Twitter Comic Original Artwork for Auction
July 2, 2009 - Thursday
Here's another chance at some original artwork. I'm making the Twitter comic from about a month ago available for auction. The auction ends at 10:50 pm PDT, next Wednesday, July 8th. The comic is hand drawn on acid free smooth bristol board with non-photo blue pencils and archival quality ink using a variety of brushes and technical pens. It measures 17 inches wide and 7 inches high. Since I use non-photo blue pencils, the artwork really gives you some insight into my process. If you know any Twitter addicts (and I know there are a lot of them out there) this would make a great gift.
Tree Studies
June 24, 2009 - Wednesday
On the way home from work the other day, I sketched some trees as I passed them on the bus. I was using one of those Pigma Brush Pens, which I generally really hate, but in this case I actually kinda liked the results. If you read regularly, you may spot some of these trees making an appearance in future Calamities comic strips.
Social Media and Protests in Iran
June 20, 2009 - Saturday
As many of you well know, protests continue in Iran over their recent contested election. Now I'm not going to pretend to be some sort of expert on international politics. But I think it's been interesting to watch the influence that modern information technology is having in situations like this. People seem to lament the fact that newspapers are failing and our news sources are becoming less centralized. On the other hand, via blogs and other social media we can now get the news first hand from the people that are actually experiencing the story. To me this seems so much more powerful for informing and mobilizing people, as is the case for these protests. For example, Twitter is sometimes maligned because of the stupid junk people post on it (as even I have lampooned), but just check out the Iran Protest Tweets site, where you can see live tweets as people pass information back and forth from within Iran. It's hard to not get chills down your spine as you witness people discussing mobilizing against their government just as it's happening.
I want to send a shout out to the webcomic Hard Graft where I first found the Iran Protest Tweets site. Some other links that might be of interest include Huffington Post Liveblog, New York Times Lede Blog, and Anonymous Iran Protest Central.
Eating Organic
June 18, 2009 - Thursday
Here is a comic from my sketchbook of a strip idea that I toyed around with, but eventually abandoned. Click the picture to see the full-size version. It just seemed too mean, even for Aaron. What do you think?
Calamities Retrospective, Aaron Acne
June 9, 2009 - Tuesday
Here's my second look at what Calamities of Nature was like when I first started drawing it as a kid. The first part can be seen in this previous blog post.
The other weekend I was back at the house I grew up in, helping my Mom do some cleaning. While I was there, I found a few some of my old projects and papers from elementary school. If there was anything you could learn from these things, it was that I loved to draw. For almost every project I was assigned, I found some way to twist it into an excuse to draw comics. Book report due? I would do a comic summarizing the book instead. It's amazing that I did as well in school as I did.
The following is from when I was eleven when I was supposed to do an essay on puberty. As you can see, I instead did a comic featuring Ferd and Aaron. It's fun to look back now and see the differences in their personalities and they way I draw them. Although I'm not quite sure why they are so worried about being seen without pants--they go pantless in front of thousands of people three times a week now!
Guest Comic By Michael Firman
June 1, 2009 - Monday
Wow, Michael Firman must think he's pretty damn special or something. What does he think he's doing sending me a guest comic for Calamities of Nature? Does he just expect me to just run it, no questions asked? Does he think he can write and draw this comic better than me or something? The nerve of this guy!
Oh wait, did I request this guest comic? Crap, my bad! How about you help me apolgize to Michael by visiting his webcomic Moe. I think it's pretty funny, and you'll probably think so too.
