Sequential Survey

I forgot to post these in December.

Here are some images of work from my Sequential Art class. Every semester Pratt has a “survey” in which students display their work for the faculty. We get to walk around and make fun of and disparage their work all as one big group. No, actually it gives us an opportunity to get a sense of what is going on in all the other classes and across the student body. But there is so much work shown on these days it can be quite overwhelming and difficult to really gauge the quality of the work other than on a superficial formal level. That said, as one in a number of ways to evaluate the work of the students it can be useful.

Here are a few pics of some of my students’ work from Fall ‘09. This is not representative of all my students, or all their work. These are just the best pictures I have (best being relative to the rest of the pictures, not an abstract best).

Also some of the work shown is not from my class.




Jane Mai


Luke Rotzler



April Yim


Lizzi Gage


Paul Vanderberg

Revenge

Power must discharge.

Better get out of the way when it does.

Sequential Robin

My Sequential Art class and I did a series of round robin type comics exercises in class last semester. The ever studious and industrious David Chapman whipped up this blog so that we could all post our results. Go check it out: sequentialrobin.blogspot.com. There is some funny stuff already, but, once the rest of the class get their pieces posted, it will be even funnier.

If you are not familiar with the way a round robin works for comics, it’s like this: one person draws a panel, passes it to the next person, who draws a panel, and so on. We did ours timed. 7-10 minutes per panel, depending on our mood that day.

The one below was done by me, David Chapman, Luke Rotzler, and Chaz Sumlin.

The Temple in Old Town

If, as you were exiting this life,
you were asked to write down your wisdom for the ages,
what would your book contain?

And in which temple would you dedicate it?

Pete’s Basement

Pete’s Basement is a show about comics broadcast on the internet from Pete’s basement in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. They have been producing the show for two years now and have some pretty funny stuff on it, if you like comics and born-and-bred Brooklynites anyway. While I was drowsily manning my table at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival the other week they interviewed me about my work. Go here to check it out. My part of the show is around 9 minutes in. After me they go to some reviews of recent comics and then towards the end they go back to the festival footage. Check it out!

www.petesbasement.com

Aspirations

I recently completed my applications to film school.
Aspirations of becoming a director.
In addition to the rest.
No intentions of ceasing.

These are pics of the DVDs I submitted with my applications.

Follow along

Hey, I am just apparently learning about this newfangled thing called the internets or webbernet or innersphinctum or some such gobbledy gook. Anyway, I have a special kind of thing called a “blog” on this hip young communication tool. If you check it out every now and then, or even better if you forget to check it out, you should look over to the lower right where it now says followers. Then you should move what Al Gore and I call the “cursor” over to where it says FOLLOW, and then just click it. That way you can say you follow along with Thursday City News and we can pretend to be friends. Unless we really are friends, in that case nothing will change, except you will feel an even stronger connection to my ever shining love.

Smoke Signal 3

As you must know by now the very first Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival is coming up on Saturday 05Dec09.
The festival is free and goes from 11am-7pm. Located at:

Our Lady of Consolation Church
184 Metropolitan Ave
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

The newest issue of the delightful Smoke Signal will be available at the festival. Come on out and get your free copy.

Below is the piece I submitted.



Click on these for readable text:

Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival

Our friends at Desert Island have collaborated with Picture Box to put together what is sure to be a great event: the first annual (maybe?) Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival!!! It takes place from 11am-7pm on December 5th. If you live in the tri-state area and care anything about comics or graphics you must attend. I will have a table there and it is free to the public. There will also be a lot of great guests and concessions.

Get more info here: www.comicsandgraphicsfest.com

And below is the Mars Vulcan with the poster/program as a blanket:

Gushing energy

I have been traveling like a sea turtle lately and haven’t had an opportunity for a new post.

This is a sketchbook doodle I did a few weeks ago while in conversation with a friend. Little bits of our conversation became texts in the doodle.

Enjoy.

Moving mountains

A hat has been pulled out of the rabbit.
It will be exhausting, but worth it.

The movie Elliott and I have been working on
for over three years now
is in its last throes of gestational activity.

The first screening will be tomorrow.
I thought I would not be able to go,
but Elliott and I pulled the hat out of the rabbit
at the last minute.

I start my journey at 8am this morning.
I get back to Brooklyn at 11am tomorrow morning.
A hell of a whirlwind tour, but worth it.

Elliott and I both woke up yesterday sweating
over the fact that this would be the first
major shared event in our lives
one of us would be absent for.

Well, the fates were determined to dictate otherwise.
Here we go.



Aristotle said:
“Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.”
That is almost too profound to fathom.

Up and Down

For every idyllic pony ride through Elysian fields
there must be a correlative sublime monster laying in wait.
It’s just natural.


“The way up and the way down are one and the same.”—Heraclitus

Uncle Envelope

I am working on a contribution to Uncle Envelope scheduled for early next year, but you should subscribe now! USA Today’s pop culture blog Popcandy just wrote up Uncle Envelope, so check it out, click here.