Category Archives: Minneapolis

Minneapolis – a Mecca for Cartoonists?

Minneapolis

In her popular comics blog The Beat, Heidi MacDonald today asks the question “Minneapolis – a Mecca For Cartoonists?” (in reference to this webpage). If you are a Minneapolis cartoonist, you probably already know the answer to this… you can share your opinions on the subject in the comments on her blog.

For those of you pondering the question, I refer you to this previous post on this blog on the last five years of activity of the Minneapolis cell of the Cartoonist Conspiracy.

UPDATE: I think Heidi got the link from Tom Spurgeon’s excellent Comics Reporter blog… unfortunately, Tom doesn’t have a commenting system.

Art School Summer US Premiere

animation, Events, Minneapolis

Conspirators Dave and Mary Sandberg have completed a feature length cartoon, Art School Summer, which is having its US premiere in Minneapolis on the 12th! Bill Plympton is the only other animator I’m aware of that has made feature length animated films basically on his own (although their probably have been some others), so big congratulations to them on this amazing and rare accomplishment.

Art School Summer
Saturday Jan 12th at 7:30
Premiering at:
MCAD
2501 Stevens Ave.
Minneapolis, MN 55404
In the big auditorium 150

The screening is free but seating might be in short supply.

Note that my understanding is that the film contains a whole lotta content that is not suitable for people under 18… so if you are under 18, please don’t try to attend. If you are 18 or over, you won’t want to miss it.

There will be a reception afterwards in NE… information on that at the event.

The Twin Cities Rock Atlas in this Week’s City Pages

comics, Minneapolis

If you’re in the Twin Cities, do yourself a favor and don’t miss this week’s City Pages (December 19, 2007). Kevin Cannon has done an absolutely stunning spread on pages 50 and 55 titled The Twin Cities Rock Atlas that has to be seen to be believed. It highlights numerous music oriented locations around the Twin Cities. It isn’t currently online, which is good, because only print could do this justice. The text for the piece is written by City Pages’ Peter S. Scholtes (and written well, although it unavoidably and painfully covers the art!)

One of the most outstanding things about Kevin’s work is his vast skill at distilling things down to the bare minimum of what they need to be effective. This has never been more evident than in this piece. If you think of icons of Minneapolis, you probably think of the big Grain Belt Bottle cap, the cherry in the spoon, and maybe First Ave. (pictured in the tiny excerpt above from the spread). This spread makes it seem like icons are everywhere, as Kevin beautifully distills the architectural souls of probably a minimum of 50 Twin Cities structures. Not many cartoonists could pull this off, and Kevin makes it look easy.

Happily, City Pages is apparently going to make it into a poster… I don’t yet know how they will be making them available, but I sure want one.

I just got an update from Kevin on the posters:

I think CP is going to give away the posters for free.
Word is that they’ll be available at the venues that
are on the poster. I’m working on a (Big Time Attic) blog post that
shows the process of making the poster, and there
you’ll be able to see all the easter eggs hiding
behind the text (actually there aren’t many easter
eggs, but I do have a little Conspiracy guy standing
next to diamond’s)…

24 Hour Comics Day Minneapolis Coverage

24 Hour Comics, Events, Minneapolis

I just wanted to note that if you are reading this blog, you will not automatically receive event coverage of the Minneapolis event which happened this weekend… and David Steinlicht did a phenomenal job covering it, so I really encourage you to check it out.

Thanks much to David for foregoing drawing to blog on our behalves… thanks much to Danno for organizing the event and talking me into doing it for the fourth year in a row… thanks to our extremely generous sponsors The Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Big Brain Comics, Wet Paint, Pizza Luce, and Grumpy’s for sponsoring this again this year… and, of course, thanks to everyone who participated.

24 Hour Comics Day Minneapolis Banner

24 Hour Comics, Events, hype, Minneapolis

Here’s a banner for the Minneapolis Cartoonist Conspiracy cell’s blog to cover our local exploits during the international 24 Hour Comic Day event this weekend. I encourage all you participants out there to put it on your websites, and go check out the blog by clicking the banner, if you haven’t already.

You can subscribe to the Twin Cities event blog here.

Here is the international event site for 24 hour comics day.

Here is the group blog for the international 24 hour comics day event.

You can subscribe to the international event blog here.

Thanks much to David Steinlicht for blogging for us during the event!

Come Jam In Minneapolis Thursday March First!

Events, Jam Comics, Minneapolis

The Minneapolis Cartoonist Conspiracy meets at 6:30 until 10:00 the first Thursday of every month at Diamond’s Coffee Shoppe in Northeast.

Generally, we draw collaborative “jam” comics, socialize and drink caffeinated beverages. Afterwords, we often have uncaffeinated beverages somewhere else.

The meetings are open to anyone who wants to draw with us, and the results are posted here sooner or later (and sometimes even printed).

Diamond’s Coffee Shoppe
1618 Central Avenue Northeast
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Bus info here.

Please spend some money at Diamond’s while you’re there, even if it is just a cuppa coffee… they are excellent hosts, and we wanna stay welcome there.

Big Time Attic is now officially hosting our monthly jam meetings at Diamond’s… they will be supplying us with a big old plate of pastries or something each month. Thanks fellas!

PUNY Digital Drawing TONIGHT!

Minneapolis

Mark your calendars if you want to learn some tips and techniques for drawing for Flash:

Minneapolis based animation and design studio PUNY presents “CLEAN STROKES: Digital Drawing Techniques For Flash.” This presentation will feature various digital drawing techniques for creating art that is used in animation and video game art for clients like Cartoon Network and DC Comics. Presentation includes digital inking techniques for traditional artists using the inexpensive 4X6 Wacom Graphire tablet and a “sculpt and stroke” technique using the mouse. Extensive Q&A to answer particular questions about importing or creating art in Adobe Flash.

http://www.punyentertainment.com

When: February 21st 6:30 social 7:00 Presentation. Admission is free and open to the public. Free pizza and refreshments.

Where: FlashMN at Easel Training
More info and directions here: http://www.flashmn.com/

Participate in The Gross Comics Project

24 Hour Comics, Minneapolis, Projects, The Gross Comic Project

This month, some members of the Minneapolis Cartoonist Conspiracy cell embarked on the Gross Comic Project at our monthly Saturday Open Studio. It isn’t what it sounds like.

Like 24 hour comic day, the goal of the Gross Comic Project is to produce a certain number of pages in a certain amount of time… in this case 144 pages in 144 hours… a gross of pages, get it? 12 hours a month for a year.

Unlike 24 hour comic day, however, the goal of these comics is quality more than speed… if we are going to invest this much time in it, we want to produce something fun, readable and well-drawn, rather than just quickly produced. To that end, we allow all the planning, drawing, and even working on actual pages outside of the monthly 12 hour sessions that a cartoonist chooses to do. However, the 12 pages should be completed by the end of the 12 hours.

If you go over, that’s fine, just get it done as quickly as possible after that… if it takes you until the next month, though, I’d say that would be a definite failure.

Here are the completed first month’s 12 pages from this weekend:

Here are the first 12 pages of Kevin Cannon’s Oceanis.

Here are the first 12 pages of Zander Cannon’s Heck.

Here are the first 12 pages of Steven Stwalley’s Ezekiel Fishman Versus the Martians.

Note that this project was inspired by the stellar work Kevin Cannon is doing on his 288 Hour Graphic novel Far Arden. Since he is doing a Gross Comic this year as well, I think he will probably hold some sort world’s record for this sort of thing (he probably already does). That’s right, Kevin will be doing (at least) 432 pages in an hour this year… more pages than there are days in the year!

We have at least 6 other cartoonists joining us in this undertaking next month… Dank!, Shad Petosky, Tim Sievert, Maxeem, Curtis Square-Briggs and Eric Lappegard.

You can join us too!

We’ll link to all participants from this blog… just send the link to us, or put it in the comments.

Our next 12 hour session in Minneapolis will be at the next Minneapolis Saturday Open Studio (where it will be every month). The Saturday Open Studios happen on a different day every month, so you’ll have to check the site for the dates. The next two are March 17th and April 21st at:

Minnesota Center for Book Arts
(Just down the street from Big Brain Comics)
1011 Washington Ave S, Suite 100
Minneapolis, MN 55415
Phone: 612-215-2520

Those of you participating other places may want to consider doing it on the same day, because it will be more fun to have all this stuff hit at once, but it isn’t a requirement.

Judging from the pages so far, I think this is going to be a pretty amazing project to look back on in a year.

Dreamhaven Robbed, Needs Help

Minneapolis

Neil Gaiman recently posted that excellent Minneapolis comics and book store Dreamhaven Books was recently robbed, and is having serious financial troubles. This is a great time to go hit their amazing discounted graphic novel bins…

“We had a break-in on Saturday night. They got a bit of cash but wreaked terrible havoc on the store and my office. Damages will be costly but insurance should cover a lot of it. But after the lull in current business, this really will hurt. I don’t like charity but if you could encourage people to maybe buy an extra book off us soon, it may help. Three bookstores have closed in the Twin Cities in the past two months and I don’t want to make it four.” – Dreamhaven owner Greg Ketter

You can find them online at www.dreamhavenbooks.com. Their current catalogues are up there, for new and for used stuff. There’s cool new stuff. There’s stuff on sale.

Sat. Open Studio, Feb. 17, noon-4 p.m.

Events, Minneapolis

Saturday Open Studio
It’s danged cold outside edition

Sat., Feb. 17, noon-4 p.m. MCBA

We’ll be somewhere in the Book Arts Building. If you don’t see us right away, ask the friendly person working in the bookstore.

This is open studio time for all cartoonists, so come and hang out and draw. There’s plenty of room for everyone.

(During this session Stwalley may be try to convice you to draw 12 pages a month for a year. But you don’t have to agree to that in order to attend the Sat. Open Studio.)

Minnesota Center for Book Arts
(Just down the street from Big Brain Comics)
1011 Washington Ave S, Suite 100
Minneapolis, MN 55415
Phone: 612-215-2520

Future Sat. Open Studio dates:

March 17

April 21