cases it is a single line that can make all the difference in your character's expression. Don't settle for having a bland, neutral expression on your characters all the time; what fun is that? 


The pages below can be downloaded and printed out on your home computer. To open a super-sized view of each page, do the following:

1. Right click on the page and open in new tab (or new window)
2. Click on that image to get the huge size, perfect for printing
3. Print. Presto! Instant tutorial on facial expressions.

 

24 Hour Comics Day

Saturday, October 2nd is 24 Hour Comics Day, an event in which artists will draw for 24 hours straight creating a completed comic book or graphic novel. Find out more about this event HERE! 

Retro-Future Space Travel

The incredible blog Golden Age Comic Book Stories has a fantastic scan of the 1956 book The Complete Book Of Space Travel, chock full of retro-future space goodness. Tom Swift rocketships, round space stations and alien imagery. I'm diggin' it!

LINK

BANNED BOOKS WEEK

Saturday marked the start of Banned Books Week, an annual event that celebrates the First Amendment and the freedom to read. For the uninitiated, Banned Books Week is a time when we reflect upon challenges to the First Amendment and triumphs of freedom of expression.

If banned books sound like something from the days of witch hunts, you'd be wrong. The American Library Association's (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom tracks books that have been "challenged," often by a well-meaning parent, to be removed from a public or school library. Books as recent the Gossip Girls  series and Twilight have been on "challenged" lists in recent years. Thankfully, most challenges are unsuccessful.

What's the difference between a challenge and a banning?

A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group.  A banning is the removal of those materials.  Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others.  Due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection.

Challenging and Banning books is not only un-American, it threatens your rights as well, because someone else is dictating what books you have access to based on their value judgments. To learn more about book challenges and band, click HERE.

Image credit: cockingasnook.wordpress.com

Recording Police and Security Guards

As stated earlier in this blog, I do not discuss my political views in my Cartooning and Drawing classes; that would be very inappropriate. However, I feel it is crucial for artists to know their rights, to know how to protect them and stand up for them, or else others will dictate what those rights are. Click HERE for an explanation of the Protecting Freedom category in this blog.

The website Reason Magazine has an article about recording encounters with police and security guards, an issue that is heating up with several states pressing charges against civilians who record their encounters with the police. If you are taking pictures, or even sketching a building, there is a growing chance that you will be questioned or even hassled by either police or security guards. With recording devices becoming more common, some (I say some, not all) authorities are chafing at the accountability they face when confronted with video evidence of excessive behavior. Courts are less willing to give the police the benefit of the doubt, especially when confronted by video. As a photographer myself, this is an issue that I am following very closely.

But what is the best way to videotape your encounters, and is it ethical? The same devices that can be used to provide accountability over our government can also be used for less noble purposes. Reason Magazine's article How to Record the Police examines the technology to record encounters with authority. It's worth a read.

Also worth reading is the website from the non-profit group Flex Your Rights, which educates the public about their rights when dealing with law enforcement.

It bears repeating: the rights you have, you have because people fought for them. Do not take them for granted.