In a drawing for my upcoming book, I unexpectedly drew the worlds smallest bee. It measures really tiny by really really tiny. I am more proud of this bee than i should, um, ...Be.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Smallest bee in the world.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Corporate Theft- Orphan Works Act
Here is a video explaining how the Orphan Works Act will change the Copyrigh laws. for most of us, this will open up our work to theft. Currently, if you doodle on a napkin or post a pic on your blog, it is protected. If this bill becomes law, and you don't pay to copyright every image you draw, or every picture your take with your digital camera, or words you write for a story or blog, it will all be up for grabs, unless you have the money to legally defend every instance of unauthorized use. With the Internet the way it is, with copyright theft already rampant, well, good luck.
Please write to your Senator immediately. And thanks again to all the people in our fields who have influence and a strong voice who are remaining silent... as usual.
This bill is actual named in memory of a LOBBYIST for Time Warner!
Splash!
I took the digital plunge yesterday and bought a Wacom Cintiq.
I got the Cintiq 20WSX model.
I couldn't wait to get it home, unbox it, hook it up and test it out.
I had a little issue hooking it up because I lost the adapter that came with my iMac (doh!) and then I found out my iMac didn't have the capability to support a dual monitor setup. I downloaded a patch and everything is in tip-top shape.
So I drew the drawing above on my Cintiq tonight.
Special thanks to Tom Richmond and Darrin Bell. for their advice on buying a Cintiq.
If there's enough interest, I may post a video or two of me drawing on the Cintiq and a review once I break it in.
For the record, I'm not saying I'm completely moving over to working digitally, I still love sitting at my drawing table with my paints, a fresh sheet of watercolor paper and a big ol' jar of water. I see the Cintiq as being another tool for me to draw with...I have several coffee mugs filled with brushes, pencils, pens, etc. and now I have a Cintiq sitting among them.
Monday, May 19, 2008
BEST SELLING PICTURE BOOKS
CHILDREN'S BEST SELLERS: PICTURE BOOKS: Sunday, April 6th 2008
(Please note that we have a total of four exclamat!on po!nts included in the titles of three of these best sellers! Something to consider when you submit your next p!cture book.)
GALLOP!, written and illustrated by Rufus Butler Seder. (Workman, $12.95.) Animals seem to move when you flip the page. (Ages 4 to 8)
DIRT ON MY SHIRT, by Jeff Foxworthy. Illustrated by Steve Bjorkman. (HarperCollins, $16.99.) Poems of childhood by the comedian and TV host. (Ages 4 to 7)
DON'T BUMP THE GLUMP!, written and illustrated by Shel Silverstein. (HarperCollins, $17.99.) His first collection of nonsense verse, originally published in 1964. (Ages 5 and up)
GRACE FOR PRESIDENT, written by Kelly Di Pucchio. Illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (Hyperion, $15.99.) A girl decides to run in her school's mock election. (Ages 5 to 9)
SMASH! CRASH!, BY JON SCIESZKA. ILLUSTRATED BY DAVID SHANNON, Loren Long and David Gordon. (Simon & Schuster, $16.99.) A truck named Jack and a dump truck named Dan love to smash into things. (Ages 3 to 7)
THE JELLYBEANS AND THE BIG DANCE, written by Laura Numeroff and Nate Evans. Illustrated by Lynn Munsinger. (Abrams, $15.95.) Cat friends work together to prepare for a recital. (Ages 4 to 8)
KNUFFLE BUNNY TOO, written and illustrated by Mo Willems. (Hyperion, $16.99.) One of Trixie's classmates has a bunny just like hers. (Ages 4 to 8)
ZEN TIES, written and illustrated by Jon J. Muth. (Scholastic, $17.99.) A panda encourages his nephew and their friends to help a grouchy neighbor. (Ages 4 to 8)
STAR WARS POP-UP GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, by Matthew Reinhart. (Orchard, $32.99.) A pop-up look at Luke, Leia, Lord Vader et al. (Ages 7 and up)
LADYBUG GIRL, by Jacky Davis and David Soman. Illustrated by David Soman. (Dial, $16.99.) Creativity and the right outfit let a little girl feel bigger. (Ages 4 and up)
...Jeff Foxworthy?
Huckabee Willing to be Vice President
Former GOP frontrunner Mike Huckabee announced he is willing to run with McCain as his vice presidential candidate. It appears to be the first time the evangelical candidate has shown a weakness for any kind of vice other than rock 'n' roll music.
Obama: Lay off my wife
The Tennessee GOP stooped to dirty politics by posting a video on YouTube, questioning Michelle Obama's patriotism. Says Barack, "Lay off my wife."
Ya gotta defend your lady.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
June
The lovely month of June is almost upon us. It only comes once a year, so to commemorate the event, here's a calendar page. Go on, print it out and color it, you know you want to!
Drawer Geeks
One of my favorite sites to visit is Drawer Geeks. Each week a diverse group of talented illustrators give their take on a selected subject. Some of the work is amazing. This weeks subject is Dinosaurs, which prompted a good turnout. Their work always makes me want to sit down and have a go at it myself.
The Comic Book Ethical Challenge
I ran across what appeared to be a very cool contest, Platinum Studios' The Comic Book Challenge. Cartoonists submit a synopsis and three finished pages, and fifty finalists are chosen to appear before a panel of industry people at this year's Comicon. The winner gets a publishing contract.
I thought this sounded great and was gearing up to submit a couple of graphic novel and comic book ideas I've been working on. Luckily, though, I read the fine print in the rules. Turns out the winner has to sign a Work for Hire agreement! So immediately I write this off. And so I say Shame on you, Platinum Studios. Offering a contest which requires the creators to sign over ownership of their work is dirty pool.
Many of us have to do work for hire, and it sucks. When it's properties that belong to someone other than us, I can halfway understand it. But to try to get people to sign over their very authorship of something they create is unethical. Plantinum Studios should take the Ethics Challenge.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Art Lessons by Norman Rockwell
My wife managed to find a great Norman Rockwell book for me at the latest homeschool swap. It's called Rockwell on Rockwell, How I Make a Picture. It's a compilation of lessons that Rockwell did in the fifties or sixties for the Famous Artist School. (You know the one... "draw this mouse or pirate"... and yeah, they're still around but I'm not sure why.) Imagine having a book on how to draw or paint by someone who can actually draw and paint... better than practically anyone. It's an awesome book. Will it help? That's another issue entirely. But if you can find a copy, it's definitely worth your trouble.
Charles Dickens on International Copyright Law
"It was well observed the other night by a beautiful speaker, whose words went to the heart of every man who heard him, that, if there had existed any law in this respect, [Sir Walter] Scott might not have sunk beneath the mighty pressure on his brain, but might have lived to add new creatures of his fancy to the crowd which swarm about you in your summer walks, and gather round your winter evening hearths.
"As I listened to his words, there came back, fresh upon me, that touching scene in the great man’s life, when he lay upon his couch, surrounded by his family, and listened, for the last time, to the rippling of the river he had so well loved, over its stony bed. I pictured him to myself, faint, wan, dying, crushed both in mind and body by his honourable struggle, and hovering round him the phantoms of his own imagination - Waverley, Ravenswood, Jeanie Deans, Rob Roy, Caleb Balderstone, Dominie Sampson - all the familiar throng - with cavaliers, and Puritans, and Highland chiefs innumerable overflowing the chamber, and fading away in the dim distance beyond. I pictured them, fresh from traversing the world, and hanging down their heads in shame and sorrow, that, from all those lands into which they had carried gladness, instruction, and delight for millions, they brought him not one friendly hand to help to raise him from that sad, sad bed. No, nor brought him from that land in which his own language was spoken, and in every house and hut of which his own books were read in his own tongue, one grateful dollar-piece to buy a garland for his grave. Oh! if every man who goes from here, as many do, to look upon that tomb in Dryburgh Abbey, would but remember this, and bring the recollection home!"
Charles Dickens, February 7, 1842, excerpt from a speech delivered on his twenty-ninth birthday, during his first visit to the United States, to discuss international copyright. The United States had refused to enter into a reciprocal agreement on copyright with England. Publishers in this country were freely issuing Dickens's novels without paying royalties to him or his British publishers. It was another fifty years before the U.S. passed a comprehensive copyright law.
One might today replace Sir Walter Scott with Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, who died in poverty.
"Orphan Works Act" a Blow Against Creators
Congress sucks. Up for grabs is the copyright of everything you draw or write. As discussed on Drawn!, "currently, copyright is granted the moment a work is created. This new Orphan Works legislation proposes a change in U.S. copyright that would require artists, illustrators, photographers, and any creative individual to actively maintain and defend their copyright by registering each and every work with privatized registrars. Failure to do so would leave everything you’ve ever created as an artist up for grabs by anyone who wanted to copy, reproduce, create derivative works of, or flat out steal your work since the act defines an “orphan work” as any work where the author is unidentifiable or unlocatable, and applies to both published and unpublished works, U.S. and foreign, regardless of age.
"The two bills are S.2913, the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 and H.R.5889, the Orphan Works Act of 2008. Markup of the Bentley bill is this Thursday, May 15, and it’s not too late to voice your concerns.
"Taking action to prevent this from happening is not only vital, but incredibly easy. U.S. citizens, simply fill out one of these templates provided by the Illustrators Partnership and your opposition will automatically be e-mailed to your members of Congress."
What I'm wondering , as I usually am during fiascos like this, is where are the champions of our cause? Why are the Big Guys, the ones receiving awards and praise and big bucks for being successful, quietly letting this happen? Where are Scott Adams, Mort Walker, Stan Lee, Marc Brown, Marcia Jones, Oprah, Stephen King, Gary Trudeau, Jim Davis, Frank Miller, the Schulz family, J.K. Rowling, Eric Carle, Stan and Jan Bernstain, R.L. Stine, Berke Breathed, Ted Rall, Charlie Rose, Mary Pope Osborne, Dav Pilkey, Todd McFarlane? And where are the guys who are usually loud about voicing their opinions of their industry? And where are you? I'll send my letter of opposition to my congressman, but I expect to only get the usual letter back asking for a campaign contribution.
I didn't think creators could lose any more rights than we all ready have. Copyright laws have become a joke in the United States. If this act passes into law, it will be even harder for your average writer and artist to protect his interests and make a living. Blog content will become public domain. Every thing will be up for grabs of you don't send it to the Copyright Office and monitor and maintain it. That includes napkin scribbles, which currently are protected. Instead of your work going to your heirs, it will go to whomever is poised to swipe it and make a few bucks off of it. The corporations are the only ones who will gain anything.
I've got some letter writing to do. And a few copyright forms to fill out.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Sara Bareilles - Love Song
This is the new favorite song of our whole family. At least this week. It's downright contagious.
Stay Tooned
John Read was nice enough to send me a copy of the premiere issue of Stay Tooned magazine. It is in the tradition of Jud's Cartoonist Profiles, but has a district voice and look of its own. John is able to get some great interviews out of the cartoonists, and the lead interview with Marcus Hamilton (Dennis the Menace) is a gem. Also in this issue:
John (Snuffy Smith) Rose
Greg (The Buckets) Cravens
Scott (Prickly City) Stantis
Steve (The Times-Picayune) Kelley
Marshall (The Clarion-Ledger) Ramsey
Steven (Sonic X) Butler
John (The Toon Factory) Deaton
Rob (Funny Pages Productions) Corley
With columns by:
Tom (MAD Magazine) Richmond
Norm (Retail) Feuti
I think John will make this a worthwhile and indispensable magazine for cartoonists.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Just a Singer in a Rock'n'Roll Band
This is what makes the Web so cool... Two guys who have gotten attention on YouTube and MySpace have gone on to be lead singers with two of the biggest rock bands, Journey and Boston.
I ran across a cover band called The ZOO on YouTube several months ago. The lead singer sounded just like Steve Perry. And then a couple months ago I read that he became Journey's lead singer for real.
Tonight I checked in to see what was happening with Boston since my favorite singer Brad Delp died last year. Come to find out, they're starting a new tour, and one of their new singers is a guy named Tommy De Carlo, an amateur musician and credit manager at Home Depot in Charlotte, who got some attention from his MySpace page. His very good, and sounds like a guy who grew up trying to sing like Brad Delp and got pretty darn close.
Time to put my Karaoke tapes online...
I hate mosquitoes.
Right now I have all my windows open. In about three months the monsoons come to the desert and it's more of a mosquito fest than most people realize over here. One year I think AZ had the highest number of "West Nile" outbreaks.
This was done with watercolor on imperial strathmore 500 hot press. the size is about 15" tall by 21" wide. -W.
BTW, I'm having a heck of a time uploading in safari 3 on tiger. Firefox seems to work just fine.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
James Garner - Spirit
James Garner would have made a great Spirit.
I used to have a '74 Firebird like he drove on The Rockford Files. It was a beautiful, scary car. It would scratch rubber if I punched it going 60. 455 horses. *sigh* If you happen to see it, let me know. It was an Esprit.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Early Garfield Original Comic Strip
For only $4,499.00, you can be the proud owner of this very early Garfield original!
Never Too Young
Yes, the times have changed a bit. Don't laugh too loudly, though. I have seen baby bottles out there shaped like 7up soda bottles. Half the "juice" they sell for kids is high-fructose corn syrup with water and coloring added... soda pop without the bubbles.
But gosh... can you imagine giving a baby a bottle of Coke? I dunno Our kids don't drink pop, except the very occasional Sierra Mist or, when we go to the old general store downtown, they'll get a glass bottle of grape Nehi. I can't imagine what the caffeine booster would do... to me, not to them!
Google me this
If you're bored and want to do a quick run-through on just about every pic we've posted on this blog, here are about two dozen Google pages. Or should that be "Googled" pages?
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Tango Tops Banned Books
NEW YORK - A children's story about a family of penguins with two fathers once again tops the list of library books the public objects to the most.
And Tango Makes Three, released in 2005 and co-written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, [and illustrated by Henry Cole] was the most "challenged" book in public schools and libraries for the second straight year, according to the American Library Association.
"The complaints are that young children will believe that homosexuality is a lifestyle that is acceptable. The people complaining, of course, don't agree with that," Judith Krug, director of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, told The Associated Press on Tuesday... full story
-- I guess we can at least be thankful they're not burning the books.
To Bee or Not to Bee
The honey bee is quickly becoming extinct. In China, it already has. We are importing them by the millions from Australia. Unfortunately, the Australian bees brought a disease that destroys the immune system of our honeybees. Besides making honey, honeybees are the only pollinator of clover. What a tangled web...
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
The Tongue & the Teeth
Once upon a time there was a boy who had a bad habit of talking more than was necessary.
"What a tongue!" sighed the teeth one day. "It is never still, never quiet!"
"What are you grumbling about?" replied the tongue arrogantly. "You teeth are only slaves, and your job is merely to chew whatever I decide. We have nothing in common, and I shall not allow you to meddle in my affairs."
So the boy went on chattering, very impertinently sometimes, and his tongue was happy, learning new words every day.
But one day, when the boy did some damage, and then allowed his tongue to tell a big lie, the teeth obeyed the heart, sprang together and bit the tongue.
From that day onward the tongue became timid and prudent, and thought twice before speaking.
From Fables of Leonardo da Vinci
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Indiana Jones IV
Looking forward to the new Indy movie, especially since Spielberg says they're filming it Old School with a minimum of CGI. The previews look promising. Of course, it'll be a weekend blockbuster even if it sucks raw eggs.
Lupine, Orchards, Mountains.
This was a bit tricky because I had to draw fields of lupine flowers, an orchard, and the beginnings of a mountain on the same page. I managed to come up with something that did all three rather poorly. Oh well. I like the car and the bird.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
Three Men in a Hot Rod Tub
This is a little sketch of an idea I had for a new blog header. It won't work for that purpose, but thought I'd post the sketch anyway.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
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