BIG FUNNY was just A-Listed in this week’s City Pages…read it here.
Category Archives: gallery show
BIG FUNNY Reviewed on Optical Sloth, Plus Photos From the Hanging
BIG FUNNY has just been reviewed at Optical Sloth. Read it here.
It’s a remarkable achievement, and if anybody is going to be in Minneapolis on August 7th you should click that website for details on picking up a copy. If you get one there, it’s a measly $5 for this beast. If not you’ll have to pay for shipping, which just about doubles the price, but this thing is utterly unique in the comics world and worth the expense. I’m old enough to remember pulling the funnies out of the Sunday paper, spreading them out on the ground, laying down to read them and have them actually be funny.
Please Help Promote BIG FUNNY (Premiering This Friday, August 7th!)
We’ve been doing really well on getting the word out about BIG FUNNY so far… for a list of places that have mentioned the show or the publication, check out the ongoing list on our Facebook page.
That said, the BEST promotion is word of mouth. Please help us to make the opening a huge success! Some suggestions:
1) Please do tell your friends, family, co-workers, associates and potential love interests, you sly dog. In person, via email, via a social network invite, using two tin cans and one taut string, or by serenading outside their windows at three AM. Here is the Facebook event to invite friends to.
2) Please do tell your readers. If you have a blog or website, please post about the event this week. Here is a “chicklet” for your site, if you want it:
3) Please consider distributing some of the postcards and newsprint posters that can be picked up at the gallery.
4) If you know members of the press, please consider directing them to our press release.
5) Please consider hassling strangers on street corners, wearing sandwich boards promoting the event, floating over the city in a BIG FUNNY painted dirigible, or using other means of guerrilla promotion as your fancy dictates. Due to their lack of implements of modern communication, we anticipate an unfortunate shortage of hillbillies… so if you wish to hike the Appalachian Trail with a bullhorn, please contact Jamie.
Please don’t forget to direct folks to our website.
Thanks for your help, and thanks much to those of you who have already done some or all of these things (although it was taking it a little too far shaving the logo in your chest hair, Kevin).
Big Funny: Things You Should Know
About Big Funny
(Things about the project you may not know that we think are cool.)
* Big Funny, at 48 ginormous pages, features the work of 47 contributing artists.
* Only 2,000 copies were printed!
* The project was coordinated entirely by volunteers, who have contributed 1,000 hours to the project to date.
* Big Funny was printed locally in Minnesota.
* The newspaper size, (16″ wide by 22-3/4″ tall with an image area of 15″ wide by 21-1/2″), is true to an original newspaper from the 1910-30’s eras.
* Proceeds earned from Big Funny benefit two affiliated groups: Altered Esthetics, a nonprofit arts organization that works to support artists and The International Cartoonist Conspiracy, a community of comic artists.
* Artist submissions were open to all and chosen democratically by the editorial review panel.
* The original Big Funny Logo was designed by editor Steven Stwalley. The Big Funny Logo featured on the cover of the paper was hand drawn by editor Zander Cannon, and features all the characters from inside the paper itself.
* Even the ads in Big Funny are cool! The ads for sponsors on the back of the paper were hand-drawn by editor Kevin Cannon, with the words for “the Source” ad penned by editor Steven Stwalley. The classifieds feature a mix of original limericks, artist bios, vintage ads from old comics and more.
* Big Funny arrived to the gallery on two ginormous pallets and copies were hand-loaded by the editors to a super secret location to be stored until the day of the opening. Copies of Big Funny narrowly avert both floods and theft while they wait to be released this Friday, August 7th.
Big Funny: A celebration of the Newspaper Comic Strip!
The 48-page oversized newspaper will premiere at Altered Esthetics this Friday featuring poster-sized comic artwork from 47 artists.
In addition to having copies of BIG FUNNY for sale ($5 each), the opening reception will include:
* Original artwork from the publication,
* examples of historic comics pages (some over a century old),
* a retrospective of unseen comic artwork by William Ede,
* live music from The Roe Family Singers and
* the little funny sideshow- a vintage cigarette machine repurposed to vend mini-comics and comic art!
Opening Reception
Friday August 7, 2009 7pm-11pm
Show runs August 7-29, 2009
Gallery Hours
Saturdays 1pm-5pm
Tuesdays & Thursdays 1pm-7pm
Altered Esthetics
1224 Quincy Street NE
Minneapolis, MN 55413.
612.378.8888
BIG FUNNY Website Updated
BIG FUNNY Press Release
Here is the BIG FUNNY press release. Please do spread the word.
SUBMISSIONS NEEDED–Zine show at MN Center for Book Arts
Call for Zines
Minnesota Center for Book Arts will be hosting an exhibition of zines titled
³Independent Variables: Contemporary Zine Publications² from June 26 to
September 6, 2009 in the Open Book Lobby Gallery.
To participate in this exhibition, work must be received by 5 pm June 26. It
may be dropped off at MCBA¹s Shop desk or mailed (MCBA, attn: Jeff
Rathermel, 1011 Washington Ave South, Minneapolis, MN 55415). Please include
contact information with your submission, including an email address.
Note: Work will handled by the public and will be fastened to the wall by a
cord. This may involve drilling into the publication to make a hole for
fastening. Do not submit work you are not willing to have altered and
handled by multiple readers. Works should weigh a pound or less.
We will do our best to exhibit all work submitted. Multiple works by a
single artist are permitted. If the number of submissions is great, the
number of works exhibited by a single artist will be limited.
Work will be available for pick up at the Shop desk the week following the
show. Work will not be returned by mail. Items not picked up by Sept 11,
2009 will be added to the MCBA archives and used for educational purposes.
If you have questions, please email Jeff Rathermel, MCBA¹s Artistic
Director, at jrathermel (at) mnbookarts.org.
Want to Advertise in BIG FUNNY’s Classified Section?
Congratulations to the nearly fifty artists who made it into this summer’s BIG FUNNY newspaper and gallery show. We had over seventy outstanding submissions and it was very difficult to whittle it down. We usually like to be as inclusive as possible, but for this project the budget and limitations of printing an actual newspaper limited the amount of entries we could accept.
But there’s still a spot for people to get their name in lights: the classifieds!
The newspaper is going to press in a few weeks, and we’re looking for advertisements to throw in our CLASSIFIEDS section in the back of BIG FUNNY. You get 50 words for $20, and all proceeds go to helping the BIG FUNNY show exist — Altered Esthetics Gallery is a community-based nonprofit and can’t exist without your help!
Get all the details here.
Hurry, though — deadline is May 31
Participate in little funny: a BIG FUNNY Sideshow
little funny is intended as a prominent “sideshow” to the upcoming BIG FUNNY project. little funny will be a series of mini-comics sold in an old cigarette vending machine at Altered Esthetics during the month of the BIG FUNNY show. No entries will be rejected provided they follow the specs (these comics need to be a specific size to fit inside the boxes in the vending machine).
HOW TO PARTICIPATE:
- DOWNLOAD THE TEMPLATE. The template includes a little funny logo on the front and back covers. One double-sided copy makes three copies of a 10-page accordion style micro-comic (or, alternately, 3 different issues).
- Email us at webmaster (at) cartoonistconspiracy.com for an issue number. little funny will be a numbered series. Make sure to put your number on your comic. If you choose to do multiple issues, you’ll need a number for each different issue.
- Draw your comic. Make sure to sign your work and include your contact info on it if you want to.
- Make copies of it. Copy, fold and staple them.
- We request a minimum of 18 copies of each comic submitted (which is 6 double sided xeroxes). More is great, and you can send us as many as you wish. Mail your copies to:ALTERED ESTHETICS
1224 Quincy St NE
Minneapolis, MN 55413In addition to the comics please include your name, address, phone number and email address.
DEADLINE FOR PARTICIPATION IS JULY 20th.
THINGS TO NOTE:
- Each participant will receive one vending box of minis… how many minis are included in a box will depend on our level of participation. No box will contain all of the minis. Each participant will be responsible for picking up their box some time during the month of the show, or for making special arrangements if they can not attend.
- Participants names will also appear on the BIG FUNNY website as being a part of the little funny show.
- These comics can be by a single artist or be collaborative.
- You can do as many issues as you wish… if you want to do more than one, just ask us for another number.
- Comics may be color, or black and white, or on colored paper, or decorated with glitter glue, or painted or whatever the hell you want to do as long as you stick with the basic template.
- Two sets of all the comics will be kept for the Conspiracy archives.
- All proceeds from the comics will go to support the gallery, Altered Esthetics, which is a non-profit, community and artist centered gallery. You can read more about AE here.
- Submissions will not be returned.
BIG FUNNY Deadline Passes… Need an Extension?
The BIG FUNNY deadline just passed at midnight, smelling of sweat, ink, and old newsprint! Kevin had a busy day of getting submissions in… we now have 50 of them! The paper is going to be nothing short of spectacular!
And we still want yours!
Not done yet? You’re not alone… there are a number of people whose submissions are really close but not completed. And some, well… maybe not so close, but we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. You too. We’ll give you one more week! That will be it, though, so don’t miss it!
Please note that submission does NOT guarantee inclusion. You will want to make sure to read the complete project specs and info here.
Please contact us if you are taking advantage of the extension… you can email me at webmaster (at) cartoonistconspiracy.com.