BIG FUNNY was just A-Listed in this week’s City Pages…read it here.
Category Archives: Minneapolis
BIG FUNNY Reviewed on Optical Sloth, Plus Photos From the Hanging
BIG FUNNY has just been reviewed at Optical Sloth. Read it here.
It’s a remarkable achievement, and if anybody is going to be in Minneapolis on August 7th you should click that website for details on picking up a copy. If you get one there, it’s a measly $5 for this beast. If not you’ll have to pay for shipping, which just about doubles the price, but this thing is utterly unique in the comics world and worth the expense. I’m old enough to remember pulling the funnies out of the Sunday paper, spreading them out on the ground, laying down to read them and have them actually be funny.
Please Help Promote BIG FUNNY (Premiering This Friday, August 7th!)
We’ve been doing really well on getting the word out about BIG FUNNY so far… for a list of places that have mentioned the show or the publication, check out the ongoing list on our Facebook page.
That said, the BEST promotion is word of mouth. Please help us to make the opening a huge success! Some suggestions:
1) Please do tell your friends, family, co-workers, associates and potential love interests, you sly dog. In person, via email, via a social network invite, using two tin cans and one taut string, or by serenading outside their windows at three AM. Here is the Facebook event to invite friends to.
2) Please do tell your readers. If you have a blog or website, please post about the event this week. Here is a “chicklet” for your site, if you want it:
3) Please consider distributing some of the postcards and newsprint posters that can be picked up at the gallery.
4) If you know members of the press, please consider directing them to our press release.
5) Please consider hassling strangers on street corners, wearing sandwich boards promoting the event, floating over the city in a BIG FUNNY painted dirigible, or using other means of guerrilla promotion as your fancy dictates. Due to their lack of implements of modern communication, we anticipate an unfortunate shortage of hillbillies… so if you wish to hike the Appalachian Trail with a bullhorn, please contact Jamie.
Please don’t forget to direct folks to our website.
Thanks for your help, and thanks much to those of you who have already done some or all of these things (although it was taking it a little too far shaving the logo in your chest hair, Kevin).
Big Funny: Things You Should Know
About Big Funny
(Things about the project you may not know that we think are cool.)
* Big Funny, at 48 ginormous pages, features the work of 47 contributing artists.
* Only 2,000 copies were printed!
* The project was coordinated entirely by volunteers, who have contributed 1,000 hours to the project to date.
* Big Funny was printed locally in Minnesota.
* The newspaper size, (16″ wide by 22-3/4″ tall with an image area of 15″ wide by 21-1/2″), is true to an original newspaper from the 1910-30’s eras.
* Proceeds earned from Big Funny benefit two affiliated groups: Altered Esthetics, a nonprofit arts organization that works to support artists and The International Cartoonist Conspiracy, a community of comic artists.
* Artist submissions were open to all and chosen democratically by the editorial review panel.
* The original Big Funny Logo was designed by editor Steven Stwalley. The Big Funny Logo featured on the cover of the paper was hand drawn by editor Zander Cannon, and features all the characters from inside the paper itself.
* Even the ads in Big Funny are cool! The ads for sponsors on the back of the paper were hand-drawn by editor Kevin Cannon, with the words for “the Source” ad penned by editor Steven Stwalley. The classifieds feature a mix of original limericks, artist bios, vintage ads from old comics and more.
* Big Funny arrived to the gallery on two ginormous pallets and copies were hand-loaded by the editors to a super secret location to be stored until the day of the opening. Copies of Big Funny narrowly avert both floods and theft while they wait to be released this Friday, August 7th.
Big Funny: A celebration of the Newspaper Comic Strip!
The 48-page oversized newspaper will premiere at Altered Esthetics this Friday featuring poster-sized comic artwork from 47 artists.
In addition to having copies of BIG FUNNY for sale ($5 each), the opening reception will include:
* Original artwork from the publication,
* examples of historic comics pages (some over a century old),
* a retrospective of unseen comic artwork by William Ede,
* live music from The Roe Family Singers and
* the little funny sideshow- a vintage cigarette machine repurposed to vend mini-comics and comic art!
Opening Reception
Friday August 7, 2009 7pm-11pm
Show runs August 7-29, 2009
Gallery Hours
Saturdays 1pm-5pm
Tuesdays & Thursdays 1pm-7pm
Altered Esthetics
1224 Quincy Street NE
Minneapolis, MN 55413.
612.378.8888
St. Paul Cartoonist Conspiracy Jam! This Thursday, July 16th, 2009!
Join the St. Paul Cartoonist Conspiracy Cell and create a jam comic! It’s easy and fun! Just bring some drawing utensils, an idea for the jam, and a few bucks to get a tasty beverage — the baristas really do appreciate that.
The jam will start promptly at 6:30 and run until…whenever.
The meetings are open to anyone who wants to draw with us, and the results are posted here sooner rather than later.
To join us come to:
Cosmic’s Coffee Shoppe
189 Snelling Ave N.
St. Paul, MN 55104
(Northwest corner of Snelling and Selby)
More not than often we head on over to grab a brew at:
O’Gara’s Bar and Grill
164 Snelling Ave N
St. Paul, MN 55104
(Southeast corner of Snelling and Selby)
Hope to see you there!
City Pages Annual Comix Issue: CALL FOR ENTRIES!
From the Big Time Attic blog:
It’s that time of year again: City Pages is gearing up for its third annual City Pages Comix Issue and is looking for submissions. City Pages has a readership of over 50,000 discerning eyes, and is thus a great showcase for any cartoonist. And even if your cartoon isn’t picked for the print edition, it will be published online. Don’t forget, last year the Comix Issue won a prestigious AltWeekly Award!
Please read all of following information very carefully (a few things have changed since last year):
From Nick Vlcek, City Pages Art Editor:
This year’s theme: “MINNESOTA NICE”
Deadline is Wednesday, August 5th. That’s when we’ll close the space and figure out what we have to run. If there’s any changes that need to be made or if a work is not finished, we have one more week, but we’re not any more slots past the 5th.
What we learned from last time:
There is a finite amount of space for the print edition. DO NOT FEEL LIKE YOU WERE PASSED OVER BECAUSE YOUR STUFF DIDN’T MAKE IT IN TO PRINT. We’ll put everything we get up online.
Regarding above, everyone should work in a horizontal, quarter page size:
9.75″ wide by 2.5″ tall
[ Click to download a Photoshop template ]
If you want/need to do something larger, contact me first, otherwise don’t necessarily expect it will run in print! (half page is 9.75″ wide by 5.4″ tall; full page is 9.75″ wide by 11.25″ tall).
Black and white JPEGS, 300dpi actual size, or larger (fit to scale).
All email should be addressed to:
nvlcek [at] citypages.com
Subject should read: CP Comics Issue
Every email needs to have the title of the piece and the credit (how you’d like your name to appear in print). We will also need a W-9 (click to download) filled out and attached to the email with your real name and address if you want to be paid. Those who sent in a W-9 last year and got paid will not have to send one if their address hasn’t changed.
Payments are $25 to all, another $25 if your panel makes it into print. That is the same rate no matter what size it ends up being.
Thanks for all!
Cartoonist Conspiracy @ The Loring Corners Bazaar (6/27 + 6/28)
The Cartoonist Conspiracy Cells of the Twin Cities are getting in on the ground floor of something that could be potentially great! With Pride Weekend in full swing in the Twin Cities, three lone Conspirators Bud Burgy, Ryan Dow, and Daniel Olson learned of an opportunity to push comic materials to the mostly non-comic reading public! How? A bazaar in the Historic Loring Corners community!
Plans are still in their infancy, but with the proper nurturing, this thing could really take off! From what we understand, the bazaar will have various vendors crafting curious things (fashionable wears, paintings, framed album covers, comics, etc.) and associating with the general public. The bazaar is slated to be open during the Basilica Block Party and Loring Art Festival this year too! If all goes as planned and it becomes a success, more weekends could be added!
So, why am I telling you? Well, you should show up! You should say hello! Bud, Ryan, and Daniel may be bored to tears or could quite possibly having the time of their lives! Either way, we need your support! Plus, if you have any books that you’d like us to push for you contact us and we will make arangements for either this event or others in the future!
Yearbooks – A 2D Cloud Book Launch!
Yearbooks – A 2D Cloud Book Launch | Sunday, June 21 | 8 PM | ARISE! Books | Minneapolis, MN
What are you doing this coming Sunday? Spending time with dad? Well, after you’ve said your hellos and ate enough potato salad, stop on by Arise! Books @ 2441 Lyndale Ave. S. Minneapolis around 8 PM. 2D Cloud will be having book launch for Yearbooks — a full colour comic book, which also is a part of ARISE! books Summer Series. Best of all, it’s a free event! Afterwards, sometime around duskish I imagine, there will be a showing of Frank Henelotter’s film ‘Basket Case.’ Hope to see you there!
Minneapolis Jam[z]: May & June ’09
Yep, it’s a twofer this month. Can you stand it? I think you can stand it:
Irish Double Date Star Trek, or Lupi Gets Punched in the Face by a Republican
Click image for pdf — an insurmountable 3.9 mb!
AND…
Internet Sensations
Click image for pdf — a disreputable 2.5 mb!
SUBMISSIONS NEEDED–Zine show at MN Center for Book Arts
Call for Zines
Minnesota Center for Book Arts will be hosting an exhibition of zines titled
³Independent Variables: Contemporary Zine Publications² from June 26 to
September 6, 2009 in the Open Book Lobby Gallery.
To participate in this exhibition, work must be received by 5 pm June 26. It
may be dropped off at MCBA¹s Shop desk or mailed (MCBA, attn: Jeff
Rathermel, 1011 Washington Ave South, Minneapolis, MN 55415). Please include
contact information with your submission, including an email address.
Note: Work will handled by the public and will be fastened to the wall by a
cord. This may involve drilling into the publication to make a hole for
fastening. Do not submit work you are not willing to have altered and
handled by multiple readers. Works should weigh a pound or less.
We will do our best to exhibit all work submitted. Multiple works by a
single artist are permitted. If the number of submissions is great, the
number of works exhibited by a single artist will be limited.
Work will be available for pick up at the Shop desk the week following the
show. Work will not be returned by mail. Items not picked up by Sept 11,
2009 will be added to the MCBA archives and used for educational purposes.
If you have questions, please email Jeff Rathermel, MCBA¹s Artistic
Director, at jrathermel (at) mnbookarts.org.