Illustrator News: Craig Boldman Teaching Cartooning Class for Kids

Location: The Fitton Center for Creative Arts in Hamilton

https://fittoncenter.org/classes.html

CARTOONING Cost: $60 members $80 non-members   9-13 years old Work with Archie and Jughead comic book artist, Craig Boldman, to create and develop your own cartoon characters and utilize them in telling gags and stories for panels, comic strips and comic books. Animation will not be covered. Great for beginners but advanced artists will also pick up new techniques. Imagination required!! Recommended supplies: pencils, pens and a supply of your choice of drawing paper. Session: 11/7/2011 - 12/12/2011 (6 Classes) Day: Monday Time: 6:30 - 8:00 PM Instructor: Craig Boldman Contact: 863-8873 ext 110 Location: Studio Room Number: 104

Science, Medicine and Nature

The ongoing Zombie discourse has inspired me to post another chapter opener from "The Amazing Quiz Challenge".

In the end, the chapter's title was reduced to just "science", but when I started, I tried to think of funny ways to incorporate science, nature, and medicine in one reasonably simple drawing. I let myself be influenced by the understated approach of Gary Larson and the famous Muppet duo Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker.

O.K. I admit it. It's a direct steal.

Jerry Dowling: Reuben Celebration Picture

From Jerry: This is a photo taken last June at Back Porch where we had a small ceremony for Craig McKay's third Reuben Division award. This entire group has gather eight. Not bad for our local members of the Great Lakes chapter. Chris has three, Daryll and Jerry one each.

L to R: Jerry, Craig, Chris, Daryll

Around the World

This is one of 10 full-page illustrations that I did last summer for the Reader's Digest book, Amazing Quiz Challenge last summer. I hope to post more of these within the next couple of weeks.

Aak! More Christmas Cards!

I rarely make time to produce illustrated Christmas Cards for myself, but I've done them for others in the past. Here are two I created for The Merten Printing Company way back in the mid-nineties.

The accordian-fold reindeer card was created in 1995. Jim Borgman had been designing Merten's cards in years prior, and I really felt the pressure. Knowing I couldn't compete in execution, I went for a funny concept, and pulled it off as best I could. The words "Happy Holidays" were authentically created by carving potatoes and printing them on paper before scanning them. I had fun exploring every possible way of messing up a potato print and drawing the reindeer to correspond to each letterform. Note the nod to David Carson, who's fame was cresting at that time.

Two years later, I designed the elf card below, and wisely decided to go bolder with the color.

The elf was originally named Skippy the elf (after president, Skip Merten) to the apparent delight of the pressmen and production staff.

Skip had me change it to "Pixel" anyway. :-D

These were a lot of fun and I'm posting them as a tribute to Skip, who continually gives and gives and gives to this city and has taught me more about printing than any teacher or mentor ever could.

Cheers!

Road Trip! Windsor McCay Exhibit in Columbus

There is a cool exhibit of Windsor McCay's work in Columbus at the OSU Cartoon Museum.

John Canemaker is doing a lecture on McCay's work on November 3rd at 7 PM. Go to the site for details. McCay is best known for creating Little Nemo in Slumberland.

The exhibit is up until December 31st. Well worth the road trip I'd say!

Factoid I did not know: McCay created his first comic strip for the Cincinnati Enquirer in 1903 called A Tale of the Jungle Imps by Felix Fiddle.

The Philosophical Baby

In September, I created my first editorial illustration since the mid-eighties. The subject matter was irresistible: babies, science, humor.

Here are the two concepts I submitted:

There's a bit more info here.

Extraordinary Uses...

Here's a handful of spot illustrations I did for "Extraordinary Uses For Ordinary Things" —my first mail-order book for Reader's Digest. I did 150 illustrations in total —all 2-color, which not only saved a lot of time, it also helped make my kid-friendly style a bit more adult.

Jerry Dowling Post: Brett Favre

From Jerry: Tom Richmond had a workshop last year at an NCN mini-con in St. Louis. He had about thirty of us do our version of Brett Favre and then he critiqued them. We had two hours to do what we could. Mine was three quarters inked and when I saw him at the NCS convention in Hollywood this year, I mentioned that to him and he told me to finish it and show it to him at the NCN convention in Sandusky this November. He's going to be there with Dam Viviano and Mark Frederickson. Here's my piece.

Never Forget

This is one of the few unused sketches I created this summer while working on a book for Reader's Digest. I hope to post more from that project once it goes to press.

Announcement: Great Lakes Chapter National Cartoonist Society Get-Together

On August 22nd at 1PM, join the Great Lakes chapter of the National Cartoonist Society for socializing, chapter biz, lunch and to hang out with other cartoonists at Champps in West Chester (accross from Rave Cinemas). There will be a private room next to the patio and it is set up to order off the menu and separate checks.

Please RSVP to Craig Boldman or Daryll Collins.

CityBeat Art by Jerry Dowling

From Jerry: CityBeat this week. I'm supposed to stick with loacl subjects, but I figured Columbus is close enough plus Tiger is big news anywhere. I used the Nike 'SWOOSH' icon as the basis for this one.