Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

Come one, come all, to the 2005 24 Hour Comic challenge! This Saturday, April 23rd, is the annual challenge that causes artists from all over the world to lock themselves away, all in the hopes of creating a 24 page comic in a mere 24 hours. If you’re interested, read the dare, get your supplies, and get ready to work. I know I am.

Continuing with the ‘inspired by a comment elsewhere on this blog’ theme started by John (not to mention the former Communist Bloc and global exposure themes…), here’s some wonderful Miroslav Sasek. Thanks to Sarah for pointing out how overlooked the Prague born illustrator is, despite the wide proliferation of his stunning ‘This Is..’ book series. Not just for kids, this. We could all learn a lot from the former Czech architecture student…

This link actually comes from a user’s comment in Jay’s post about Martin Ontiveros. Check out this cool online exhibit of customized Russian nesting dolls: From Russia with Love. The exhibit is one of a handful over at The Wurst Gallery, an online gallery that “started with the idea that art should be accessible to everyone and that artists
can be exposed to a larger number of people outside of their communities when their work is showcased online.”

Some cool interesting creature/character designs from the Show Chicken. The clothespin interface is unique, albeit slightly annoying, but you can also see his work on Flickr and Fotolog (link via Metafilter)

Every now and then an article will pop up discussing the dearth of women in the world of professional cartooning. This latest article focuses mainly on the fact that “Less than 4 percent of editorial cartoonists on major syndicates are female.” And if you take a good hard look at the major syndicates, you won’t see a whole heck of a lot of syndicated female cartoonists doing comic strips either. So why is this? Honestly, I don’t know. I used to think it was a massive male conspiracy, but these days I tend to lean towards the belief that for whatever reason, most girls just don’t choose to go into this field. Why? Once again, I don’t know. Whatever the reasons, and whatever the statistics, I think it’s important to remind everybody that there are women out there doing comics, and doing a damn good job at it, too. So if you want learn more about the wealth of female cartoonists out there, take a gander at the web site Friends of Lulu, “a national nonprofit organization whose purpose is to promote and encourage female readership and participation in the comic book industry.”

What can I say? I’m just wild about Posy Simmonds. I simply cannot gush enough over this talented, talented lady. If you haven’t heard of her, here is your chance to be redeemed. She illustrates children’s books. She writes and draws a very clever and witty weekly comic in The Guardian called Literary Life, all about the world of writers, booksellers and publishing. It’s so bloody brilliant and beautifully drawn it makes me want to blubber like a baby. A selection of those comics have now been reprinted in a wonderful book, also entitled Literary Life. Get it. Trust me. And she wrote and illustrated a wonderful graphic novel called Gemma Bovary, which is of course, a modern day send off on Flaubert’s notorious creation. If I could strive to be like any artist on this planet, I would choose Posy. At this point in time the only thing I have in common with her is our same initials. Sigh.

Tokyo Plastic: This is some wild stuff, man. Some dudes with imaginations gone awry. Amazing animation for the web — the transitions to each section is worth the visit alone. Be sure to check out their recent work for MTV on the main page.

Also, this is v.2. Check out v.1, which they still have available to view. Freaky!

Gene Gable collects vintage graphics and hot-metal printing equipment, which are the subject of his regular column at creativepro.com called Heavy Metal Madness. There’s a lot of great stuff to be read here — we’ve got a history of playing cards, the story behind the happy face, travel stickers, airline advertising, and animals that think they’re people. A warning, however: you may will end up spending a lot of time here!

Every episode of the Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy, Ren & Stimpy, Clerks, and on and on . . . available streaming, for free. (Simple plug-in installation available at the site.)

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Sean “Cheeks” Galloway is an all around draftsman extraordinaire. If you look at his work here, here, here, and here, you will be instantly inspired. I promise.