Big Cartoon Kablooey!

An annual, nation-wide event that our local comic book store (The Comic Shop) has participated in for years is "Free Comic Book Day." Kevin, the owner of the Comic Shop generously agreed this year to donate a bunch of comics (from the 2009 + accumulated leftovers from prior years) to the Literacy Council of Alaska and sponsor the first-ever "Big Cartoon Kablooey!" held the weekend following Free Comic Book Day. Lots of PSA's and fliers and footwork spreading the word with emails and phonecalls. The plan was to invite the usual gang of folks who frequent the cartoon jams to show up for maybe an hour or so during the 12noon-5pm time slot, hang out and doodle, check out the digs, entertain any youngsters that show up. Got a few teacher/artists who'll be dropping by, plus a couple dudes who can do caricature as well. Should be fun to have the kids make stupid faces, maybe try and do the "Six Basic Expressions."

I had racked my brain trying to come up with a more original and original title for the gig, anything besides lameass "Comic Book Day at the Literacy Council" or "Cartoon Day." Kablooey works. Between that and also trying to get ideas for some fun activities (something more exciting than drawing cats from circles), I spent at least a week casting about for inspiration. The trick was to develop a series of exercises for kids that incorporates reading and wordplay, and onomatopoeia came to mind as something different and weird enough to be entertaining and educational. I ultimately wound up turning to probably my greatest personal art-hero: the cartoonist Don Martin.

Stumbled across the best ever on-line resource I've yet to find on the web: Doug Gilford's MAD Cover Site, which has "The Don Martin Dictionary,"
edited by Ed Norris. An obsessive fanboy and collector's dream come true, it contains a list (alphabetical or by date) of classic sound effects by the grand master of onomatopoeia. Here's a brief sampling, a tiny fraction of the noises compiled therein:

KACHUNK-KACHUNKA KACHUNK-KACHUNK KA-BONG (Man Dunked Into A Cake Baking Machine And Popping Out As A Baked Cake)
GLOOCHLE GLOOCHLE GLUTCH (Sculptor Molding Man's Face)
SHKLURCH (Hippie Squeezing Food Out Of Beard)
GORSHLE GUSH (Water Running From Dike)
GLUK GLUK GLOOPLE SPLORT (Boy Sucking Down Drink From Bottle)
WAPADA DAPADA FWAPADA DAPADA (Boxer Hitting Punching A Guy's Head)
B-B-B-BORFFT! (Porky Pig Belching After A Big Meal)
BBFRPRAFPGHPP (Doctor Farting)
ARRARGH WAMP BLAMP OOF YUG (A Lady And The Hulk Making Love)
PITTWEEN SPLATCH THORK BLOOF THLIK GLITCH GLUTCH PITTWOON PLAF PLOOF SPLITCH THUK THAP PLOOP (Bullet Ricocheting off Ceiling, Through Six Heads, Off a Wall, Then Through Six More Heads)
FABADAP (Cows Udder Moving)
BLEEP (Olive Oyl's Breasts Popping Out)
POIT (Large Boob Pops Out Of Bra)
SNAP PLOOBADOOF (Wonder Woman Releasing Her Amazon Brassiere)
BEAUGH (People vomiting)
BRAGHK (People vomiting)
BLOBBLE (People vomiting)
BLAP BLAP (People vomiting)
BLEEGH (People vomiting)
BWAUGHK (People vomiting)
GYAAUGHT (People vomiting)
SPLAPPLE PLAP (People vomiting)
SPLOP (People vomiting)
SPLORPLE BLAPPLE (People vomiting)
SPROP BLOP BLOP (People vomiting)
YAAUGH (People vomiting)

Pure genius, and infinitely better than the standard "zap-pow-bang" stuff ... plus a great opportunity for integrating some crazy drawings to match the noises.

We'll see how it goes - post some pics from the event afterwards, and if anyone wants to drop by and check it out please feel welcome to hang out!