Chris Ware Animations

Hey fellas, I don't know if anyone's still checking up on the blog here but I thought I'd share some of Chris Ware's surprisingly funny animations from This American Life.



First up, it's a QUIMBY THE MOUSE adventure set to an Andrew Bird song (who apparently like every other comic artist this year is into because they all can't SHUT UP about him!). A good tune and a snappy animation of one of Ware's older, more experimental, and much much weirder characters -- Quimby, a mouse, who is in love with a cat head. Mmm-hmm. It's in HD! http://www.vimeo.com/4412391

And one of Chris Ware's more illustrative animations bringing a little somethin' somethin' to a couple's dueling memories during the second season of This American Life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf9W7cxi48g

Enjoy!

-Laurel

Free Comic Book Day!

As some of you might know, this Saturday (May 2) is FREE COMIC BOOK DAY! As the name implies, comics shops are giving away select issues of comics for free. According to http://www.freecomicbookday.com/ both MODERN MYTHS and BOB'S HOBBIES II:COMICS & MORE in Northhampton and MAIN VEIN COMICS COLLECTIBLES & CREEPY STUFF in Greenfield are participating. As college students and comics enthusiasts we it is our duty to pursue such free stuff. So get to it!


Also, Modern Myths hosts other events which may interest you. Namely, Western Mass Comics Creators Group, where local comics authors (professional and amateur) gather to share tips and critiques. This happens the first Tuesday of every months. Next meeting: MAY 5TH, 7:00PM! They also host a book club and plenty of gaming events.

See you there!

~Steph

If you return before you go

Please forgive the back-to-back posts. Hopefully this inspires some people.

Kenneth Patchen was not in the business of making graphic novels. He was, however, a supremely talented painter and poet. I am not an expert on the term, but I'm pretty sure that a book of painting-poems would sort of loosely constitute a graphic novel

I hope.



xxxxx
James.

Oh yeah!

This is ridiculous.

http://againwiththecomics.blogspot.com/2008/07/alan-moore-peter-bagge-and-kool-aid-man.html



Alan Moore and Peter Bagge re-imagine the Kool-Aid man as an outlaw writer. It is really, really rad.

Peter Bagge is the guy behind HATE comics, which are also worth checking out. Especially for those of us with soft spots for greasy drunks living in squalor.


peacepeacepeacepeacepeacepeacepeacepeace
James.

Watchbabies

I've posted the first six pages of the little Watchmen comic I've been doing. I'll be uploading more pages when I have time. You can find the first page here: http://etherstar.deviantart.com/art/WatchBabies-1-116166536
Follow the links in the "Artist's Comments" box for subsequent pages.



~Steph

Saturday Morning Watchmen - Lindsey

If "Watchmen" had been made into an extremely 80s cartoon, it would've probably looked something like this. (Don't let the fact it's on Newgrounds worry you. ;) )

I'm kind of embarassed at how many times I've watched this since I found it earlier tonight.

The Cartoon History of EVERYTHING

Do you need something unspeakably complicated translated into Basic Sarcasm? It's not a big deal. Larry Gonick has probably already written a dictionary-sized comic about it for you. Check out his website here and view some pages of each of his galaxy of books: http://www.larrygonick.com/index.html



(panel from "The Cartoon History Of The Universe: Volume I," click to embiggin)

He's got a new daily Peanuts-sort-of-thing going on over at the Discovery Channel's website if you're interested in that sort of thing as well: http://blogs.discovery.com/raw_materials/

This guy's one of my absolute favorites for explaining things in any medium, and has thoroughly warped my childhood. :D Enjoy!
-Laurel

Hourly Comic Day

Hourly Comic Day is gone gone gone but you can challenge yourself EVERY DAY. A great way to get yourself out of a rut or a dry patch, especially if you try paring down your drawing style to the bare essentials like this guy:



The guidelines are here as well as some links to examples: http://hourlycomic.com/hourlycomicday.html

And the fella who generally runs the event has his own non-autobio comic here at Pictures For Sad Children: http://www.picturesforsadchildren.com/index.php

Check out his link page for more great webcomics!
-Laurel

Red-Colored Elegy Animatio

Hey guys. Here's the animation version of Red-Colored Elegy. The author of the comic directed it, too.

You have to log in to see it, so you can use this info:
username: slowmotioninoil@yahoo.com
pass: slowmotioninoil

Then hit the play button on the video.

The video link:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm5789673

- valerie

(francesca) the new england web comics weekend

http://webcomicsweekend.com/

Chris Ward- Paper Rad animation

Here is an animation by some Paper Rad people - (we looked at some of their zines in class)

YouTube - Problem Solvers Episode #1211: "Give Pizza A Chance"

An Excellent Web Comic - Leah Romano

Do you like snarky stick figure comics? Do you have no one to tell how much you know about obscure mathematical subjects? Do you often like explaining things with graphs and charts? Well, here's a web comic for you!

XKCD

Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).

A few Graphic Novels that I have read recently.

The first one is "Fruits Basket" about a girl who has lost her mother and is all alone in the world until she meets some guys who are apart of the zodiac signs. Whenever a human touches them they turn into their zodiac form. It is also a t.v. series and the link to episode 1 is right below. The writer is Natsuki Takaya.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmhmg_fruits-basket-episode-1-part-1_fun

"A Dangerous Woman" is the graphic biography of Emma Goldman, written by Sharp Rudahl with a foreword by Alice Wexler.

http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Woman-Graphic-Biography-Goldman/dp/1595580646

The third graphic novel is "Epileptic 1" by David B.

http://www.randomhouse.com/pantheon/graphicnovels/epileptic.html

I Met The Walrus (film)

I Met the Walrus

James Kochalka

welcome

hello.  this is your class blog.  welcome.