Today's Artist Showcase is...

Keith Knight!!

Keith Knight is one of my favorite cartoonists. I love so many things about his work. First, his stuff is hilarious, engaging, and utterly entertaining. If you put a book of his cartoons in front of me, I will tune out the entire universe until it's completely devoured (not unlike a bag of Cape Cod potato chips, which I don't allow in my house for that reason).  

Also, I love that he crams his panels full. It works because his style is really crisp, clean, and ALIVE. There's so much vibrant energy and personality in his handwriting and drawings. It seems like nowadays, with computers and all, you don't always get a sense of the energy that comes from the artist's hands.  

I was fortunate to be able to catch an exhibit of Keith's work at the Cartoon Art Museum of San Francisco when I was there last year. It was excellent. They showed a ton of his original work, which was such a treat. And it was there that I learned that he's originally from Massachusetts (although unlike me, he was wicked smahht and left). 

Friday Wild Card

Some years back, I was browsing in a greeting card store when I spotted a card featuring one of my favorite movies on the front. It was blank on the inside, so I was like, "Awesome! This will work for all occasions!!" And with that, I stocked up.

Here it is with a gift for a baby shower... 

Happy Blobs!!

These are the Barbapapa cups I recently acquired. What is it about these colorful shapeshifting blobs that makes me love them so? 

The Barbapapas were created as a series of books in the 1970's by Annette Tison and Talus Taylor. 

Happy blobs! :)

Don't Try This at Home...

Film Pick

This weekend I watched a two-part documentary about Yves Saint Laurent which I highly recommend. Both parts are on the same DVD, YSL His Life and Times and 5 Avenue Marceau 75116 Paris.  

I didn't know much about YSL before this film. I didn't realize that he was such an innovator in the fashion world. He was the first to dress women in trousers and men's suits. He also employed black models at a time when no other fashion house in Europe was doing so. 

Despite his popularity and success, he was a painfully shy introvert and he battled with depression and debilitating self-criticism his entire career. In one particularly interesting interview he describes the highs and lows of his creative process. The second part of the film was a fascinating inside look at the YSL house in the process of creating a collection. Watching the YSL team at work is poetry in motion, quite a contrast to the frenzied pace of the Project Runway designers (one of my favorite shows, btw). 

I love this early photo of YSL with his models. It's from W magazine, which did an excellent article about YSL following his death in June 2008.  

Punished by the Gods...

This is a model sheet I created in rough pencil for my character, Lyle.

If only I had been smart enough to do the same for a character in a recently created comic, I could have avoided punishment from the Comic Gods. But I guess I had to learn the hard way. I thought the backgrounds were going to be my biggest challenge, so I didn't bother working out the technical details of drawing the character's head from different angles. As a result, I spent more time fixing these issues than on any other aspect of the project.  

Every comic I create seems to have it's own unique surprise curve ball. I can never anticipate what it's going to be until I've waded in past my shoulders. 

So here's the finished Lyle, giving me a "Told-yah-so" lecture on making model sheets.

She's a total gas, can you tell? 

In the event of an actual emergency...

you should just sit motionless and stare at these lines, slack-jawed and drooling...

Just kidding. This is not a test of the emergency broadcasting system. It's actually the logo for the de Young Art Museum in San Francisco. I'm really inspired by the color combination and the simple design. And I thought you might enjoy staring at these lines until tomorrow's posting of fresh comic goodness, which the elves are busily baking as we speak.