Three New Far Sides, Here at Last!

Six months after it was announced, Gary Larson has posted the first three NEW Far Side cartoons in 25 years on his website.  He picks up right where he left off in terms of the humor and staging.  Stylistically, he has ventured into the digital age, working from a tablet.  He explains on his site that experimenting with digital tools has given him a renewed enthusiasm for cartooning, which led to this casual revival of the strip.  The end result is an evolved Far Side, more painterly,with little line work.  It's a fresh look that puts the Far Side smack into the year 2020.  And yes, they're hilarious.

Bookmark his site, www.thefarside.com!

-Steve

A Great Day for America - The Far Side is Back!

The overwhelming majority of Americans can agree that the return of Gary Larsen's "The Far Side" comics is great news.  I read about this yesterday on CNN's website though it was not headline news for some reason.  In the CNN article, Larsen explains that he decided to make an official Far Side site because so much of his work was posted online without his permission - fan sites, but more irritatingly, sites exploiting his work to promote their own products or services.  His new site will feature the old strips, but promises some new stuff to come.

Alex Williams, the Strip King!

 Last month, FLiP's very own Alex Williams won The Cartoon Art Trust Award for Strip Cartooning for his "Queen's Counsel", which has run in The Times of London for the past 25 years. This is a huge honor, the comics equivalent of a BAFTA Award.  Alex is typically modest about it,  saying, "Actually I felt a bit unworthy about the whole thing."

Balderdash!

Happy Birthday Pete Western! - as Drawn by Comic legend Mike Western

Happy Birthday Pete!

Today is the birthday of animator and director Pete Western, and here at FLiP we thought we would share some of the hand-drawn cards sent to him by his illustrator father Mike Western over the years. They serve as snapshots through the decades from the 70s to the noughties. I have know Pete for almost 30 years - we first met on Who Framed Roger Rabbit? - but I had no idea his dad was a famous comic book artist. More than that, I recognise Mike Western's style from the war comics that I and my friends read avidly as a child, re-fighting WW2 in our living rooms with plastic soldiers and hand-painted Spitfires.

Stephan Franck talks about Silver - courtesy of the CTN

 

"You have to be your own person, or die." ~Stephan Franck  

The Creative Talent Network (CTN) often hosts interviews with creative individuals in the animation industry doing especially interesting work. Below is the text of a recent interview with Stephan Franck, animator, director, storyboard artist and now the author of a highly successful series of independently published graphic novels - Silver. Stephan also happens to be a former kumrad from many an animated film, and a friend of FLiP Here, Stephan talks to CTN about how he got Silver off the ground. 

Alex Marks 20 years of Queen's Counsel with a New Book

FLIP's own Alex Williams has reached a milestone.  His comic strip Queen's Counsel started its run in The Times of London twenty years ago today.  After much arm-twisting, the other half of FLIP consented to an interview on the subject.

FLIP: You have been doing Queen's Counsel for 20 years. Does this milestone make you feel old? Proud? Tired?

Alex: All of the above. But, mainly, astonished. Whenever I open the paper I can't quite believe the cartoon strip is still there. I don’t even have a contract with the newspaper – but it’s been my longest job ever, by far. So, better add gratitude to that list.

The Passing of 12 Year-Old Creator of "Hero Up!"

I read this morning about the passing of a twelve year old boy from Allentown, PA named Zachi Telesha, who fought bone cancer for  almost half his life.  Sadly, kids die every day from cancer, kids who have been entertained by our movies and tv shows. In Zachi's case, he dealt with the hardships creatively, creating a group of super-heroes which, through the efforts of school employees, was published as a comic book called Hero Up!  

Zachi Telesha , creator of "Hero Up!"  Photo by Tom MacDonald

Illustrated from Zachi's stories by Glen Mullaly, Hero Up!  was published by Rodale Books.  Proceeds go to Angel 34, a nonprofit committed to fighting pediatric cancer.  

Upstairs to Arnold Roth

The Harvey Kurtzman exhibit at the Society of Illustrators. 

After indulging my eyes in two floors of artwork from Harvey Kurtzman and his colleagues at the Society of Illustrators in Manhattan, I was about to leave when I noticed artwork by other artists leading up the stairs.  I'm here, why not?  I thought.  At the top of the stairs I was pleasantly surprised to see the hallway lined with Arnold Roth's work from magazines such as Punch, The New Yorker, and Playboy.  As one of Kurtzman's contemporaries, and a partner in Humbug, it was only fitting to have Roth's work represented as well.  The only artist missing from the mix was Al Jaffee.

Chicken Fat at the Society of Illustrators

Even Harvey Kurtzman's signature is funny.

I don't live in New York, but I just happened to be there when the Society of Illustrators on 63rd Street opened its new exhibit, The Art of Harvey Kurtzman.  I have been a fan of Kurtzman since I was a pre-teen and discovered Mad comics through reproduced inserts in Mad magazine's "Super Special" issues. Even as a kid, I noticed there was something about those old comics that was lacking in the Mad magazine  of 1974.  I didn't know it then, but the missing piece was Harvey Kurtzman.  

The Dealers - or how I got a cartoon strip into a celebrity gossip magazine

For a brief while in the 1990s I had a cartoon strip running in The Tatler, a society gossip magazine which wasn't so much full of pictures of celebrities as Sloane Rangers. So many in fact, that the joke was that the magazine was largely read by the people photographed inside its pages.

Sydney Padua's awesome new book

Sydney Padua is an animator, writer and graphic novelist who is working on her first full-length graphic novel - The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace & Babbage. FLIP persuaded her to put down her pencil and answer a few questions about her new book.

Steve Gadlin Wants to Draw a Cat for You

File this under 'brilliantly bad'.

Steve Gadlin is, according to his own website, " a web developer, writer and comedian living in Chicago, Illinois".  He has created a website where, for a small fee, he will draw a cat for you. His promotional video plays like an SNL skit, but send your request with $9.95, and he will indeed create a primitive, but personalized drawing of a cat in whatever situational gag you request.  You know those guys at amusement parks who do the "big-head" caricatures as a take-home souvenir?  This is a poorly drawn version of that.  

Art of Schulz at Laguna College of Art & Design

Friend of FLIP Dave Pruiksma has announced the worldwide debut of The Minerd Collection - and exhibition of original Peanuts artwork by Charles Schulz as well as rare artwork from the TV specials.  The show runs from January 23rd through February 14th, with a reception on February 7th, from 5 to 8 as part of the First Thursdays Art Walk in Laguna Beach.

Dave told FLIP, "This exhibit is free and open to the public. It is one of the largest collection of Peanuts and Schultz artwork in private ownership. The collection encapsulates Schulz's original strip art from every major area in the development of the Peanuts strip and even back to the earlier Lil' Folks panel cartoons. There is original artwork from numerous Animated television specials and features and original illustrations for magazines, such as TV guide and more. A rare exhibition, the owner's first, of one of the richest and most diverse collections of Charles Schultz and Peanuts artwork."

Writer’s Block - the birth, life and death of a newspaper cartoon strip

A Literary Odyssey

Back in 2005 I briefly had two cartoon strips running in The Times. As well as Queen’s Counsel (published in the law pages since 1993) I successfully pitched one for the Saturday books section. It was titled Writer’s Block, and was a gentle satire on the literary world which I dreamed up with a writer friend in Los Angeles, the very talented Erica Rothschild.

Some Unique Gifts to Fight Over

In the United States, unless your TV has been broken, your newspaper shut down, and your internet connection failed, you know all about "Black Friday".  This term is not in reference to post-Thanksgiving bowel movements.  This is the day, the awful day, when media advertisers rile people into such a frenzy as to act out as a mob of deal-hunting vigilantes.

So what's a mild mannered, somewhat sane, hunched and goofy person to do?  Well, let FLIP rile you  into a geek frenzy with some cool, unique gifts from people who have been featured in this year's FLIP!

Ready?

The birth of Queen's Counsel, plus a very nasty letter

In 1993 I was a law student in London, working occasionally at Disney during my summer vacations to pay my way through school. I also had a part-time job working for a Member of Parliament, a kind man called Peter Thurnham, who let me run loose in the Palace of Westminster pretending to be on important business.

Zoom Rockman takes on the world of comics

Zooming ahead - a new force in comics

Move over Marvel, DC and The Beano - Zoom Rockman is in town. His new comic, appropriately titled "Zoom", has been on sale at newstands in the UK since 2009. This award-winning cartoonist has created new characters such as Crasher, Grumpa Grouch, The Nutters, Freezer Man, a Yorkshire terrier called Rocky, and an annoying little brother named Ace. Zoom has an agent, distribution outlets and a growing fan club. But, most surprising of all, Zoom is just 11 years old. Back in 2009 when he published his first comic, he was nine.

A Counter Con - Of Sorts

Logo design by Vince Alvendia

On Friday, July 13, as the San Diego Comic Con rages downtown, animator and South East San Diego native Jerry Brice will host and moderate a panel of animation artists and business professionals for the children and teenagers of the South East and inner city communities of San Diego, California.


This is not a Comic Con event, but that’s partly the point. “The San Diego Comic Con is an exclusive event that is hard for even the professional artist to get into,” says Jerry, “so this panel is an effort to extend the excitement of the Comic Con being held downtown into the neglected neighborhoods of South East San Diego, and inspire a child to dream, and to let them know that we do, in fact, care about them.”

Jerry continues, “The goal of the event is to introduce to at least two hundred inner city kids to the very real possibility of pursuing a career in the animation, comic, or game art fields. Guest panelists, whose roads to success started in similar circumstances, will tell the kids how they got to be a pro, and let them know what it took to overcome obstacles, and to achieve their goals in a very competitive and specialized talent-based industry.” 

This will be a lecture-style panel, with projected samples to highlight verbal presentations, with Q and A time to follow.

The confirmed panelists are:

Denys Cowan - legendary DC Comic book artist, founder of Milestone Media, former Senior VP of animation for BET, producer of Static Shock, Boondocks

J. Jones III - music supervisor, composer, producer, writer for Nick Cannon's Ncredible Entertainment

Roland Poindexter - experienced network executive and former Senior Vice President of Original Programming, Animation at Nickelodeon

Matt Allen - Senior Executive Director of Strategic Marketing, NBC Universal Digital Entertainment

David Brown - educator, publisher, author, NAACP Image award winning editorial cartoonist for the LA Sentinel/Watts Times

Julian Chaney – veteran storyboard artist in the animation field, worked on The Proud Family and the new Adult Swim series Black Dynamite

Brad Constantine - Senior Artist/Animator at Sony Online Entertainment and San Diego native.

Jerry L. Brice – educator, animator, director, and producer for Brice Productions

Several of Jerry’s former animation students who are currently professional artist will be in attendance as well.  Jerry is hoping for some surprise guests as well.

If you're going to the Comic Con and would like to join Jerry as a surprise guest, or if you have questions,  e-mail him chacta@gmail.com.




The Inner City Comics, Animation, and Games Art Panel

Friday, July 13, 2012
    
1:00 to 4:00pm

Tubman/Chavez Center

415 Euclid Ave, (on the corner of Market St. and Euclid Ave.)

San Diego, CA 92102

Two hundred seats are available on a first come basis. It is a free event, courtesy of Brice Productions.  

Jerry Brice

Says Jerry, “I just want to transform any issue a kid may have for not moving forward with their dreams, while at the same time acknowledging some of their personal and financial hardships, because I can relate. Some of the panelist are from this community, or got into the business with my assistance, so we can track it all back to what happened for me here.”

-Steve

2 D Goggles - or the Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage

One of the many privileges of our business is the pleasure of working alongside talented colleagues. I first met Sydney Padua at Warner Bros where we worked on Brad Bird's wonderful Iron Giant. Since then we have bumped into each other on many animation and VFX features including most recently The Chronicles of Narnia - Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where Sydney did some beautiful character work on Eustace, the dragon.

Syd does not neglect her own personal projects and has developed her own highly successful online web comic about the Victorian inventor and computer pioneer, Charles Babbage. The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage has developed a huge following and even the science establishment is very keen to get involved - making science interesting for kids. She recently did a TED talk which you can see here. Syd is an inspiration for every animator who dreams of getting on with their own personal work - while simultaneously balancing the need to do commercial work and of course earn a living. Her web comic is beautifully drawn and very funny, and you can find it here. Personally, I can't wait for the graphic novel. Enjoy! - Alex