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At last, the comics are now back from the printers and I’m glad to say they look great. They are currently being stuffed into envelopes and will be with those of you who ordered them next week. If you haven’t ordered one, then click on the button on the right-hand sidebar and do so immediately.
Now that the Honduran comic is at last completed, I’m re-focusing on my graphic novel, Hardhats, about the 1970 Hardhat riots and the parallels between the anti-war movements then and now. Click on the ‘Hardhats‘ tab at the top of the page for more info and to read an extract, which I’ll be adding more panels to over the next few months. You’ll also be able to check out all the research that’s going into the book and offer your comments and suggestions on what should or shouldn’t go in.
Big news this week in journalistic circles was the announcement that the Pulitzer prize for editorial cartooning has gone to an animator, the first time in history that the prize has gone to someone whose work only appears online. The judges went on to say “[Fiore’s] biting wit, extensive research and ability to distill complex issues set a high standard for an emerging form of commentary. Let’s hope this leaves the door open for other like-minded visual distillers of complex issues – certainly comics journalist Joe Sacco winning the Ridenhour Prize for investigative reporting is a similar step in the right direction.
At last, a sign that innovation and creative use of multimedia in visual journalism is being rewarded -not to mention, taken seriously- by the industry. The winner, Mark Fiore, has loads of free animations available to view over at his website, so check them out. Question is, how different are Mark’s animations to single-panel/editorial gag cartoons? Is their purpose to inform or entertain? Certainly they’ve managed to stir up their fair share of controversy. With the advent of the ipad, you’d think this sort of content would be embraced with open arms by the tech companies, but news came this week that Apple have blocked Mark’s ipad app on the grounds that:
“Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.”
More on this story at the Columbia Journalism review. UPDATE: Looks like it won’t be long before Apple let Fiore’s app in after all, even though it took Steve Jobs himself to intervene.
I can’t even remember the last time I posted so thank you my ever loyal web audience for hanging in there. I’ve just finished up teaching a 6-week comics course (2 classes a day, producing roughly 15 hand-drawn, inked and scanned 8-page minicomics every 10 days), the fruits of which (not to mention the labour) you can see below:
Subject-wise, we had (deep breath): evil pillows; talking dogs; mice catching live cheese; toxic gloop; a shelter for made-up creatures called ‘hubs’; a talking cat bent on taking over the world; meteors; robot beauty pageants; musclemen (of course); talking pillows
(obviously a pillow trend going around 5-6th graders); time machines;
vampires; talking muffins; fratricidal ghosts; talking flying fish;
mysterious packages containing penguins; cute campers who have to
butcher a bear to survive out in the woods; twin weiner dogs; a halo
take-off; insurance clerks; talking toast; a water droplet and a
transvestite called Gerald. That’s all off the top of my head.
Whilst that’s been going on we’ve also -almost-managed to put to bed the Stanford Graphic Novel’s latest oeuvre. An amazing graphic novel set in one of the DR Congo’s National parks, it’s some 200 odd pages and is a testament to the drive, passion and commitment of everyone involved that it was first started back in January. Here’s a sneak preview of some of the revisions that are currently being frantically re-inked:
Just when you thought I was going to take a break (or maybe that’s just my loving and tolerant wife), I’ve also turned my hand to animation, which is timely given the fact that as of tomorrow I’ll be teaching 3 weeks of Flash animation at San Jose’s tech museum. I’ll post my latest cartoon below, fingers crossed it works. Thanks to Queen for providing the soundtrack. I’ve also stuck some new watercolours up in the Gallery section for those of you interested in seeing my new colourful direction – quite how I can embrace that whilst not tripling how long it takes me to finish a page is, as yet, beyond me. Feel free to send in any suggestions.
Lastly, but by no means leastly, the hardhats piece continues to trundle along like the inky juggernaut it is – up to p.18 at the last count, though I’m reluctant to post any more pages up given the zany idea of actually making some money by having it published. News of that will be forthcoming, so stay tuned.
Here’s that cartoon I promised:
