Monthly Archives: May 2008

Mike Sgier’s The Ballad of Toby & Sara Reception this Thursday

event, Events, gallery show, Minneapolis, mn

Conspirator Mike Sgier has been hard at work at MCAD getting his MFA. Celebrate with him at SooVAC on this Thursday, May 9, 2008. Here are the details:

The Minneapolis College of Art and Design MFA Thesis Exhibition 2008

Mike Sgier
The Ballad of Toby & Sara

April 23-May 11, 2008
Soo Visual Arts Center
2640 Lyndale Ave S, Mpls (612) 871-2263
Open Wednesday through Saturday or by appointment
Gallery hours at www.soovac.org

Reception: May 9, 2008: 6-9 p.m.
Ride the reception shuttle/ MCAD > Soap Factory > SooVAC
Departing MCAD every 45 minutes; first bus at 6 p.m., final bus at 9 p.m.

Lutefisk Sushi Reviewed

event, Events, Lutefisk Sushi, Minneapolis, mn, press


Above: Photo by Tim Sievert from the Puny Entertainment blog.

We just received a rave review for the Lutefisk Sushi Volume C show at the Twin Cities Daily Planet that can be read here.

The word “cartoonist” tends not to be associated with fine art, instead evoking Saturday-morning buffoonery, and not much else. The word “illustrators” might be more respectable, but in this case it would be completely off the mark: the creations on display Friday night romped through a range of visual and narrative styles and subject matter, brimming with creativity and skill.

You can see more photos from the Lutefisk Sushi Volume C opening at the Puny Entertainment blog here.

You can see more photos from the Lutefisk Sushi Volume C opening at the l’etoile magazine blog here.

As has been mentioned here previously, the show will be up all month, with special events during Art-A-Whirl.

Lutefisk Sushi Volume C
at Altered Esthetics (alteredesthetics.org)
May 1-31
1224 Quincy St. NE
Minneapolis, MN 55413

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

Regular gallery hours are:
Tuesdays and Thursdays 1-7
Saturdays 1-5

Art-A Whirl hours are:
5-10PM Friday May 16th
12-8PM Saturday May 17th
12-5PM Saturday May 18th


Above: A still from My Art School Summer.

Note that Dave and Mary Sandberg’s cartoon feature film My Art School Summer will be showing in the gallery Friday May 16th at 8:30 (as well as at the Ritz Theater the afternoon of the 17th at 2:00)! Note also that it is adults-only. No one under 18 will be admitted.


Above: Photo by Tim Sievert from the Puny Entertainment blog.

May 7000 BC Meeting

Uncategorized

Sunday, May 11 | 2:00 | Winning Coffee Company and Brickyard Pizza | Albuquerque, NM

The next 7000 BC meeting will be Sunday, May 11 at Winning Coffee Company at 111 Harvard Dr SE at 2:00 in the afternoon. We’ll be working on a jam and discussing conventions, education programs, and ideas for a new anthology. Around 5:00, the meeting will move around the corner to Brickyard Pizza at 2216 Central for dinner.

Send an email with any questions. New members and interested folks are always welcome

Teach a Cartooning Workshop

Uncategorized

I met someone from the Franklin Library at MicroCon the other weekend who is looking for cartoonists who want to teach some one hour workshops at the library. Read more below for the info.

Here’s a little more information about the workshop I hope to have at the Franklin Library this fall:

The Franklin Library is a small community library located just south of downtown Minneapolis. Because many of the children who visit Franklin enjoy drawing and reading comic strips and manga, we are hoping to offer a cartooning workshop series this fall. We are looking for cartoonists to teach the one hour sessions. Our session topics include: Making Faces & Bodies; Drawing Everyday Objects; Drawing Animals; Writing Jokes.

We are able to provide paper, pencils, fine point markers and rulers for the children. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer any pay for the instructors. This would be a one-time volunteering opportunity greatly appreciated by the children that we serve. The class make-up would be 10-20 children aged 10-18. The workshop would be held on Fridays at 4 pm sometime in September or October.

I would be happy to visit one of your open studio events to talk to interested cartoonists in person.

Thank you for your help!

Johannah Genett

Youth Services

Franklin Community Library

1314 East Franklin Avenue

Minneapolis, Minnesota 55404

(612) 630-6803

email: jrgenett at hclib dot org

CONvergence Needs Cartoonist Panelists

conventions, event, Events, Minneapolis, mn, Opportunities

CONvergence (July 3-6), an enormous annual Twin Cities science-fiction, comics and gaming convention is looking for folks who want to be panelists on some of their panels. They’ve got some great comics guests this year… one of their guests of honor is the wonderful Mark Evanier, who, in addition to being co-creator of the hilarious series Groo the Wanderer, has one of the best comics and entertainment blogs around. Information on how to contact them to potentially participate in a panel can be seen below. Here is an email I received requesting our assistance:
Hi Steven:
CONvergence–an annual science fiction, fantasy, comic book and gaming convention in Bloomington, MN–is looking for volunteer panelists (see below). Among the panels are Censorship in Comics, Comics as Movies and the History of Manga. If anyone’s interested, they can email Christopher Jones at cajones at winternet dot com.
This year, CONvergence will be hosting some interesting comic book folks:

  • Len Wein – Writer for comics and animation, creator of Swamp Thing, Nightcrawler & Wolverine.
  • Greg Weisman – Creator of Disney’s Gargoyles and supervising producer of The Spectacular Spider-Man for 2008.
  • Wally Wingert – Voice Actor
  • Marv Wolfman – Writer for comics and animation, creator of Blade, Bullseye & The New Teen Titans.
  • Bernie Wrightson – Comic Book Artist/Illustrator
  • Mark Evanier

    • – Television and Comic Book Writer.

  • John Kovalic – Cartoonist and Game designer: Dork Tower, Dr. Blink, Out of the Box Games.

  • Trace Beaulieu – Puppeteer, Writer and Actor from Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Cinematic Titanic
  • Robert Meyer Burnett – Filmmaker, director of Free Enterprise, and producer of DVD extras
  • Christian Colquhoun – Prop-builder and physical effects artist whose projects include Galaxy Quest, Van Helsing, and Firefly.
  • Larry Dixon – Co-author of Mage Wars and Dariens Tale series, author of many short stories and game material and fantasy artist.
  • Daren Dochterman – Designer and illustrator for over 35 feature films, including Star Trek: The Motion Picture Special Edition.
  • Kenneth Hite – Role-playing game designer for GURPS, the Star Trek role playing game, and beyond.
  • Dr. James Kakalios – U of M physics professor, author of The Physics of Superheroes.
  • Harry Knowles – Creator of Aint-It-Cool-News.com.
  • Jay Knowles – Creator of Harry Knowles (and contributor to AICN).
  • Mercedes Lackey – Author of many popular novels, including the Valdemar and Bardic Voices series and folk music lyricist.
  • Bridget Landry – Engineer on the teams of the Hubble Space Telescope, the Mars Pathfinder project, the Cassini Mission to Saturn, and other space missions.
  • Peter Mayhew – The actor who played the beloved Chewbacca in the original Star Wars Trilogy and in Episode III.
  • Andrew Probert – Production Designer for Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and Airwolf.
  • Vincent Truitner – Animation and CGI artist.
  • David Weber – Author of the Honor Harrington series and other military science-fiction.

CONvergence Programming Needs Panelists!
All the panels are tentatively scheduled into our 2008 Programming Grid, but some still face the danger of cancellation due to lack of panelists, including many panels in the gaming and science tracks. The #1 Reason panels are scratched from the line up is a lack of panelists to sit them.
Go to http://www.michaell.org/schedule.phtml to sign up for panels that you’d like to be a part of, or just browse to start making plans of what to attend.
PANELS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK
These are panels that currently have NO panelists signed up for them, and they WILL BE CANCELLED unless we have panelists in the next week.
  • Censorship in Comics – The Past and Future (Comics)
  • Ultimate Home Theatre – How to Build It (Science)
  • Blurring of the Lines – CGI Backgrounds in Movies (Movies)
  • Exploring FTL Drives (faster than light travel) Science
  • The Pixar Panel – Wall-E and Pixar Movies (Movies)
PANELS ON THE BUBBLE
These are panels that have at least one panelist assigned, but we’d like to see more panelists on them to secure their place in the schedule.
  • Scrapbooking (Project Room)
  • Thrown a Controller or Manual Across the Room Lately? (Gaming)
  • Comics as Movies (Movies)
  • Young Adult Literature (Literature)
  • Hogwarts’ Graduation (Harry Potter) (Literature)
  • Closet Geeks… Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are! (Hot Dish)
  • Dream Casting (Movies)
  • Not all Munchkins Live in Oz – Collectable Card Games (Gaming)
  • Backyard Astronomy (Science)
  • History of Manga (Arts)
  • Thunderbirds are Go! (Television)
  • Homophobia and Racism in Online Gaming (Gaming)
  • Gadget Gossip (New Electronics) (Science)
  • Gosh, Golly Gee Whiz (Teen Noir Mysteries) (Literature)
  • Imperfect Heroes (Hot Dish)
  • Film Remakes – Exhuming the Past (Movies)
  • Dangerous Days – How to Survive Zombie Attacks (Movies)
  • Sci-Fi Saturday – Cult B Movies (Movies)
  • Comics for Mature Audiences (Comics)
  • Club Fan Faire – Come Promote Your Local Club (Hot Dish)
  • Trilogy Limitations: What happened to the franchise? (Movies)
PANELS IN NEED OF PANELISTS
These panels have more than one panelists attached, but they are still open and we’d like to see more panelists added.
  • Return of the Satellite of Love – MST3K spin-offs (Television)
  • Wii: The Changing Face of Gaming (Gaming)
  • Heroes: Volume Two (Television)
  • Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition (Gaming)
  • Fanzines Invented the Internet (Literature)
  • Videogame Blogs and Podcasts (Gaming)
  • 6 Impossible Things Before Breakfast (Literature)
  • Star Trek: New Voyages – Fan Made Productions (Television)
  • Songwriting and Filking (Arts)
  • Emergent Genres and Movements (Literature)
  • Paranormal Investigation as TV Journalism (Television)
  • Geek as an Ensemble Character (Hot Dish)
  • Which Non-Genre Films Should You See? (Movies)
  • Etiquette at the Gaming Table (Gaming)
  • Whither Open Gaming License (Gaming)
  • Time Management 101 (Hot Dish)
  • Where’s My Flying Car (Science)
  • Cell vs. Chip – 2D vs. 3D animation (Hot Dish)
  • Digital Distribution Debate (Science)
  • Where to Shop? (Hot Dish)
  • Weaponry of Star Trek (Science)
Again, you can sign up for panels at http://www.michaell.org/schedule.phtml. CONvergence programming is what our members make of it, so we encourage you to participate and get involved. Email us at programming at convergence-con dot org if you have questions or would like to be involved.

___________________
Contact Information
The Minnesota Society for Interest in Science Fiction and Fantasy
1437 Marshall Avenue, Suite 203 St. Paul, MN 55104
24-hour voicemail: 651-MISFITS (651-647-3487)
CONvergence e-mail: info at convergence-con dot org
CONvergence web site: http://www.convergence-con.org
MISFITS e-mail: info at misfit dot org
MISFITS web site: http://www.misfit.org
If you would like to be removed from this mailing list, simply email
and let us know.
Thank you.


Please let them know we sent you!

2nd St. Paul Comic Jam Comic Contest

Contest, Jam Comics, St. Paul, Steve Stwalley

Once again, we’re running a contest to determine the subject of the jam comic produced every third Thursday by the St. Paul cell of the International Cartoonist Conspiracy.

I’m asking anyone who cares to, to post a reply here suggesting a topic/title for the comic to be produced at the May 15, 2008 meeting. 

The week of the meeting, if any suggestions have been made, they’ll be put to a vote, and the winner will not only see their idea brought to life, but will be awarded the original jam comic pages, compliments of the city of St. Paul.

Past jam comic contest winner, Steven Stwalley, won with his entry ELEPHANTS IN UNDERPANTS . . . surely, you can do better than that.

The winner will be awarded their prize after it has been scanned for posterity and posted to the ICC site. If the winner is unable or unwilling to pick up their prize in person, it will be mailed to them at our expense.

The St. Paul cell is accepting entries until Monday May 12, when the voting begins.

Enter now, and may the best concept win.

San Francisco Jam Thursday May 8th

jam, Jam Comics, San+Francisco, , , , ,

Hey all. It’s time for another Comic Book Jam in San Francisco, the city by the bay. The Jam is this Thursday May 8, 2008. 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. We have had a great surge of new artist in the last couple of months and we want to keep to flow of talent flowing.

NEW: you can also find a full schedule of the upcoming jams at our YAHOO Upcoming Group set up by the amazing Doctor Pop. You can sign up to get reminders as well as set your RSS news reader to get updates when they are added

The San Francisco jam meets 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 24th, 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)

Lutefisk Sushi Opening Wrap (Maki?)

event, Events, Lutefisk Sushi, Minneapolis, mn, photos, press

The Lutefisk Sushi Volume C opening was pretty amazing… the art was fantastic, the gallery was packed like a tin of sardines for hours, and I suspect a fun time was had by all who attended.

If you missed the opening (and The Onion had the date wrong, so I’m guessing many did)… don’t fret! There are still boxes left at this point (although they are going fast… the box is limited to 150 copies). The show will be up all month, with some special events during Art-A-Whirl (May 16-18). Regular gallery hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays 1-7, Saturdays 1-5. Art-A Whirl hours are 5-10PM Friday May 16th, 12-8PM Saturday May 17th, and 12-5PM Saturday May 18th.

A huge collection of photos from the reception is available online at alteredesthetics.phanfare.com. Thanks to John Terwilliger for generously sharing his work! If any of you have links to other photos you’d like to share, we’d love to share them.

KARE 11 and MetroMix interviewed some of us earlier this week, and you can now see that on the MetroMix website here.

Friday was apparently the most profitable evening Altered Esthetics has ever had, so congratulations to all participants on the good work. We don’t really emphasize where the money goes from the bento boxes, but this time around it is going to support Altered Esthetics, which is a fantastic non-profit, community gallery.

And now, some thank yous:

  • Thanks to the Jamie Schumacher and the crew at Altered Esthetics for having us, and for co-curating with us. Jamie has done a phenomenal job with organizing, contacting press, and just about every other possible aspect of the show.
  • Thanks to Kevin Cannon for accepting the honor of being the featured artist, along with the immense workload he took on to do it right… and for handling a lot of other aspects of the show as well, including so much of the really tedious managerial stuff.
  • Thanks to Danno for doing a fantastic job of organizing and hanging the artwork, and doing so much to help with the planning and organizing.
  • Thanks to Shad Petosky at Puny Entertainment for taking the time to once again silk screen the boxes, in spite of the fact that he has less time to spare than anyone I know. Thanks to Kevin Cannon, Zander Cannon and Curtis Square-Briggs for helping him!
  • Thanks to the brothers Cannon at Big Time Attic for organizing and storing artwork and boxed, and giving us a welcome space to get this thing together.
  • Thanks to Dan Olson, Mike Toft, Bud Burgy, Matt Kriske, Adam Wirtzfeld for help with the hanging and/or box collating.
  • Thanks to The Roe Family Singers for taking the time to play their beautiful music this Friday, as well as offering to play during Art-A-Whirl.
  • Thanks to Ken Avidor for building the Zoetrope.
  • Thanks to all who helped with promotion… particularly to Nick Postiglione and the MNCBA for passing out 500 postcards at MicroCon the other weekend!
  • Thanks most of all to all the artists who made the box and the event possible!
  • Also, thanks to whoever I am forgetting to thank that I should be thanking… please remember to kick me in the balls.

Unsold art and filthy lucre will need to be picked up from Altered Esthetics at some point after May 31. We’ll keep you posted when we have more info.

Yet more press for tonight’s Lutefisk Sushi Show!

event, Events, gallery show, Lutefisk Sushi, Minneapolis, mn, press

Tonight’s opening Lutefisk Sushi Show is mentioned in today’s Pioneer Press. Also, the Vita.mn article mentioned yesterday is now in the Star Tribune. We are a front page event pick on the new Metromix site, where I mentioned we will be featured with video footage in the near future… I’ll post here when it oes up. We are also mentioned in this week’s Minneapolis edition of The Onion in the AV section, although I haven’t seen it yet. Boy, Jamie at Altered Esthetics has done a phenomenal job of getting the word out. Thanks, Jamie!

A reminder, if you are participating in the show… PLEASE DO WHAT YOU CAN TO HELP PROMOTE IT. It is not too late to do so… the show will be up all month! Please, do feel obligated.