Based on the fun we had creating the Fail flickr set, I’ve created a new flickr group with a whole new meme. Cupcakes Have Jumped the Shark is an open group for anyone to post illustrations of cupcakes jumping over sharks. Any style is accepted, but color illustrations are preferred. So far 9 artists have contributed, and a few of them were even drawn at our most recent Cartoonist Conspiracy in SF. Continue reading It’s official, Cupcakes have Jumped the Shark!
All posts by Doc Pop
Fail comics
At our most recent SFCC meeting, we created a series of cartoons that were inspired by the popular “Fail” meme. This was a great challenge and everyone seemed to enjoy the challenge. You can see all of our fail comics in this flickr set.
Re-Thinking Kirby’s Thor
Inspired by Big Time Attic’s post on the “Re-Inking Kirby’s Thor” flickr group, the San Francisco Cartoonist Conspiracy decided to give it a go.
For the first attempt, 5 artists took a crack at inking over Jack Kirby’s penciled page in their own style.
Then, to take things a little further, several artists attempted to “Re-Draw” the same page based on Kirby and Lee’s notes and arts.
This was a fun experiment to work on as a group, I hope we try more like it.
As a quick reminder, the next meeting of the SFCC is this Thursday (September 13th).
SF Zine Fest table space is now open!
The SF Zine Fest has now opened table registration, go to their page to download the .pdf.
Last year, several SFCConspirators tabled at SFZF and loved it. The attendance was high, table costs low, and sales were good. Of course we all like APE, but the SFZF has been the event we’ve been waiting for all year. That being said, I (Doc Pop) can’t freakin’ make it due to a scheduling conflict. My heart is heavy with sorrow… and extra copies of my latest comic that I need to sell.
From the site:
Zine Fest is returning! The San Francisco Zine Fest will be returning for our sixth annual celebration of zines, comics, and crafts in a beautiful new location: The Women’s Building (3543 18th Street, between Valencia and Guerrero). This year the ZIne Fest will be bigger, better, and busier than ever! Special guests, exhibitors, workshops, and so much more! And just like always, admission will be FREE. The SFZF will be open later this year; hours will be 2:00 pm–8:00 pm Friday, October 5 and 11:00 am–7:00 pm Saturday, October 6. We will also be having a special dance party and awards ceremony on Friday night.
Scott McCloud
Good news Bay Area, on August 23rd, Scott McCloud will bring his 50 State book tour to the The Cartoon Art Museum. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like he will be doing any of his lecture material, but an informal question and answer session is better than nothing. Actually when I checked Scott’s site last month this stop wasn’t even listed. If you want to go, make your reservations asap.
I just noticed Scott is also appearing at Comic Relief on August 19th and August 22nd at Inforum. Any news anyone might have about these events would be appreciated. Damn I wish he was doing a public lecture in NorCal:
“The Making Comics 50 State Tour:
An Evening with Scott McCloud
Thursday, August 23, 2007
7:00 – 9:00pm
$5 General Admission, FREE for Cartoon Art Museum Members
Please call (415) CAR-TOON, ext. 314 for reservations
To celebrate the HarperCollins release of Making Comics, author and comics scholar Scott McCloud and his family are visiting all 50 states (plus a country or three) from September 2006 to September 2007. The Cartoon Art Museum is proud to host the award-winning cartoonist for a special appearance on Thursday, August 23, 2007. McCloud will take part in an informal Question-and-Answer session beginning at 7:00pm with a booksigning to follow.
Admission to this event is $5 for the general public and free for members of the Cartoon Art Museum. Seating is limited. Please call (415) CAR-TOON, ext. 314 for reservations.”
Maker Faire Jam Comic
This last weekend was the Maker Faire in San Mateo, and the San Francisco Cartoonist Conspiracy was there running a jam comic.
Our table, which was located in the big expo room (close to Yahoo!’s booth), was filled with pencils, pens, and paper. Cartoonist Conspiracy members answered questions from some of the Faire’s 40,000 attendees and tried to encourage as many of them as possible to create a panel for the Maker Jam Comic. Jeff Plotkin and I started at 10 am on Saturday morning with 10 blank pages, and by 5pm on the following Sunday we had 9 and a half finished pages (not to mention the cover and autograph page).
I estimate that we had over 30 artists sit and draw with us, and I think the resulting jam is pretty good. In terms of promoting comics and our local Cartoonist Conspiracy cell [which has it’s next meeting on Thursday May 31st at Muddy Waters in the Castro], I’d say this is one of our most successful events yet.
You can find “Maker Jam Comic” in the gallery page or download the pdf here
The Goldberg-esque cover was worked on by several artists in pencil, inked by me, and colored by Brian Kolm (who also helped put together the pdf). To create the rest of the book, we numbered the blank pages (1 through 10) and started creating panels on the tops of random pages. After the first panel on a page had been drawn, a different artist would write and draw the consecutive panel before passing it off to another cartoonist. Once we got down to the last panel on a page, that artist would find the first panel on the following page and try to link their page to the next one in their panel.
Photos are from sbocaj’s Make Faire flickr set.
CC at Maker Faire
Howdy ya’ll. Just a heads up that the San Francisco Cartoonist Conspiracy will be at the Maker Faire this weekend.
We will be leading an ongoing Maker Faire Comic Jam at a table… somewhere in the Faire.. sorry I don’t know where yet.
Anyways, if you know my phone number and would like to reach me there, please do.
Otherwise, they should have maps and information on hand.
Exquisite Corpstraits
Last weekend I had a table at Pandoras Trunk, where I sold some of my clothing designs and comics. As an extra bonus, Mike, Rio, and myself set up a chair and tried a new creative excercise based on the cadavre exquis.
The equisite corpse is a drawing (or writing) excercise in which a piece of paper is usually folded into thirds. Each artist works on a section of the folded paper then continues their lines just a little bit onto the next section of paper before folding their section up (so the next artist can’t see any of it) and then passing it on. After all three sections are finished, the paper is unfolded and the overall image is seen for the first time.
That’s pretty much what we are doing, but we have turned it into a way to do caricatures. At Pandora’s Trunk we set up some chairs and did Exquisite Caricatures for only $6 each. It was tons of fun and everyone seemed to love the results. It’s one of the few creative methods where both the artist and the model are surprised to see the final results.
We had been talking about doing this for many months now, so I’m glad we finally tried it out. After I get back from Minneapolis, I think we’ll set up on 20th and Valencia and do this for a couple of hours. The cool thing is that if we time it right, we can work on up to 3 subjects at the same time.
Click here for the full flickr set.
On a similar topic, I had previously blogged about a similar project that needs 4 artists. The paper is still folded in three parts, but each section is done in pencil only. After three artists have completed their sections, the paper is unfolded and the fourth artist inks the entire piece. This gives the piece a more consistent look, while still getting that surreal style. It’s excellent exercise too as I feel a large part of our group could use more practice inking other peoples pencils. When doing this exercise, we usually have four sheets of paper and work in 10 minute cycles, after each cycle we pass the folded paper to the artist on the left. After the pencils are done, the inker works for about 30 minutes. Ideally, you’ll have four finished pieces with four different artists, and nobody will have worked on the same piece more than once.
Cartoonist Conspiracy at APE in San Francisco
The Alternative Press Expo is this coming weekend (April 21st and 22nd) in San Francisco.
As usual, the SF Cartoonist Conspiracy will be vending, but this year we will have two tables. Booths #254 and #255 will be conspirator run, check the floor plan here.
In preparation, some bay area cartoonists will be doing a 12 hour comic jam at Mission Creek Cafe on 21st and Valencia in San Francisco. Some of us will be starting at 9am, but anyone is welcome to join us for as long a period as they like. We’ll probably all be at the tables in the back of the cafe.
I’m aiming to pencil, ink, and letter at least 6 pages for my book. Here’s to hoping.
826 Valencia Volunteering Opps
I’ve talked to a lot of Bay Area cartoonists about volunteering at 826 Valencia as a field trip artist and a lot of people have asked me what to expect. I posted the most recent book that I helped create and a little breakdown of what the process is like on my blog, so if you’ve wondered what to expect if you volunteer for a field trip read this entry. It’s super fun and at the end of each session all the kids and volunteers get a bound copy of the book the story they just created.
There are always volunteering spots open for field trips, so if you are interested let Jory at 826 know. I’ve posted his most recent list of field trip dates in our San Francisco Cartoonist Conspiracy forum.