Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Sampson Monster
There are seven stages to looking at this Johnny Sampson poster. But almost all of them are being jealous you didn't draw it and buying it because it's so gorgeous. Or anyway, those were my stages.
Books and Bread
The problem with most book review/recommendation sites is that they don't tell you how to bake delicious treats. Fortunately the site Good Day Sunshine has solved this problem. And I was very glad to see Life with Mr. Dangerous paired with Zucchini Bread, a family favorite my mother made when my sisters and I were young.
The Staff Brigadier General Who Wasn't
If you haven't heard of the bizarre case of this couple, Albrecht Muth and Viola Drath, and the murder that resulted from their... do I call it love? dysfunction?... then I don't think I can possibly summarize it. I can only thank my wife a million times over for pointing me to this, one of the best and strangest profiles of a man I have ever read. Thank you.
Brand New Bag For Jackie No-Name
I've expressed my admiration of Tim Lane's work on this blog before, so of course I was happy to see him launch his amazing new web site.
Take a look around, wonder at the detail, play the Belligerent Piano.
Stanley Kubrick Interview
A must listen for any film buffs, Open Culture has an excellent interview with Stanley Kubrick, conducted in November of 1966 while Kubrick was working on 2001: A Space Odyssey. A link to an mp3 of the interview, as well as Kubrick's annotations on the New Yorker's piece is here.
Björk and Moomins
Together at last. (This has been out for a while, but I'd only just come across it unfortunately.) Gorgeous and weird as one would expect.
Blog Binge
I've been absent from posting to the blog for the month of July. My apologies. I promise it's been for good reasons. But to make up for lost time, today I'll be posting a heap of things, events, videos, etc. that I've been meaning to note over the past month or so.
Now then, here come the posts...
Friday, June 8, 2012
Comedy Bang! Bang!: A Multitude of Teeth and Explosions
And here's some more production art for the Comedy Bang! Bang! title sequence. One of the most time-consuming aspects of this project wasn't the drawing itself, but designing all the little characters that, in the end, are on the screen for a fraction of a second.
It was the most time-consuming, but easily the most fun. (It's a pleasant rarity when things work out that way, isn't it?) My personal favorite is probably the Bird-fish-man-face-butt Creature. Poor guy. He seems like he'd always be late on his taxes and constantly wiping mustard from his plumage.
No actual or fictional animals were harmed during the production of this animation. And only one reference photo was ever used. This is it (seriously), for the dog in the side car bit:
Have fun watching the premiere tonight on IFC. (Or iTunes, etc. thereafter...)
The Calls Are Coming From Inside The Baby
The ultimate teaser trailer for Comedy Bang! Bang!, premiering tonight. More posts on the art for the show headed your way shortly...
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Comedy Bang! Bang! Titles: Behind The Scenes
On June 8th at 10/9 central, IFC will premiere Comedy Bang! Bang! a psuedo-talk show comedy romp hosted by Scott Aukerman.
Being a big fan of the CBB podcast, I was honored to do the title sequence, set art, logos, and other little bits and pieces for the television show. And I thought that today and tomorrow, in honor of the premiere, I'd post some of the production artwork produced along the way.
The title sequence started as inauspiciously as possible, scrawled out on a tiny piece of paper taped to my drafting table. Yes, this is all thirty seconds of the original title sequence (thought a few changes were made along the way). No, I have no idea how this could be even remotely understandable to anyone other than me.
Once the rough idea was conceived and fleshed out then came a lot of penciling. As in: a lot. One of the great luxuries of comics is leaving out all the moments in between... in animation, you're not so lucky. So even for this short piece, there was several weeks at the board.
There's absolutely no way I would have gotten through the whole process if not for the inking skill of Jim Rugg (master of all things ink-related) and Eric Reynolds (of Fantagraphics fame, who's no slouch with a brush himself). And of course there was the endless effort of the three-headed animation workhorse Bindledog (Jeff Zwirek, Adam Zwirek, and Jay Gish) who put the whole mess together in Flash and did approximately ten million tests to fine tune it all. Those three are to be commended for not cooking me on a spit for the insane hours I made them work.
Below you can watch an episode in its entirety, including the finished, colored title sequence. And I'll post some production art and character designs from the show tomorrow.
La vie avec Mister Dangerous
Over on madmoizelle.com, Pénélope Bagieu (who has her own site well worth perusing) reviews the French edition of Life with Mr. Dangerous (published by Actes Sud).
Bookstores and Digital, In Bed At Last
Via Forbes, a story about how Harvard Book Store is making digital book sales and sales in their physical store work hand in hand. It's pretty ingenious stuff and something I certainly hope other stores will look into more in the future.
Monday, June 4, 2012
"Oh, hello. I'm Bill Murray"
If anyone in Hollywood is considering making a mini-series of Bill Murray giving slightly disjointed house tours, please feel free.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
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