Webtales

This has been a great month for me to get to know a lot of people in the local cartoonist  scene. I’m pretty impressed with their talent.  The online hangout is

http://cartoonistconspiracysf.wordpress.com/

The past two meetings have been collaborative exercises. The most recent one can be seen here:

http://issuu.com/cartoonistconspiracysf/docs/timecop_ccsf_1-28-10

The basic idea is each person starts with a single panel and then passes it to their right to the next artist. Then, with two panels to go, the next artist to the right begins the process of reconciling the pages to each other. The last artist has the transition panel from one page to the next.

It is a fun exercise but it makes for a pretty rugged narrative. Still, the random nature of it has its charm.

Just a few quick things I liked about “Avatar.”

I felt the 3D was used in service to the story, rather than the cheap “looky-loo” strategy of many 3d filmmakers.

My other observation,  perhaps an expansion on the first,  is that Cameron keeps the movie mostly below the picutre plane with very small uses of pop outs into the audience. This gives the more traditional” looking through a picture window” effect of old stereo slides. Rather than breaking the fourth wall, Cameron seems to understand the importance of maintaining that illusion in service to better immersion. It works quite well. Nice to see intelligent 3D.

From the sublime to the ridiculous. The production of this panel has been an interesting experience. After taking great care with the “high art” value of the background, I then drop some really wacky stuff into the mix. I remember a character from a play named Jacques Roux. My friends and I used to refer to him as Jack Rocks.  This is proof that no piece of goofiness goes unused. Can it be used at any time? To quote Roger Rabbit- “No! Only when it’s FUNNY!!”

I’ve been spending a lot of time at the new Borderlands Cafe on Valencia Street. The owners are people I’ve come to know over the years of hunting for good books. The place is bright, open, pleasant. Big tables.

In addition to the opening night potluck, I recently attended a meetup for the website io9 at the cafe.

The place has a lot of potential as a center for the kind of creative activity that interests me a lot.

The coffee is inexpensive. They insist it is not the best on the street. They also say, “No WIFI.” They are not catering to the laptop crowd.

A coffeehouse where people sit around and TALK rather than do “homework?”  Go figure…

The latest 3D stuff has been kicking my butt recently.

It seems like the more I know, the more complex and challenging the 3D becomes. This latest piece is part of a series of urban portraits of the Valencia Corridor, the spiritual home of “Not Quite Here.”

The portraits themselves are quite lovely. In addition to art prints, they will all be used as backgrounds in the second volume of the series.

Just putting the finishing touches on this one.

Now that the show is over, back to the business at hand. As part of the “In-3D” exhibit, I showed several new pieces from chapter two of  “Not Quite Here.”  I like to think the work has grown as this project marches on. I’ve learned quite a bit in the last year and it is taking me to more dangerous places than before. The richness of 3D as a storytelling medium is still unfolding before me.

NOT QUITE HERE: V2- “Old Business”

More pages in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

“In 3D” has come and gone at Mission Comics and Art. It was a lot of fun and pretty successful. My favorite part was to just hang back in the gallery and watch people enjoy the work.  Everyone I saw left smiling. That’s as good as it gets.

"In 3D" at Mission Comics and Art

Leef Smith sent me the link to this write up of the current 3D show.

The first question people ask me most of the time is:

“How did you do that?”

The actual mechanical process for creating anaglyph images is pretty straightforward. The art lies with the writing, the layer composition, the images used. To satisfy the curiosity of those who live in the San Francisco Bay Area, I will be holding a “how-to” workshop at Mission Comic and Arts on December 12 at 2PM. Participants  should bring their own laptop computers and image processing program like Photoshop or The Gimp. The workshop will run from 2-5PM.

I don’t really know anything about Michael Jackson’s personal life. All I know is what the media has told us.

What I DO know, after watching “This is It,” is that Michael Jackson was a singular creative talent of enormous power. This show, had it ever opened, would have blown people away. The fusion of dance, music, film, lighting, costumes and set design was something remarkable. Jackson’s dedication and generosity as a performer were clearly evidenced.

“This is It,”  is in this sense, a tragedy. To have built a performance piece so splendid with so many different talents doing so well and to have never opened the show after all that effort must have been horrific. I can’t imagine the cast call on the day of Jackson’s death when all of this talent knew that particular dream was over forever.

If you want a definition of Hell, ladies and gentlemen,

This Is It