All posts by Brian Kolm

About Brian Kolm

Brian Kolm is a Artist and Instructor working in the San Francisco Bay Area. His work can be seen at http://www.atomicbearpress.com.

CCSF Jam TONIGHT April 10, 2008

Well time to do another Comic Book Jam with your artist friends in San Francisco, so grab your favorite drawing tools and head on down to the Church St. Café at 6:30 pm this Thursday and draw with us. You’ll be glad you did, or possibly amused you did.

We meet on the second and last Thursday of each month at the Church St. Café from 6:30 pm to sometimes between 9 and 10 pm.

WHEN: Thursday April 10th, 2008

Where: Church St. Cafe

Description: The San Francisco cell of the International Cartoonist Conspiracy meets twice a month from on the second and last Thursday of the month from 6-10PM at Church St. Cafe. Church St. Cafe 260 Church Street San Francisco, CA 94114 Transit info for San Francisco can be found here: transitinfo.org
View Larger Map note: (the green cabin is the café and the blue markers are MUNI bus stations)

CCSF Valentines Jam Comic

Last month a few folks did not have romantic evenings planned got together to do a Comic Jam on Valentines Day. Each page had to have the same prop, a box of candy, and some of us tried to very our drawing style every panel. We also each drew half a page and each page is a contained story. Click on the images to see a bigger image.

Valentines Day Jam CCSF 01

Valentines Day Jam CCSF 02

Valentines Day Jam CCSF 03

CCSF Comic Jam March 27, 2008

Well it’s hard to believe that March is coming to and end and a quarter of 2008 is gone, but the great part is that our Comic Jams have been getting bigger and better this year. But we want even more people, so grab your favorite drawing tools and head on down to the Church St. Café at 6:30 pm this Thursday and draw with us. You’ll be glad you did, or possibly amused you did.

We meet on the second and last Thursday of each month at the Church St. Café from 6:30 pm to sometimes between 9 and 10 pm.

WHEN: Thursday March 27th, 2008

Where: Church St. Cafe

Description: The San Francisco cell of the International Cartoonist Conspiracy meets twice a month from on the second and last Thursday of the month from 6-10PM at Church St. Cafe. Church St. Cafe 260 Church Street San Francisco, CA 94114 Transit info for San Francisco can be found here: transitinfo.org
View Larger Map note: (the green cabin is the café and the blue markers are MUNI bus stations)

Modern Cartoonist: The Naked Truth

Modern Cartoonist: The Naked Truth, written by Daniel Clowes.

Fantagraphics has posted an essay by Daniel Clowes originally appearing as a bound-in booklet accompanying Eightball #18, originally published in 1997. Some interesting reading on modern comics and what they are and can be. It’s very cool that the whole book is hand lettered and illustrated in lovely two color illustrations.

The Naked Truth by Daniel Clowes

Random Generators

There you are at the Comic Jam and you have no idea what to draw and write. What do you do? Well if someone has access to the internet there are lots of resources to generate Random Stories and Ideas or you can print them out and take them to the group. These can really come in handy when doing the 24 hour comic book jam!

Evil Overlord Random Plot Generator – evil plots and what NOT to do.
Random Log-Line Generator: Random Story and Scene ideas. Example: A committee of nerdy art dealers gets endowed with superpowers or A fairy is secretly replaced by a superstitious cowboy in a factory.

digital propp: Proppian Fairy Tale Generator

When Vladimir Propp created his theories of structural analysis in the 1930’s it is unlikely that he foresaw the advent of the computing and information age, yet his concern with structure and the modularity of his construction of narrative anticipate that of computing models and languages today.

You have reached the Proppian Fairy Tale Generator, an experiment in electronic (re)writing and an exploration of the retranslation of modernist theory within the electronic environment.

Seventh Sanctum:

Here you’ll find tools for writers, gamers, and artists; randomly assembling names, concepts, and more for when you need inspiration, or just a bit of amusement.

Click here to check out the writing section, to get some new ideas.

Lee’s (useless) Superhero name Generator

50 Random Superhero Names (with secret id too).

So you want to be a hero?…All the answers are right here. Let Lee’s (Useless) Super-Hero Generator set you on the right track. Simply answer the questions on the form below and keep at it until you find the perfect name for yourself, your team, or your foe(s). Good luck, hero!

Behind the Name: random names by culture.

CCSF Comic Jam Thursday March 13, 2008


Hey everyone! The last meeting of the Cartoonist Conspiracy of San Francisco was fantastic with over 11 people in attendance and the art that came out of the night was really great. But it would be even cooler to get even more folks this week. So grab your favorite drawing tools and head on down to the Church St. Café at 6:30 pm this Thursday and draw with us. You’ll be glad you did, or possibly amused you did.

We meet on the second and last Thursday of each month at the Church St. Café from 6:30 pm to sometimes between 9 and 10 pm.

WHEN: Thursday March 13th, 2008

Where: Church St. Cafe
Description: The San Francisco cell of the International Cartoonist Conspiracy meets twice a month from on the second and last Thursday of the month from 6-10PM at Church St. Cafe. Church St. Cafe 260 Church Street San Francisco, CA 94114 Transit info for San Francisco can be found here: transitinfo.org

Here is where we are: (the green cabin is the café and the blue markers are MUNI bus stations)

View Larger Map

Inspiration: some artist blogs

First off in the one and only Paul Pope: http://pulphope.blogspot.com/


From a link on the Pope blog, Toby Cypress who is doing some amazing comic work and art: http://tobycypress.blogspot.com/ I love this Robot Fighter painting.


Todd Klein, Comic letterer and colorist. He has lots of great posts about logos, design, color and the like: http://kleinletters.com/Blog/


all work is © the artist mentioned and used with out permission.