Freelancers Insurance Company

Sara Horowitz, the Founder & Executive Director of the New York-based Freelancers Union, has announced that the Union now has its own insurance plan, the Freelancers Insurance Company.

This is exciting news. For now, its only for NY State residents, but Ms. Horowitz' goal is affordable health insurance for all freelancers in America.

Maybe this is dry subject matter. Well , OK --not "maybe." It is dry, and certainly not as interesting as an analysis of gag cartoon construction, etc. -- but the Freelancers Insurance Company is a big step toward recognition of the freelancer -- a person for whom "volatility is a way of life" -- as a real, working part of the economy. She, along with the foundation and corporate supporters, deserve our thanks and appreciation. Consider getting involved with the Union to assist the FIC's ability to cover working freelancers in other states.

Here's Sara Horowitz on the Freelancers Insurance Company:

In 1996, I founded a nonprofit organization to represent the needs and concerns of independent workers; in 2001, we created a program to get health insurance for independent workers in New York State. Back then, we recognized that the most pressing concern for freelancers was lack of affordable insurance. Over the years, Freelancers Union has worked with different insurance companies to get plans for our members at prices below what they’d pay on their own. Now, Freelancers Union has started Freelancers Insurance Company, to ensure that members have stable, long-term access to health insurance.

To start FIC, Freelancers Union has had a lot of help. Prominent financial supporters such as the Rockefeller Foundation, the New York State Health Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the New York City Investment Fund, Prudential’s Social Investments Program, and the Pioneer Portfolio of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have made loans and grants to Freelancers Union to start FIC. And I’ve worked hard to bring together a team of the most experienced, principled people around to run the company.

Mostly, though, it’s because of the members of Freelancers Union that we’re able to do this remarkable thing. We’ve shown that it’s possible to create a group with the strength and longevity to be a sustainable “risk pool” for health insurance. Independent work arrangements are here to stay, and the market is finally recognizing that.

We’re here to stay, too. Together, Freelancers Union and its members are building institutions, like Freelancers Insurance Company, that will provide stability for the independent workforce for years to come.

One down, 49 to go.

Alex Toth: How a TV Cartoon is Created

Sherm Cohen (bless him) shares "How a TV Cartoon is Created" by Alex Toth and Bob Foster. It's an "oversized 10-page illustrated essay that first appeared as a bonus in the 1976 treasury-sized Super-Friends Limited Collectors Edition comic book."

Thank you Sherm, for all the scanning -- and I'm looking forward to the 2nd part too!

Peter Arno's Favorite Part

Harry Lee Green brings a lovely sampler of Peter Arno's amazing layout and masterful wash style from the collections SIZZLING PLATTER and HELL OF A WAY TO RUN A RAILROAD.

Some cartoonists like the beginning bit (the coming up with the idea, honing the gag) and some like the process (the sketching and layout) and some like the end (the sale). My favorite part is coming up with the gag and drawing the doodle in my sketchbook. Not so with Peter Arno.

Arno would draw and redraw his cartoons sometimes dozens of times. There is a story that cartoonist Mel Casson would tell, about visiting Mr. Arno in his penthouse apartment. I'll do my best to relate it here, from memory of him telling it some 4 or 5 years ago as part of a National Cartoonists Society Connecticut Chapter speech he gave.

So, Mel Casson and a firned went to visit the one and only famopus New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno. he had invited them to his aprtment. And it really was a penthouse apartment. The lobby elevator went up, and the doors opened onto the Arno landing, from which one could see the Arno living room and, there he was, Peter Arno himself, mixing drinks.

After sitting down, having a drink and talking shop, Arno asked, "Do you want to see my studio?" Well, of course?! Who wouldn't want to see Arno's studio!

So, Arno walked over to a door, and opened it. They walked in. Arno switched on a light. The room had curtains all around, from floor to ceiling, covering the wall, the windows. "I can't have any distractions," explained Arno. The only furniture: a large drawing board, lamp and chair. And on the drawing board, laid out in two rows, were two rows of 10 original drawings each.

There were 20 originals of the same cartoon, drawn over and over. But, coming closer, the cartoons were not the same. Each one was had a slight difference: an arm bent a different way, a head turned, one character was upstage of the other, to the right in another, etc. Each one was a fully drawn Arno original, ready for publication.

I remember Casson telling Arno how surprised he was that he (Arno) did all of this work, painstakingly laboring over the cartoon, drawing and redrawing it in so many different, subtle ways -- all in finished ink and wash. Casson suggested drawing a series of thumbnails or pencil sketches instead of going to all this time and effort.

Arno explained that this was always the way he worked: drawing many different variations of the cartoon until he was satisfied. Casson repeated that it was so much work, drawing a large size finished piece over and over and over again.

"But you don't understand," explained Arno, motioning to the 20 cartoons, "This is my favorite part."

Hat tip to Journalista! for the link.

Video: Bruce Bairnsfather & the 1914 Christmas Truce

A Veterans Day moment.

In the first year of the Great War (later referred to as World War 1), German and British forces, up and down the line, slowly and carefully came out of their trenches on December 25th, and an unofficial Christmas truce was agreed upon. Bodies were pulled from No Man's Land, joint ceremonies performed; food and small gifts were exchanged; the men sang carols together. It was, the last gasp of another, more gentle time, to paraphrase an historian. The next day, the fighting resumed.

This Christmas Truce is remembered in St. Yvon, Belgium, with a memorial cross. This is where cartoonist Captain Bruce Bairnsfather was at that time. There is a plaque with a diagram (Bairnsfather drawn?) of where in the foxhole he was that day. It's all in the modern-day video below. My thanks to Maurice at VideoHistoryToday for this.

French Gag Cartoons Circa 1956

Above: How do you sell cartoons in Europe with all of those language differences? You draw wordless cartoons! Guy Bara shows us, in 5 panels, a whole story wherein the balance of power is shifted.

Here are some cartoons from BEST CARTOONS FROM ABROAD 1956, edited by Lawrence Lariar and Ben Roth and copyright the same year.


And I read PLAYBOY for the cartoons!



Hervé gives us an artist cartoon. There used to be all sorts of artist cartoons; artists painting models, artists wearing berets, artists chasing models, etc.


Above: Hervé once more, with a very odd tattoo. There are, however, 52 years later, still relationships like this.

Above: Hervé could sell this one today.



Above: Leon with a topical cartoon regarding obesity! I like the fellow's grin. Just makes it for me. That's a blissful expression.



Above (and the rest of these below): the one and only Sempé, who is still producing work for The New Yorker. I like to think that the bearded fellow, casually sketching the impatient crowd outside, is Sempé himself.

"Yes, this is really Treasure Island. It is I who made the plan. I AM the treasure."

This woman's speech is funny -- and it's a rare Sempé cartoon where we have even one line of dialog, much less three.


Above and below: a couple of wordless multi-panel playlets. Sempé is one of my all-time favorites.

BBC News: 20 Minutes of New STAR TREK Film Footage

BBC News Entertainment Reporter Neil Smith reports on a presentation of 4 clips from the new theatrical STAR TREK movie.

Director J.J. Abrams was there to introduce the footage.

"'It was always someone else's show,' he [Abrams] continued, citing the original TV series' limited resources and 'cardboard planets.'

On reading the script, however, he said he would have been 'jealous' had another director taken on the project.

Attending reporters were offered cupcakes with the STAR TREK uniform insignia on top.

TrekMovie.com has more. There are spoilers there.

There will be a new STAR TREK movie trailer playing in theaters showing the new James Bond movie QUANTUM OF SOLACE.

Mike Lynch Cartoon in November 10, 2008 Wall Street Journal

Of all the cartoon cliches (boss chasing secretary, prisoner shackled to wall, etc.) the number one gag cartoon cliche (as voted by Mike Lynch Cartoons readers) is the desert island cartoon. I have a desert island gag cartoon in today's Wall Street Journal. And below, reproduced oh-so-small (even if you click to supersize, it only pops up to a wimpy size of a few more centimeters) -- below is the original drawing that was OKed by the cartoon editor:

"Thank God! Somebody to network with!"

The cartoon is almost 4 years old. I drew it in January 2005, and it went to many markets before it sold. This is why I emphasize persistence.


I had to draw it bolder for reproduction. Above is the published version.

Like most people, I hate annoying, overused phrases like:

• At the end of the day
• Fairly unique
• At this moment in time
• With all due respect
• 24/7
• It's not rocket science

(And there are more at Wired's article: Oxford Researchers List Top 10 Most Annoying Phrases.)

But the nice thing is that I can take phrases that I don't like -- like --



... "paradigm shift" ...

... "crunchy" as an adjective ...



... "outsourced" -- and on and on .... Where was I?

Yes. Right.

I can take these overused words and phrases, and not only make fun of them, but also make some money while doing it. Well, soon. Welllll, not really soon -- but in a year or 2. Welllllllll, maybe 3 is more like it.

Tom Richmond: The National Caricaturist Network Convention

Tom Richmond shows some photos from the National Caricaturist Network’s 17th annual Convention and Competition in Raleigh, NC. And he has more here.

"As usual the artwork produced by the competing caricaturists was amazing and the 'competition room' was brimming over with incredible caricatures that ran the gamut from the near portrait in charcoal to hyper exaggerated illustrations in acrylic. There was even some wood cut work!"

National Caricaturist Network site.

THE BIG SKINNY by Carol Lay

Wendy Werris, writing for Publisher's Weekly, talks with cartoonist Carol Lay about her memoir THE BIG SKINNY: HOW I CHANGED MY FATTITUDE, due out after the New Year from Villard:

"'I've drawn from everything I know as an artist and a person and put it in this book,' says Lay. She brought elements of memoir to the story to give the book more drama, adding her family history, and she deeply probed her inner life while writing the text. 'It was painful,' says Lay, although her wicked sense of humor as a cartoonist brings an equal measure of laughs to her dieting struggles. In the book, a cartoon George Clooney occasionally shows up at Lay's door bearing bags of fast food. Time and again she slams the door in his face to forgo the fat and carbs for healthier, low-calorie choices.

"The Big Skinny is a first; a cartoon diet book with recipes, menus and a calorie counter. 'It combines memoir with solid information—in a story context—on how to lose weight and keep it off,' Lay explains. 'It's for food strugglers like me; it's experiential and it's fun.'"

Carol Lay's site

"Way Lay," Carol Lay's comic at Salon

Hat tip Michael Maslin!

I Hate These Things

I am going to create a comic where everyone is a Blogger Word Verification word, dang it!

Quentin Blake

Above: a screenshot of one of Mr. Blake's videos.

Illustrator Quentin Blake is one of those quiet fellows who has been around (over 300 books so far) and influenced a generation. Best known as the fellow who draws the pictures in the Roald Dahl books, his latest project is THE BOY IN THE DRESS written by Little Britain's co-star Richard Walliams.

BBC has a profile of Quentin Blake here.

And Mr. Blake's site has a couple of wonderful videos, that take us into his studio where he shows us his process. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED even if you don't know who this Blake guy is. Just look at his organization (over 200 books' worth of originals, all neatly cubby-holed by title in their own portfolios) and we get to watch his drawing and redrawing process -- in real time. This is really good stuff and worth the clicking and watching time to do.

A big hat tip to the Forbidden Planet blog.

Video: David Tennant on Doctor Who

SPOILERS below and in the video itself: Current Doctor Who star David Tennant talks about the new series and, at 11 minutes, there is a brief preview of this year's Doctor Who Christmas Special.



OK, SPOILER Time (as if you didn't already know): It's been announced that Tennant will leave Doctor Who after the 2009-10 season which, instead of the usual series of the usual hour long shows, will be a smaller crop of four "specials" throughout the year. He also talks about the decision to depart the popular program, as well his own experience as a kid, watching Tom Baker (the Fourth Doctor) regenerate into Peter Davison (the Fifth Doctor). Tennant also speculates who may replace him in this BBC One video.

Stacy Curtis UPDATED

One of the many thousands of people out there in Chicago's Grant Park, watching President Elect Obama victory speech last night -- live, in person -- was the talented cartoonist/illustrator Stacy Curtis. Shown above are his sketchbook impressions while he was there.

My thanks to him for granting me permission to place his work on my blog. I enjoyed it on a private chat board, wanted to share it, and he very generously said to go ahead when I asked permission. Thanks, Stacy!



UPDATE: And over at the Three Men in a Tub blog (which is the sketchblog of three talented and good loooking guys: Wes Hargis, Stacy Curtis and Ted Dawson) you'll see the above page, and another page of Stacy Curtis sketches.

Video: Editorial Cartoonist Chris Britt

Editorial cartoonist for the State Journal-Register (Springfield, Illinois) Chris Britt talks about the job of an editorial cartoonist in this video produced by Justin L. Fowler and TJ Salsman. The first part he explains what it is he does as an editorial cartoonist, and then he continues in voiceover as we watch him (in sped up time) create a cartoon. He draws the old fashioned way: ink on paper. It runs just over 4 minutes.



And here's Mr. Britt again, talking about the specific cartoon for a minute, as the camera lingers on the finished work:



Related: David Horsey talks about drawing his post-election cartoon.

President Elect Obama

We are walking through a moment in history.

Obama's November 4th acceptance speech

Newseum's gallery of newspaper front pages (hat tip to Steven L. Cloud)

Above image-that-sums-it-all-up from THE BEAT.

SKIN HORSE by Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey Wells

SKIN HORSE, a comic strip written by Shaenon Garrity and drawn by Jeffrey Wells (although Mr. Wells has collaborated on the writing, and Ms. Garrity developed the character designs), launches over at Universal Press Syndicate's GoComics site soon. Currently, it's over at WebcomicsNation, where it's been since its 2007 inception.

(UPDATE: as Ms. Garrity points out in her comments below, I'm wrong! " ... [A]ctually I'm the artist and Jeff and I are cowriters." Sorry about that, Shaenon & Jeffrey!)

I've only read the first couple of months of the strip, having been unaware of it until now. (Sorry, Shaenon!)

Shaenon the writer puts us in the thick of it. She very quickly puts a foursome of characters (half of them human, half animal) in action in the initial week. We are plunked into the middle of the story and, through the pictures and conversations, are expected to grab on and ride.

It's the best way to start: in the middle. It pricks up the ears and eyes. And you have to pay attention. She has a whole world to introduce us to, starting with Tip, Unity, and Sweetheart.

I don't usually do reviews here, but I'd like to recommend the strip if you enjoy fantasy mixed with comedy. There are references to seminal fantasy stories (Baum, and, of course, THE VELVETEEN RABBIT, where the "Skin Horse" quote is from; "Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse, 'It's a thing that happens to you ... Then you become Real.")

I was laughing out loud at some of Unity's dialogue, like when she's urging Tip to resolve the problem in a more action-oriented way: "Less yap-yap! More boom-boom-pow!"

Winnie the Pooh Sketch Auctioned for £31,000

From the BBC:

It was sold by the family of the artist, EH Shepard, at Bonhams auction rooms in London and easily exceeded its estimated price of £15,000-20,000.

A sketch for Kenneth Grahame's story The Wind in the Willows made £7,440.

Kremos AKA Niso Ramponi

Here are ten cartoons by Italian superstar GGA (Good Girl Art) cartoonist Kremos.



I was first introduced to Kremos via Craig Yoe's Arflover's Blog (Kremos is featured in Craig's ARF FORUM book) and Shane Glines' Cartoon Retro site.



Aside from his obvious talent at drawing women, look at the way he composed the drawing above. From left to right: cop, girl, smashed car, husband. You have the whole story laid out. It's no wonder that he would open an animation studio outside Rome in the next decade.




It's the physics of all that mass on those tiny highheels that fascinates me!



Above: even though the background is made up of portions of items (corners of posters, a bit of a car, a building, a few squiggles for clouds), you get a strong sense of place.



The cartoons are from 2 books BEST CARTOONS FROM ABROAD 1955 AND EST CARTOONS FROM ABROAD 1956, both edited by Lawrence Lariar and Ben Roth and copyright those years by same.


Niso Ramponi would, after years, eventually stop using the pen name "Kremos" to avoid confusion and possible litigation with an Italian artist by the same name. More about Ramponi at Warren Leonhardt's blog.



To paraphrase the Roger Rabbit line: the girls may not be bad, but they sure are drawn that way.


I see a little bit of Frank Thorne in some of the art, and that's high praise. After years drawing comic books, he's now a featured cartoonist in Playboy.



Sure, the jokes are not the best, but here's a guy where style overshadows the gag.

I hope that Bill Maoi and Rico Renzi are able to produce the book of Kremos that's announced here.

Brian Fies: Graphic Novelist & Modelmaker!

My multi-talented, multi-tasking pal Brian Fies built the above spaceship as a drawing reference for his upcoming graphic novel. Yeah. He built it from scratch! Here's Brian:

"I thought some of you might like this. There's a passage in Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow set in 1945 in which my character goes to the movies to watch a Flash-Gordon-style serial. I therefore had to come up with something Flash-Gordon-style to put on the movie screen. For reasons that'll be apparent if (when!) you read the book, I created my own fictional universe-within-a-universe rather than use actual stills from real movies--which also avoided the problem of tracking down 60-year-old copyrights and asking permission.

"So first I built a spaceship"

More here.

Forrest J. Ackerman "Slipping Away"

Above: Forrest J. Ackerman, Ray Harryhausen and Ray Bradbury in a photo from the 1980s, nicked from the Official Sci-Fi Boys site.

Via Harry Knowles: " ... I was told that Forry was lucid, peaceful and not even on pain medication, but that he was progressively getting worse - and was ready to move on."

Ackerman, who is 91, helped found the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society and edited the Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine (1952-1983). His mailing address is at the above link.

Steve Brodner: Red, NY and Blue

Illustrator Steve Brodner gives us a peek at his New Yorker mag piece. It's about "an Election Day comic about a political junkie who leaves his apartment to vote only to find he can’t see straight anymore."

From the Sketch Pad

I was traveling last week. I took my sketchbook (the landscape hardbound 3.5" x 5.5" Global Arts Hand Book Journal hardbound) with me to capture a few moments. I used a Pigma Micron pen and a bit of watercolor here and there. I carry a kids' $1.99 bought-in-a-drugstore watercolor paint set in my bag.

Above: St. Louis is deserted. Or rather, the St. Louis airport is deserted around lunch time on October 28th, when I had a layover.

I had a bite to eat in a lonely cafe and read the Post-Dispatch, and, of course, noticed the Weatherbird on the cover. Currently drawn by Dan Martin, the Weatherbird has been on the cover of every PD edition since 1901, making it "the oldest continuously running daily cartoon in the country" according to the Weatherbird blog. Yes, the Weatherbird has his own blog!



Above: this fellow was in front of a line at the airport newsstand. He was assuring VERY LOUDLY whoever it was on the other end of his Bluetooth that he was a deadly efficient capitalist businessman -- all the while, the man was grindingly slow to find any valid currency on his person to complete a transaction of 75 cents. Ugh.

Above: on the bus -- this woman seated behind me kept up a color commentary for the 2 hour ride from Dover, NH to Logan Airport. Click to supersize, natch.

From the Martine Gossieaux Gallery: THE PASSION OF DRAWING HUMOR

La galerie Martine Gossieaux, a Paris gallery that for the past 15 years has showcased works by Sempe, Chaval, Searle, Steig, Cobean, Gorey, Addams, and other singular cartoonists, presents a new hardcover anthology titled LE PASSION DU DESSIN D'HUMOUR (or see this Google English translation link for THE PASSION OF DRAWING HUMOR).

Of course, if you live in Europe, this book is easier to find than in the States. Here is a link to a page where you can, in a cyber-clicky-mouse-way, page through some of the book to get a flavor for the scope of imagery.



Above: a screenshot of that page, with a gatefold of Bosc cartoons. BTW, Alain Damman has a wonderful site devote to Bosc here.

A very big hat tip to Claude Haber for passing this along! Thanks, Claude!