Two Groups, Two Countries

A couple of upcoming group events: the first is "illust_ratio 3" in Rüsselsheim, Germany. Illust_ratio a show of illustrators and cartoonists (among them the late great Heinz Edelmann of "The Yellow Submarine" fame) from the pages of the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. I won't be in attendance, but it sounds like a great show if you're in the area and able to make it. The show runs from October 23rd to November 20th. Unless my German is even worse than I think it is (and I think it's really bad), the opening is on October 22nd. Visit their site for more information.

The second event, where I will be signing or whatever we deem acceptable behavior, is at Quimby's in Chicago on November 5th. Julia Rothman, Jenny Volvovski, Matt Lamothe, Lauren Nassef, Isaac Tobin, Lilli Carre, Anders Nilsen and myself will be at that venerable shop to do our scratchings in The Exquisite Book, a collection of 100 artists participating in an exquisite corpse. The book, published by Chronicle, is out now. So pick up a copy and head over to Quimby's on the 5th of November. See you there.

God Bless The Soviet Union!

Occasionally ignorance is such a rewarding pair of glasses. Like when it provided me with relatively no idea what's happening in this brilliant little animation from Russia about Bluebeard (Bluebeard's been a bit of an obsession of mine since seeing a strange animation (not this one) as a child). Just in case it wasn't weird enough, around five minutes it gets REALLY weird. It shares some characteristics with a couple of my favorites, The Yellow Submarine and the (unfortunately Disney-ized) Thief and the Cobbler, and falling into that camp is never a bad thing in my book (unless we're talking about butchering a vision, as was done to The Thief and The Cobbler, which you can read about here).

More animation from the former Soviet Union to come... because after a rousing celebration of good ol' American nationalism, what's better than kicking back and soaking up some good ol' Commie Cartoons?