Monthly Archives: March 2006

Lutefisk Sushi Opening Overview

Events, Lutefisk Sushi, mini-comics, Minneapolis, Projects

Well, the Lutefisk Sushi Volume B opening was a roaring success… we had a great turnout, lots of fun, and a lot of sales. Best of all, we put together a fantastic box set of comics… you should all be proud. When you tell folks about it, make sure to mention that they can still check it out on Saturdays until April 21st from 11-4, or by appointment with the gallery.

We had a great write up in Minnesota Monthly… we were also written up in the Pulse and we were mentioned in the Pioneer Press, the Star Tribune, on the front of mnspeak.com, on a City Pages blog, on the Comics Reporter, and on the Minneapolis public radio station The Current by Mary Luccia on Thursday (and on the MPR website calendar)… and probably some other places. If you know of other press that we received for the show (or have any clippings you want to give me, including of the stuff mentioned above), please let me know about it.

Also, I encourage you all to send your digital photos from the opening my way so we can put them on the website… suggested captions encouraged, in case we don’t know who is pictured in the photo. You can view some photos from the opening by Shad here and by Nik Arnoldi here.

Participants can pick up their boxes at Big Time Attic any time (make sure you cross your name off the list when you get it)… if you haven’t made it over by April 6th, that is a good time for it, since the monthly Cartoonist Conspiracy meeting will be taking place at Diamond’s Coffee in that building that evening.

For those of you who participated in the Weiner Roast, I’m hoping to get those dropped off at BTA very soon as well so you can pick up your ten copies… I have them rubber banded between cardboard with your names on them.

It is possible we may be having a closing party as well, which would be a very good thing to harass people you know that missed the opening to show up for… I’ll keep you posted.

And now that we pulled this thing off, some thank yous…

Thanks to everyone at Big Time Attic for their extensive efforts putting things together, in every part of the process… the website, the silkscreening, putting up money for printing Weiner Roasts, collating, making signs and tags, laying out and printing the postcard, helping hang, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc…. and etc. Shad, Kevin, Max, Zander, Tim, Brett, Brittany and John all did a tremendous amount of work to make the show happen and look great.

Thanks to Ken Avidor for being an exceptionally good sport and letting us further soil his bad reputation with the Weiner Roast, for putting together a fantastic display of his life’s work, and for making us all look good with his art for the box and website.

Thanks to Lonny Unitus for doing such a gorgeous job screen printing the boxes with Shad in deep, rich, velvety colors… they really couldn’t have turned out better.

Thanks to Danno, as always, for helping make so many of the comics look so much better than they would have without his knowledge and expertise in the zine arts, and for helping with putting together 400 Weiner Roasts!

Thanks to everyone who helped with setup and hanging… Sean, Andrey, Quillan, Bob, Danno, Shad, Kevin, Seamus, Chris, Tim, and anyone else who helped that I’m more than likely forgetting.

Thanks to Sean for putting together his Shitty Art display in the bathroom.

Thanks to Dave, Jenny, Karl and Kurt at Creative Electric for providing such a great venue for our chaos, for helping extensively with setting up, for dealing with the crowd and for manning the sales at the show.

Thanks to everyone who helped promote the show on websites, blogs and through word of mouth. Please continue to do so until it closes!

And, of course, thanks to all the artists who participated in the box and the Weiner Roast and made the whole thing possible.

Marvel Underwear Perverts

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Excellent post from Boing Boing about Marvel Underwear Perverts you should all check out…

Here’s a proposal: from now on, let’s never use the term “super-hero” to describe a Marvel character. Let’s call them “underwear perverts” — as Warren Ellis is wont to — or vigilantes, or mutants. Let’s reserve the term “super-hero” exclusively to describe the heros of comics published by companies that aren’t crooked word-thieves.

Please Help Promote Lutefisk Sushi

Events, Lutefisk Sushi, mini-comics, Minneapolis, Projects

We’re doing a lot to promote the event (we’ve contacted a lot of local media, posted on message boards, printed up 1000 postcards which are being distributed all over the Twin Cities, & did some other miscellaneous stuff)…

BUT WE COULD REALLY USE YOUR HELP GETTING THE WORD OUT!

Here are some ways you can help promote the upcoming Lutefisk Sushi show…

If you have a website, you can download a banner for the Sushi show to add to your site here:

http://cartoonistconspiracy.com/sushi/lutefisk_sushi_banner.zip

If you have a blog, please blog about it.

If you have friends, please invite them and tell them to invite people.

If you know journalists, please encourage them to cover the opening.

Also I encourage you to give these threads a “bump” to help with Sushi show promotion…

http://www.tcj.com/messboard/ubb/Forum1/HTML/011307.html

http://www.tcj.com/messboard/ubb/Forum1/HTML/011304.html

http://comicon.com/index.html

http://www.sequentialtart.com/community/Forum7/HTML/001512.shtml

You could also post the word on other message boards you frequent.

Thanks much for your help!

UNHINGED

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Lonny Unitus just finished his new anthology Unhinged and I can’t wait to get my copy… the preview I saw of the hand-serigraphed cover looks great. Limited to 100 copies! Order yours here quick, or you will most likely miss out. Here is the info from Lonny:

At long last, Unhinged is here! The first of many issues, this anthology comic is a whopping 36 pages, and includes work from 6 fantastic artists from around the US.

The list includes Kevin Cannon, an artist with the fantastic Big Time Attic, a Minneapolois based comic and design company, Punchgut, a Fargo, ND artist, fisherman and jack-of-all-trades, Sean Wilson, a now displaced Gulf Coast artist, Sara Turner of Make Like a Tree Comics and Cricket Press, East-Coast metalhead and fantastic poster artist Jeff LaChance and yours truly, Lonny Unitus.

The comics come with a two-color screenprinted cover on an awesome green paper, illustrated and printed by Unitus, and measure 5 1/2 x 7 1/2″. Unhinged #1 is a limited edition comic, hand-numbered 1-100.

Orphan Works

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My friend Max Konardy called my attention to this today:

http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/00_home/newsfeed.php#060224110555

It is “Call for Action to Prevent Orphan Works Amendment to U.S. Copyright Law”

I don’t think I agree with what the Illustrator’s Partnership is saying, but I don’t know enough about the legislation to give a particularly educated view at this time.

However, I think copyright reform is essential. Much of our artistic history is being literally destroyed by the fact that no one has the right to legally reprint stuff when they can’t find who owns the rights to it. This is particularly apparent with old films, where the prints are literally falling apart rather than getting restored because nobody can be found who has the legal right to reprint them. If things don’t get kept in print, they get forgotten, or worse, they get destroyed. Same deal with old comics, as anyone who has pawed a crumbling golden age comic can attest to.

I tried at one point to find the rights holder to an old Fletcher Henderson song from 1932, “Take Me Away From the River,” that I wanted to use in a cartoon… I actually looked up the records in the Library of Congress when I was in DC… I got the record, but it gave me no information on how to contact the legitimate rights holders, if there were any. I went ahead and used it anyhow, but theoretically I could be sued for doing so. Should I not have used it since I couldn’t find the rights holders? Some of you may feel that way, but the way I see it, I’m doing a small part to rescue a great piece of music from utter obscurity.

However, that this could potentially be used as a loophole to steal work from legitimate copyright holders who are still around is troubling. As they point out, most people can not afford the legal fees (or the time) to potentially defend their works. I don’t think that is the intent of the proposed legislation, but if it is a potential side-effect, I certainly think steps should be taken to avoid this problem. As I said, I don’t know the details at this time… the Call to Action seems terribly one sided, though, and I definitely think the current system is deeply flawed.

Furthermore, the copyright extension legislation that has been persued by large corporations (such as the Sonny Bono Act, or “Mickey Mouse” law that extended copyright an additional 20 years and was basically purchased by Disney lobbyists to avoid having Mickey cartoons fall into the public domain) is theft of our culture from us to corporations. There is good reason for copyrights to expire… while an artist should have his work protected for a certain period of time, our artistic heritage should be owned by everyone…

otherwise it gets lost. Frankly, I’d rather have my art stick around than retain the rights to it forever… having copyright for a lifetime is plenty long, and it already extends for many (70?) years beyond that. Beyond death is too damn long I think… even if Disney is in cryrogenic suspension.

More info on this stuff here:

http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/cspdproposal.pdf

There is an interesting discussion on orphan works going on right now on the Comic Journal message board.

http://www.tcj.com/messboard/ubb/Forum1/HTML/011219.html