Tom and Jerry sketches

I've been practicing drawing Tom & Jerry lately. I plan to use them in an upcoming project of mine and I'd like them to look as accurate as possible. However, moreso than staying on model, I'd like to capture their manic energy that makes them so fun to watch.

Okay, enough of my jibber-jabber. I'd like some crits of these pics now if you please. (Constructive crits would be nice. Hint Hint!)

My Christmas present to the world:

Let's make this scenario a reality in the near future, okay? I wonder who tastes more like chicken Osama bin Laden or Aman al-Zawahiri. ;)

Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzza everybody!!

R.I.P. Joe Barbera

Joe Barbera passed away on Monday at the age of 95. Rather than go into a lengthy biography or gush about how much I'll miss him, I'll instead show two samples of cartoons he was most famous for. I'm sure Joe would have preferred it this way much better anyway.

Enjoy and remember.

A Retraction

Way back in September, I made a post on this blog the berating the entire country of France simply because I hadn't seen too many red dots from France on my world map below. I'm not sure, but I think that post might have finally worked because, as you can see, there are a whole bunch of red dots on France right now. The French visit me after all.

But, all the same, I feel that I should really make amends for that post. Those snobby frogs were a bit much maybe. So now what I'm going to do is show a bunch of the many things that makes France and the French people truly great.

So, VIVE LE FRANCE, and all that. Voulez vous coucher avec moi, ce soir? Le chien de la salle de bain. Also, here's a pic I drew of your beloved leader. Enjoy!

Well, that takes care of that. Now, on to other business. Hello, Iceland. Y'know, I don't see any red dots on your country. What's up with that? Is it "too cold" to visit my blog? Huh? I'm sorry it came to this but I'm going to have to resort to some drastic measures. Iceland, visit my blog or Bjork gets it. ;)

Cultural References

I have read and heard alot of bellyaching about TV shows that have cultural references in them as though this makes those shows worse somehow. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are times when a reference to a movie, TV show, or historical event can enhance the story. Like any literary device, it's all in how you use it.

The biggest complaint people have is that many of today's shows are just a bunch of cultural references strung together. This sort of thing goes back to the late 70's. It was started and developed by the great skecth comedy series SCTV. Dave Thomas even proudly states that they were the first to use multiple references within a sketch. The one he was referring to was their take off of Fantasy Island. They used the narrative structure of that show to incorporate references to Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz, Road to Morocco, as well as a typical Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers dance sequence (I'm not sure exactly which movie it comes from). I couldn't find that sketch, but I did find one constructed in a similar way. It's something called My Factory, Myself. It's obviously a spoof of Norma Rae but it also contains elements of The China Syndrome and Kramer vs Kramer as well.
















This of course lead directly to The Simpsons. How you may ask? Well, a young Conan O' Brian saw SCTV and watched it religiously. He then became a very good comedy writer in his own right first at Saturday Night Live and then on The Simpsons where he even admitted that they based their writing style on SCTV. I'm sure you can all see the similarities between Bobby Bitman and Krusty the Klown. Like SCTV, The Simpsons do references right, in that they write the sequence as normal, think about what the sequence reminds them of, and then adds them as seen fit. One of the many reasons The Simpsons are nearly perfect in terms of writing. Here are two scenes where the references work beautifully. The first is an homage to Indiana Jones and the next manages to reference 2001: A Space Odessy.










And of course, making references to other things goes back even before many of the SCTV writers/actors were even born. One such example is the first Mickey Mouse cartoon Plane Crazy from 1928. The whole story revolves around (and was inspired by) Charles Lindbergh's famous flight accross the Atlantic.






That's the oldest example I can think of. If anyone knows of a film, animated or live action, that predates Mickey, post a link in the comment section. I would love to see it.

The good people at Warner Bros. did this as well. This example Hollywood Steps Out (by Tex Avery c. 1941) is choc-full of celebrities as well as references to their movies.






Well, those are examples of good shows making cultural references. Now what about the bad ones that make some people so angry? I guess the biggest offender these days would be Family Guy. Well, every once in a while there's one or two things to laugh at. But, when it comes to cultural references, they have it ass-backwards. Rather than making sure the reference fits the scene, they instead shoehorn a reference in. And the reference is most often just a cheap nod to something they hope their audience thinks is cool:





Or, it's a somewhat obscure reference to something from the 80's as if to say "OOH! Look at how much TV trivia we know. We can reference all sorts of things, so there."





The worst part about that clip is that they even got the caricatures wrong. Yvonne Hudson was much fatter than that, Ann Risley had a huge amount of eye-liner under her eyes, and Gail Matthius (spelled wrong in that clip) had kind of an upturned pig nose.

Now there's certainly nothing wrong with making an obscure reference that not many people can recognize. SCTV writers would often do spoofs of old movies that they're pretty sure only they themselves saw. Plus, Naked Gun 2 1/2 got some positive reviews for their reference to Eisnenstein's film school standard Battleship Potemkin (c. 1925) (They stuck in a nod to the baby carriage descending a staircase scene). That sort of thing is fine as long as they don't draw too much attention to it and especially if there's a hint of smugness behind it. I think that's the part that turns people off more than anything.

But hey, none of what I've just typed would have as much validity if I didn't use a similar analysis of my own work, right? I will thus direct you to my student film Hansel und Gretel. (For this one you have to click the title to see it).



In it I make two references. One is from the silent masterpiece The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Well, that movie was essentially the inspiration for my film really. The part where I have the witch slowly openning her eyes is my nod to the monster awakening in that movie. Also, near the end, I have the monkey do Michael Jacksons moon walk. Yes, I was well aware at the time that this film was taking place in the early '20's way before his father Joe Jackson was even born. But, it was such a small thing that I was sure noone would even pick up on that, and so far noone has (until now that is).

Well, that's all for now I guess. I hope this post has been an enlightening one. If any of you reading this still has a distaste for any or all cultural references, that fine. We all have different senses of humour in this great big world. But, the next time you want to get red in the face about this, just try to remember exactly what you're railing against.

garsonisa10starhomo

Here are some caricatures of my good friend Chris Garson. He graduated from animation school the same year as me. He didn't finish his student film sadly, but he had some of the best drawings I've ever seen.

I have no idea what he's doing now. Has he made it into the art/animation industry or not? Either way, it would be great if he had a blog full of his own artwork. It should definitely be seen by everyone.

Until that happens, you'll just have to settle for these pictures that I've drawn of him. Toodle OO!!

Read the article

Click on it to enlarge it if you have to.

If this is for real, I weep for the future and hereby call for the resignation of all those involved with this idiocy.

If this is a joke, HA HA HA!! You guys at The Onion are frickin' hilarious. As if Bush would do something like this. He's had enough damning scandels and bone-headed mistakes in his presidency to bring his approval rating down to an all-time low and have some call for his resignation. This right here would put it over the top and most likely end his time in office prematurely. Even Bush isn't stupid enough to endorse such a ridiculous thing. Once again, great joke guys. You had me going for a bit there.

Two birthday presents

My first birthday present goes out to one Kali Fontecchio who can be found at this blog address: http://kalikazoo.blogspot.com/ I have a feeling she'll enjoy the subject matter of this. ;) Here you go, Kali. Happy Birthday!!





This next one is birthday present for a friend at work, one Andrew Trager. Here I've depicted him saying his favourite catch-phrase. Happy Birthday, Andrew!!



Well, that's done. I hope those two have even better birthdays thanks to these pictures of mine. Y'know I shouldn't have to tell you folks that doing six caricatures in one night.......... it's enough to wear a guy out. Now, after this I have to start on a Christmas comic which is due December 1st. Whew!! My right hand is going to be quite busy for the next little while. And, after I'm done 'that', I'll start drawing. ;P

Grinch pictures

Remember the comic I told you about before? The next issue is slated to be due in time for Christmas. So this time I decided to do a continuation of the original Grinch story.

Y'see, after trying to steal Christmas from the Whoos and learning a valuable lesson about the holiday he finds out that the nearby village doesn't celebrate Christmas. They celebrate HKHHHHanukah instead. The Grinch, thinking they are a bunch of grinches ready to hurt his new Whoo friends, decides to steal their HKHHHHanukah away from them.

If you want to find out how it all ends you'll have to buy the comic book and read it for yourself. For now, just peruse these Grinch and Whoo drawings I've done for study. Do you think they're good? More importantly, would Theodore (Dr. Suess) Geisel or Chuck Jones approve?

Jorge

Hey, remember the guy who had all those opinions in that George Bush post I made this past summer? Well, I found a picture of him online and decided to try my hand at caricaturing him. Not only that, I drew him being best buds with his very special friend.

Jude Law revisited

Hey, remember this old drawing of Jude Law I did? I do. Remember how absolutely crappy it was? How it just reaked of incompetance throughout? Worse yet, it didn't even look like Jude. It looked more like Keifer Sutherland and Bart Simpson had a baby together or something.

Back at animation school, we got a visit from one Brain "Inspector Gadget" Lemay. One piece of advice that I remember him giving us is to take a terrible drawing you did in your past and draw it again but try to improve on it. So, that's exactly what I've done with Jude Law here. I know it's way too late to enter Mr. Kricfalusi's Jude Law contest but that doesn't matter. It's all about the continuous learning process that every artist must go through.

So, without further adieu, here's my new Jude Law caricature:



Once again, I also drew his girlfriend.

I've been published recently

Right now I'm involved in a nice little upstart organization called Valueable Comics. I didn't join until rather recently so I only have a comic in Issue #3.



If you don't beleive me, I'll post the table of contents found inside the cover:



The actual comic I drew in on my hard drive so I could easily post it here too. But I won't. You'll have to actually buy the comic book if you want to read it. >:P

Anyway, there are many talented artists who contribute to this publication, including its founder Shawn McLeod. So, if you're in the Regina area check out all the comic book stores in the city. This goes on sale as of tomorrow.

Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish

The jerk in the center of the picture above just got fired. We all knew him as Chris (and we really didn't want to know any more than that). His termination was imminent for a few reasons:

1. He "conveniently" didn't show up for work after payday. And when he did, it hurt him inside that he couldn't do whatever he did with his money on that day. (Whatever it was, I don't know and I'm too nauseated to care).

2. He came to work completely high once.

3. He was always flirting with the someone else who works there and creeping him right out in the process.

4. He was basically one of the most annoying human beings one could ever meet.

Feel free to comment either on how much you like this drawing or on how much that guy sucks.

Condy and Petey

A follow up to the last post.



This time I drew Condoleezza Rice with Canada's Minister of Foreign "Affairs" Peter McKay.

And here's the happy couple as I drew them. Aint they sweet??!! AAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!

Condoleezza Rice

Okay, I think we all know what Ms. Condoleezza Rice looks like. And, I'm sure most of the people out there who know what she looks like also know that she's a lot of fun to draw. Her most striking feature is of course the huge gap in her teeth that can be found most often on crazy broads like Madonna or David Letterman.



But, there's another feature of her hilarious face that I haven't seen too many caricaturists capture. Y'see, whenever she's mad that upper lip goes waaaaaaay down forward almost eclipsing her bottom lip even.



Attention all caricaturists, newspaper or otherwise, we need to see more of this. Condy's lip must be emphasized. No excuses. I want to see a blitzkreig of Condy lips well into 2008 or however much longer her job lasts.

Oh, and if you want to see how I feel about her boss, check out this old post of mine here.

Happy drawing!!

I drew the dog

This blog said one thing: draw a dog. So I drew a dog. I drew a dog and put it on my blog. He's a blog dog. You like my blog dog? He's a good blog dog. I am agog at this blog dog. No, I didn't draw a hog. I drew a dog. If I drew a hog I'd be saying "look at my blog hog". But NO!!!! It's a blog dog, so I say look at my blog dog.

You know, you couldn't see my blog dog if there was smog. Well, I guess he'd just be a smog blog dog wouldn't he? Do you see any smog? Well then I gues he's not a smog blog dog. He's just a blog dog.

What if he fell in a bog? On top of a hog? Within a cloud of smog? And I drew it and put it on my blog? What would he be? He'd be a soggy bog hog smog blog dog. Would you like that? NO!!! That's cruel. Poor dog and poor hog. Let's just leave it at a blog dog, okay? Thank you.

I got hosed

Last year at this time, someone commissioned me through e-mail to draw some "hip hop" fish for some kind of project he was doing. So, like a sucker, I did it. I didn't sign any contracts or get any money upfront or any kind of business transaction thingy like that. I just whipped up the above graphic, sent it to him through e-mail, and heard nothing. After some time, I e-mailed him again asking what was going on with these fish and he simply said "I'll let you know in a few months". Well, like I said, it's been almost a year and I'm still waiting.

So, if anyone out there has seen these fish or a slight variation of them plastered on something(s) anywhere in this world, remember that they came from me. I have the original drawing here at home so I could definitely prove ownership if it ever came down to a court battle but I'm sure that won't happen.