Monthly Archives: February 2007

PUNY Digital Drawing TONIGHT!

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

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.

Conspiracy Website Updates: Feeding Frenzy

I’ve been doing some updates to the site and adding some new features today. If you’re reading this on the site, and not in a newsreader, you can see we now have a handy bunch of site navigation on the right hand side of the page, which hopefully will make it easier for people to find what they are looking for.

Four of the links are to some new feeds we’ve added to the site:

CONSPIRE! CONSPIRACY NEWS (subscribe)

This is a feed that mixes this blog with some other conspiracy blogs, such as the just-joined-today North Carolina Webcomics Coffee Clatch, 7000 BC, and The Comic Creators Network of Kansas City’s the Kansas City Comics Scene Blog. If your cell has a blog they want added to this feed, let me know and I’ll add it. Additionally, this feed will include items I find elsewhere that seem appropriate (which is true of all the new feeds).

CONSPIRE! CONSPIRATORS (subscribe)

This is a feed mixing various conspirators feeds… any conspirator who has a feed can be added to (or removed from) this feed who wants to be… just contact me and I’ll set it up.

CONSPIRE! CARTOONING LESSONS (subscribe)

This is a feed of various posts from various feeds around the web that aim to teach something to cartoonists, animators, self-publishers, etc.

CONSPIRE! COMICS NEWS (subscribe)

This is a feed of feeds from various comics news and opinion feeds… unlike the lessons feed, it is not edited by me… it includes all of the info coming in from these news sites. If you would like your comics news feed added to this feed (or removed from it), let me know and I’ll take care of it.

All of these feeds will be updating all the time… if you’re interested, I highly recommend using a newsreader to subscribe to them. I use Google Reader, and it is an excellent one (and it lets you access it from any computer with an internet connection).

Stwalley’s New Blog

I’ve altered my personal website at Stwallskull.com to be a blog. You can subscribe to it here, if you’re inclined. It will talk a lot about comics and cartooning, as well as a multitude of other topics that interest me (old music, weirdness, animation, technology, etc, etc, etc).

In addition to the mail feed on the site, there is a feed on the right side of the page that is also “Stwallskull’s Interesting Links” a very frequently updated list of choice articles that I run across on the web on a wide variety of topics of interest, including, of course, comics and cartooning. You can subscribe to that here.

Dreamhaven Robbed, Needs Help

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.

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

RICE JAM – Tonight! (And we don’t mean jelly.)

The Rice Cartoonist Conspiracy is back in business at their new location and time from 7:00 -9:00 pm at the Rice Print Shop art gallery in the 2nd floor of 310 Division St S, in Rice, MN. We are somewhere between St. Cloud and Little Falls, not too far from Highway 10.

We usually jam, exchange or purchase comic books from each other, chat about everything under the sun, plot road trips to Minneapolis, drink caffeine-filled goodness, and order something YUMMY from the Creamery or Twin Pines for delivery paid for by VAS Littlecrow. Art supplies are available for those who lack them, but for maximum joy, bring your favorite implements of destruction.

We would like to announce the official opening of the Central, MN Branch of the Cartoonist Conspiracy library. We are always accepting donations of indie and manstream comic books of all sorts, and we have a ton of cool comics to share with the masses.

Free food, free coffee and stuff to draw with. Call our weekend line at 320-492-0475 for directions or visit the Rice Print Shop website. Hope to see you there!

February 7000 BC Meeting

Sunday, February 11 | Noon | North Fourth Art Center | Albuquerque, NM

7000 BC’s monthly meeting will be in Albuquerque at North Fourth at 4904 Fourth Street NW (map here). We’re going to spend some time looking at the galleries, where we’ll be having a show later this year, and then move into the studio/classroom and work on comics. Business will likely happen around 4:30-5:00 to allow us time to head across the street to Garcia’s Kitchen for dinner.

New members are always welcome — visit the Web site or send an email for more info.