Spill Baby, Spill!

Even if the self-imposed Palin ban didn't quite make it to two months, breaking silence to comment on the disaster that's currently unfolding down in the Lower 48. 

Regrettably this disaster makes for an unfortunate opportunity to point out how some folks have short memories, or are essentially shameless shills for the oil industry. The Quitter in particular is currently the most visible and outspoken cheerleader for accelerating the plunder of her mythic Alaska, which makes for good marketing of profitable photo-ops and fodder for TV specials. And not unlike the underwater well, Palin will no doubt keep spouting off.
How prophetic that in the very same statement from which I culled the quote for the cartoon's caption, she closed with:

"Next week I’m headed to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, where I look forward to discussing what “Drill, baby, drill” really means."

Sadly, we've all been here before, and BP is just another Exxon but with a prettier logo. Consider this warm-up as a prelude: I have a second panel in the pipe that's more to the point with regard to this specific tragedy - soon as it hits the newspaper it'll get posted. 
In the meantime, I gotta side with Bill Maher's tweet: 

"Every asshole who ever chanted 'Drill Baby Drill' should have to report to the Gulf Coast today for cleanup duty."

 *cross-posted @ the most awesome Mudflats! 

Projection and Objectification

“I saw young Harry, with his beaver on” - Henry IV, Part 1, 4. 1 (Shakespeare) 

Big Cartoon KABLOOEY II

Time once again to rally the funny troops and throw another Cartoon Kablooey! 
Last year's event at the Literacy Council of Alaska went so well (link to 2009 + backstory here) we're now hosting a second annual artistic extravaganza. Along with the usual cast of characters doing demos, they'll be some activities - the Don Martin sound effect exercises will probably show up - and once again free comic books are also being generously donated by the Comic Shop. Looking forward to subversively enticing youngsters into more reading (and drawing), plus another opportunity to hang out with some of the amazing folks that create comic works from around Interior Alaska. Here's the official press release for the gig:

The Literacy Council of Alaska is throwing their second annual “Big Cartoon Kablooey: KABLOOEY II” !!!
Comics are a great way to encourage reading - join News-Miner cartoonist Jamie Smith and other local talents for live demonstrations and learn how words and pictures can tell a story. Open to the public, plus free comic books donated by the Comic Shop!
The event will be held on Saturday, May 8th from 12noon – 3pm, downtown at Forget-Me-Not Books, 517 Gaffney Road, Fairbanks (call 907-456-6212 for more information or check their website at www.literacycouncilofalaska.org).

And hey, whaddaya know, it just so happens to fit in with the current blog theme of All Things Beaver. Like I need an excuse, but there it was. Posted here are the couple source doodles used in creating the poster and spot ad for the event, and the spiffy new Rosette Nebula image on my desktop (via NASA's Herschel Space Observatory) made for an appropriate background. Aside from all the computer colored eye-candy and hacking elements from last year's art, I still love drawing wild cartoony fonts like for the main header. Probably put one of the two designs on some tshirts for all the participating artists, which is almost as important as feeding them lunch.

Art Drill

“The difference between a man and a boy is, a boy wants to grow up to be a fireman, but a man wants to grow up to be a giant monster fireman.” - Jack Handy

Occasionally I deviate from the syllabus during the semester (no, really?) and take a break from the routine. It's (almost) spring in this neck of the woods, and in combination with too many quadruple-shot-mochas there's the urge to get outta the drawing room. This was one of those mornings where the concept is introduced that it can be useful in may ways to shift creative gears mid-project. It's almost as important to kick-start the teacher as it is to keep the class engaged and entertained, to not get lulled into habitual academic stultification. Uprooting everyone from the studio/classroom and immersion into a completely new environment is a tool that I employ throughout the semester as a sort of shock therapy to the senses. The beginning drawing students have been diligently obsessed with completing their ongoing three-page pen & ink vignettes in time for the upcoming critique, so this made for a nice diversion.

After an initial discussion of the session assignment and some possible solutions, we wandered over to the UAF campus firehouse for an hour of exploring with sketchbooks. Ideally the goal was to harvest as many different reference sketches of as many different subjects as possible so as to assemble a remixed spot illustration based on our observations. The firehouse is a good opportunity to sample a diverse range of materials and textures. Poking around the equipment reveals countless details from canvas to chrome, and with the added pressure of of the ticking clock, it's a quick test of on-the-spot talent. As with a few other in-class exercises, mulling over the relatively uninspired output afterwards, I can't help but wonder if it's perhaps asking too much from a beginning class to crank out a decent piece in a couple of hours, drawing from a complete blank, as opposed to laboring for hours over several weeks (not a likely scenario anyways). But, as pointed out by another faculty member, the resulting handful of passable efforts really aren't outside the usual odds of above-average success in any class, whether math, geology or physics. And after all, some of my best work has resulted from being pushed out of a comfort level that all too often is by default the creative zone for many artists. One never knows what breakthrough (or conversely, breakdown) will happen unless you give 101%.

The analogy of a firehouse is one that is particularly appropriate to one of my meta-goals in teaching this entire class: the vision of a building staffed by a battalion of highly trained and exceptionally skilled artists all ready to scramble at a moment's notice. We've been mercilessly drilling ourselves to be prepared for almost any artistic eventuality or emergency that may happen, and can meet the challenges of each unique creative situation that could possibly arise. We know the tools and the techniques, by now we know our respective limitations and strengths; and can tackle either individually or as a team any topic, with any technique... any time, any place. 
That and there's the idea that, oh what the hell, drawing cool stuff like firetrucks is just plain fun. No apologies there: better than a bowl of fruit at least.

Now if I only had an some sort of an alarm that could go off every time someone's in desperate need of artistic assistance.

Baseless Liberal Lies!

The cartoon smear-machine is fired up - cowardly libruls resorting to slanderous attacks again... 

Fortunately nobody 'll ever recognize me now that it's molting season: even if they read the fine print in this panel, there's the fact that I only wear cowboy hats and hang out at Barnes Ignoble and Brueggers. Yeah, right.
Reposted from the commie-lovin' fascists over at Leave No Monkey Behind, and also appearing in the new issue of the terrorist bunny-hugger socialist Ester Republic (always keep a fresh copy in the outhouse).
*Update: for inquiring minds that can't get enough of their monthly monkey you can now follow Darrow on Twitter.

"To fight against the infidels is Jihad; but to fight against your evil self is greater Jihad." - Abu Bakr

Abu Hassan: You want to make fool from me?

Popeye: Aah, nature beat me to it. 

"Herds"

“Men have become the tools of their tools.” - Henry David Thoreau 

 This was one of the rare panels that wasn't even "really" drawn: the original ballpoint pen doodle was just scanned from the sketchbook and finished off digitally. 
Inspired by walking around campus and observing the disconnected masses of humanity who are paradoxically connected with everyone and everything except for what's right in front of them. 
And actually I'm guilty of the same, as ever since getting an iTouch for Xmas, it's been fun just walking around or sitting at the cafe with with just the ear-thingies in and not actually having the other end plugged into anything - it creates a virtual buffer-zone of seclusion. But then usually so does just staring at the sketchbook.

"Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense." - Gertrude Stein

"Beaver Trapping" (Guest Panel)

Recently had a serendipitous visit to Gulliver's, our local independent bookstore, where there was a display of art up, and needless to say, one panel in particular, eh, "caught" my eye. Made my whole day actually, besides leaving some patrons a little worried about the sanity of the laughing weirdo.
It's by Caroline Brose, and was one of the featuring works by students from The Watershed Charter School. They're a newer charter school that uses an "innovative educational program" including a 2-year "looping model" to facilitate a better student/teacher connection (and ratio). As it happens, one of the teachers, Jarrod Decker, had a student teacher who was one of the prospective educators that interviewed me via the "Local Artist Project Assignment" - part of the certification program at UAF, and she in turn taught a lesson in cartooning to the 4th grade class. So it's always extra-spiffy to see such things come full circle and reach fruition in the community.

Guess now I need to keep looking over my shoulder, and better watch out for my job at the newspaper,

as soon there'll be some great new competition in this neck of the woods. 

Or at least sneaky traps baited just for cartoonists...

Vignette: "Ominious Artifact"

Couple weeks back in this semester's Beginning Drawing class we started work on the upcoming pen and ink 3-page vignette critique. Did a test run by creating a one-page demo while on the field trip to the Bear Gallery. Fortunately for us on display was the annual "Interior Artisans" juried exhibit - even though submissions were less than half of the normal turnout, which resulted in an overall sub-par exhibit, this particular show is always a guaranteed gold mine of visual resources. Along with an in-class exercise in spontaneous, impulsive juxtaposition of image and text by sampling and remixing from random sources, the demo page also doubled as a quick & dirty refresher on making marks and exploring textures. Never miss an opportunity to make something outta nothing.

I'd taken a few halfhearted passes at finishing this mess up over the last couple weekends, dabbling around in Photoshop in-between some other juggled projects. Actually, after scanning the linework (posted down below) the file "got lost" and then completely forgotten about - such spacing out not an infrequent phenomenon given the constant turnover of the mulch-pile: only after a monthly cleanup session organizing the exponentially increasing number of files on my desktop did it materialize again. What with the new desktop screen-saver (new image of "ripening stars" in the Rosette nebula taken from the Herschel Space Observatory: more info from NASA's site) it's awfully easy to lose stuff - there's an entire universe to scatter art around...

Working low-fi first with pencil on smooth Bristol board and then Sharpie and ball-point pen, I culled inspiration from: a bone mask, a bird sculpture, the detailed guts of a mechanical assemblage and a quilt design (none of which is now remotely reminiscent of the source material); also everything was built around an aborted demo on sketching from an iconic Fred Machetanz print that had been laying dormant for months, and lastly the verbage was excerpted from random phrases in the juror's statement. Pasted in a black & white picture from my front yard - it's actually a reference shot for a different pen & ink drawing that's been getting poked at over the past coupla weeks. Everything else was just swinging from vine to vine, reaching out in hopes there'll be something else out there to grab onto that will get you artistically over to the next tree (might somewhat explain the inclusion of the topographical map of Denali). This'll make for a fun 11x14" print at some point later on after the dust settles from the semester.

 "Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can." - Danny Kaye

"Beaver Man"

Spoof on "Grizzly Man," the 2005 film on the life of Timothy Treadwell. Part of a rash of romanticized incidents that contribute to projecting the pop-myth image of Alaska: a heroic land populated by questing dreamers, ingrown communities, Native shamans, eco-friendly Wendigos and of course those damned vampires. I'm not helping either.

"We have a great life here in Alaska, and we're never going back to America again!" - Homer Simpson

"Unbecoming" John Morton MFA Exhibit

Detail of "Twins"

Sculptor John Morton unveiled his thesis show last week in the UAF Art department. The ceramic pieces were cast from molds taken from skinned carcasses obtained in collaboration with a local tannery. Intriguing treatments and surface textures set up a curious, instinctual dynamic of enticing a closer look at something that is on the other hand repellent given the subject matter's grotesqueness. It was the gallery equivalent of an irresistible accident where passer-bys crane their necks to see what happened. It also recalled the frequent technique employed by pro-life protesters who confront people with giant posters of dismembered fetuses.

According to Morton the show wasn't deliberately provocative or necessarily advocating any particular "pro" or "anti" position - and contrary to many reactions from the community it hardly ranks as anything even approaching shock art. He was admittedly surprised at the vehemence of some of the criticism (see sample excerpts posted below) especially the uninformed knee-jerk variety, being a self-professed "lover of animals." Morton's work set up a virtual ethical arena within which each viewer had the opportunity to confront the naked reality of human/animal issues. This nakedness was literally accentuated by the exposed vulnerability and plaintive postures of the pieces - abject contortions carrying no sense of innate grace, aesthetically pleasing form or movement (as per "Bodyworlds" plastination or even Giger). Several pieces were strongly reminiscent of classic scenes from John Carpenter's "The Thing" but avoided clichéd and unnecessarily over-the-top horror by restraining appearances to what could be achieved with subtle glazing effects.
(More after the jump)

Daguerreotype Beaver

Okay, no it's not, it's a Photoshop hack. I just love the look of antique pics...
This piece has been swaddled in black velvet and exhibited with an appropriately cheesy and ornate faux-gilded frame.

"One time many moose and beaver. Plenty for all....." - The Sign of the Beaver, Elizabeth George Speare

The Hat and a Sandwich Project

Tangentially related to the whole Castor canadensis run here on Ink & Snow, since my submission involved a beaver sammich: local author David Crouse (who wrote my favorite book of short stories in 2005 "Copy Cats") has an evolving and mysterious work in progress involving pictures of people wearing a hat and eating a sandwich. That's all anyone really needs to know.
Check out the Facebook photo albums of over a hundred different entries and submit your own.

"Too few people understand a really good sandwich." - James Beard

"Alpha Dog" (Demo)

"When I was a kid I inhaled frequently. That was the point." - Barack Obama

Following local hero Lance Mackey's fourth straight win of the Iditarod sled dog race (also winning the Yukon Quest four years - twice back-to-back with Iditarod wins), you gotta wonder what goes on behind-the-scenes after all the crowds and cameras are gone. It's also an homage to the ginned-up controversy surrounding Mackey's legitimate usage of medical marijuana and this year's first-time imposition of drug-testing Iditarod racers.

Beaver Leave

Purely rhetorical, and one of the occasions that I honestly didn't have anything in mind at all while doodling: it's just what came out. That happens sometimes. Though I do recall being entranced by the animation artwork in a just-acquired 4-DVD volume set of the remastered "Popeye The Sailor" theatrical shorts: in 1933 Max Fleisher Cartoon Studio began producing perhaps the most outstanding animation ever done - in comparison the vast, overwhelming efforts by contemporary studios is lifeless and cheap (despite the millions more spent doing it). 

"Oh, what am I? Some kind of barnicle on the dinghy of life? " - Popeye 

Griffy's Top 40

"Alright, you!! Imitate a WOUNDED SEAL pleading for a PARKING SPACE!!" - Zippy

 Reposted from the excellent Cartoon SNAP blog by cartoonist Sherm Cohen: the legendary Bill Griffith, creator of "Zippy the Pinhead" offers his "Top 40 List on Comics And Their Creation" (sample page posted - find the rest here).

"A wide-eyed, innocent UNICORN, poised delicately in a MEADOW filled with LILACS, LOLLIPOPS & small CHILDREN at the HUSH of twilight??" - Zippy

Zippy is one of two characters from the underground days that still occupy the limited space in my brain (the other being S. Clay Wilson's "Checkered Demon"): Griffith's work is the closest manifestation of a zen-like perspective on life still maintaining a playful and profound presence in alternative comics.

"Yow! Am I having fun yet?" - Zippy

Taken together with the previous post on Mark Anderson's "Blog Like A Cartoonist" offering I'm already amped up in anticipation of this summer's Cartoon & Comic Art course. Never fails: whenever I learn anything it makes me wanna teach, and in the same instance, reading comics makes me reach for the pencil.

"YOW!!! I am having fun!!!" - Zippy

"Speed Humps"

A residential neighborhood in the more civilized part of town will undergo major renovations this summer: DOT is planning to install, among other traffic revisions, a kinder, gentler variation of the traditional speed bumps.

From the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner:

"In addition, street changes and safety improvements in Hamilton Acres and Shannon Park will include 75 traffic humps and 6 traffic circles on neighborhood streets. [snip] Various “traffic calming” actions are proposed, all of which are designed to get people to slow down on streets where there have been many complaints about excessive speed."

 Anybody remotely familiar with the urban topography of Interior Alaska, in particular around my neck of the woods, the Goldstream Valley, will shake their heads at the $1.9 million dollar price-tag. Especially given the Promethean and logistically futile task of maintaining roads across permafrost - Mother Nature uses 100% organic method of slowing people down. A little.
Also posting a scan of what the print-version looked like: how nice to share the page with the mayor! The opinion page is often the equalizing arena where even some schmuck from a cabin can vent alongside other community perspectives.

Colony

The theory was that these deep-space colonies of beavers dam up troublesome black holes with their celestial lodges. They move leisurely through space propelled by flapping their tails to either the strains of Strauss ("On The Beautiful Blue Danube"), Jerry Goldsmith or John Murphy ("Mercury").
Or that's the mother log ship leaving orbit from around planet Beaver. 
Or...

“I just read this great science fiction story. It's about how machines take control of humans and turn them into zombie slaves! . . . HEY! What time is it?? My TV show is on!” - Bill Watterson 

Castor canadensis

Now this little bit of recent trivia is both depressing and hilarious: "The Beaver" has now officially been renamed "Canada's History" out of concern that internet filters are blocking searches because of the term's innuendo.
 

I always grab a few ancient copies of this great magazine during monthly sojourns into the bowels of the UAF Library: deep in the subterranean archives there are endless shelves stuffed with back issues of this and many other fabulous samples to draw from. Hudson's Bay Company launched this publication in 1920, and it's Canada's second longest-running magazine. The beaver is also Canada's official animal along with being an archetypal symbol used throughout all of human history as a noble mascot. It's a sad state of affairs to see it fall prey to contemporary political correctness, and it leaves me with a gnawing sense of disquiet.
More pelts under the fold... 

From 1760 children's educational book "Beavers building their Hutts"

"... the inside is Spatious and Divided into 3 parts, one for their food, another for their Extrements, and the third where they Lye, having water under and Kep't as clean as any human person cou'd do, carrying all filth and Nastiness on one side." - James Isham (1743) 

I guess one of the reasons this particular species, along with the cartoonist's stock in dogs and cats, is so readily adaptable to humor is the rich potential for investing them with all sorts of anthropomorphic traits. Just a cursory search on my hard-drive unearthed over one-hundred and fifty different beavers - quite the virtual lodge. There's something to be said about it having become my personal mascot/spirit guide over the years, at the very least it's why there's one overflowing shelf in the cabin dedicated to the collection of beavers that folks have given to me.

"... in order to approach more closely a place where on landing I had remarked some large tress half cut through, I advanced quietly on a fours, to see without being seen, these beautiful born architects... There were a dozen of them, who pressing close to one another and standing on their hind feet were sawing, or rather cutting with their teeth a large tree about 12 feet in circumference, whilst more than fifty others were occupied in cutting and trimming the branches of another tree already fallen." - Claude Le Beau (1729)

Taking a peek at the trusty Alaska Place Names Dictionary CD-ROM (truly a geek's dream come true) across this wonderful state there are:

29 Beaver Creeks; 18 Beaver Lakes; miscellaneous Beaver Bays, Beaver Coves, Beaver Lakes, Beaver Falls, Beaver Inlets, Beaver Islands, Beaver Islets, Beaver Mountains, Beaver Ranges, Beaver Peaks, Beaver Points, Beaver Ponds, Beaver Reefs, Beaver Rivers, Beaver Sloughs, and oh yeah, the Village of Beaver itself. 

Come to think of it, Beaver Sports should probably change their name too...

Countering the Beaver's rename, Stephen Colbert has launched a campaign to redefine the new title "Canada's History" as a term on the Urban Dictionary - there are now almost six hundred alternative, euphemistic slangs listed, all variations on the theme of "... involving a moose's antlers, a gallon of maple syrup, and the Stanly Cup." 

Besides ensuring that this particular post will now get filtered and Ink & Snow will never be accessible at any public institution, all this is just an excuse so I can finally show off my all-time favorite piece of fan art ever by Jolene Schafer, not to mention launch a new theme for the blog over the rest of the spring  ...

"Ward, I'm very worried about the Beaver." - June Cleaver

"Contralaska" - The Russian Invasion

From a series of one-pagers done back in the 80's.

Favorite Eskimo ANWR joke: Environmentalist flew in to inspect the coastal plain. "Just what I thought," the environmentalist growled. "Damned oil companies have cut down all the trees!" - John McCaughey

Sakura Koretsune: "Vanishing Points" BFA Exhibition

In keeping with my not-so-intrepid blogging tradition, here's another well-after-the-fact post featuring one of the better exhibits to grace the walls of the UAF Art Department by Sakura Koretsune (link to a gallery of her work here).
More after the jump... 

Trivia of the Week (Get a Life) + Update

From the local independent bookstore: you know you've been camping out at a place way too long when you actually become trivia:

Notice they don't advertise the free coffee, which draws cartoonist campers like flies.
More below the fold... 

"Primitives"

"We can dance if we want to 

We can leave your friends behind

Cause your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance

Well they’re are no friends of mine" - Men Without Hats

A personal fave just published in the latest issue of the Ester Republic.
This is still amazing me: the Inupiat village of Noorvik just recently lifted the ban on traditional Native Alaskan dancing, which was "banned by Quaker missionaries a century ago as primitive idolatry."

"People who don`t like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn`t have such funny beliefs." - unknown

Bunny Day

"Magee"

More memory lane material: my best friend in highschool had a legendary (in our mind) critter for a pet: Magee was an Old English Sheepdog that became an icon to our circle. Magee was always there, just... there. Never really did much of anything, just maintained this huge, hairy presence.  Truly one of the more amusing animals to ever shuffle the earth.

Everyone should be so lucky as to have such a reassuring constant in their lives: somewhere in the background, maybe on the lawn or under the table, he was a hundred pounds of faithful, furry fellowship. He would even ever so slightly lean up against you, and shifted furniture out of his way with as much casual indifference as he did laying down.

Aside from always being there, Magee's other notable trait was a curious attempt at a bark. It never seemed to really quite raise to the level of a true bark, more like a Cowardly Lion whuff.

Like so many things from that time and place in life, not really sure just exactly what it was that endeared Magee to us, and why it inspired homage in a cartoon strip. Lets just say if you have trouble getting the strip, you wouldn't have gotten Magee.

"The dog has got more fun out of Man than Man has got out of the dog, for the clearly demonstrable reason that Man is the more laughable of the two animals." – James Thurber

Reign o'er me: Sovereignty

One of local Representative Mike Kelly's key platform agendas is the issue of state sovereignty. Seems to be a legislative priority since one of his prime political achievements has been the passage of a momentously inconsequential measure reaffirming Alaska's rights in the face of growing oppression and incursion from the dreaded Feds.


Along with his crucially important bill exempting firearms manufactured and kept in Alaska from federal regulation, and the formation of an even farther-right caucus than the "normal" Republican posse (check out the Interior Alaskan Conservative Coalition for a comparative example of how not-far-right-enough the current status quo is), Kelly keeps coming up with similarly useful ideas to further the agenda of the Patriotic Alaskan. You'd think someone who one the district by only four votes would strive to at least appear a bit more balanced as far as representing a true constituency.


I just can't help but think of how all this white man sovereignty stuff sounds to a bunch of folks who have a wee bit of experience with this themselves...

"Pointing out that there's a turd lying on the carpet is not the same as shitting on the carpet." – Dave Sim