Cartoonists

Since everyone is always comparing the comics business to the music business in terms of retail erosion, howabout looking at a music success story? The New York Times has a profile of musician Cee Lo Green explaining how, despite the economic decimation in the music industry, he's been able to make some $20 million this year by rigorously branding himself and expanding his activities to including numerous TV hosting gigs, merchandising and Vegas. Along the way some interesting iTunes numbers are dropped. Although "F&^% You," Cee Lo's anthemic yet catchy song of moving on was downloaded some 5.3 million times in the US, that doesn't mean he made $5 million from it.

South African cartoonist Zapiro is famous for his sharply observant cartooning and also for standing up to constant and onerous political pressures because of his observations. Most famously he was sued by the Prime Minister of South Africa for defamation—but as this profile at PEN.org shows, he's always been at the center of controversy reserved for those who tell the truth.

Grace Bello has taken the bold step of going to cartoonists and asking them for sex advice -- and posting the results on Nerve. The results may shock you. Not really, but we had to say that, just because "cartoonists" and "sex" were long considered a bad match --unless you were one of those swinging '60s Don Draper cartoonists in the NCS, of course. Anyway, back to the present day. Rick Altergott on the pecking order:

If you're wondering why Twitter and Facebook suddenly blew up with the name of artist Jason Pearson, he was having a low moment and the comics community has rallied on a Friday afternoon with helping words and deeds.

The creator of BODY BAGS, Pearson has done work on tons of comics over the years. His stylish art has an especial soft spot for drawing the ladies, as the Catwomen art shows.

And in case you are wondering, the comics community has a big, big heart. No matter how silly or stupid things get, I am always grateful to be a part of this world.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

If you've seen cartoonist Alec Longstreth in recent years, you are probably wondering what religion he joined that prevented him from cutting his hair or shaving his beard for three years. It was the religion of comics: as explained in this interview, Longstreth vowed not to shave until his comic BASEWOOD was finished -- which took three years. During this time, Longstreth cut quite a figure -- his beard was not just an earnest but under-achieving sprouting, but a full on man-garden at the height of summer. And in about an hour, with the release party for his minicomic PHASE 7, Longstreth is finally about to go under the razor.

Toonseum, the Pittsburgh-based comics museum, has teamed with East End Brewing Company to produce Illustration Ale, a pen-and-ink friendly brew that has six different labels by illustrators. Ed Piskor has posted the process for his label which features Wally Wood:

In the words of Charlie Brown.....ARRRRRRRGH.

Well, now this is nice! The New Yorker is releasing a "Cartoons of the Year" special issue tomorrow, edited by Robert Mankoff, the cartoon guru for the magazine. The issue features more than 250 cartoons by Charles Barsotti, Glen Baxter, Harry Bliss, David Borchart, Pat Byrnes, Roz Chast, Tom Cheney, Frank Cotham, Michael Crawford, Leo Cullum, Joe Dator, Drew Dernavich, Matthew Diffee, Liza Donnelly, J. C. Duffy, Bob Eckstein, Emily Flake, Felipe Galindo, Mort Gerberg, Alex Gregory, Sam Gross, William Haefeli, William Hamilton, Trevor Hoey, Carolita Johnson, John Kane, Zachary Kanin, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Farley Katz, Edward Koren, Robert Leighton, Lee Lorenz, Robert Mankoff, Michael Maslin, Ariel Molvig, P. S. Mueller, Paul Noth, John O’Brien, Jason Patterson, Danny Shanahan, Michael Shaw, David Sipress, Barbara Smaller, Karen Sneider, Mick Stevens, Julia Suits, Ward Sutton, Tom Toro, P. C. Vey, Kim Warp, Christopher Weyant, Gahan Wilson, and Jack Ziegler.

Last year, R. Crumb announced he wouldn't be working for the New Yorker any more after one of his covers was rejected with no stated reason. Now VICE magazine's Nadja Sayej has unearthed the cover as (of all things) the illustration for a bookmark in the Danish catalog from the Venice Biennale art show. It was for a story on gay marriage and shows what may (or may not) be a drag king and drag queen applying for a marriage license.

The featured guests for this Decembers Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival have been announced, and it's pretty spectacular: CF, Jack Davis, Phoebe Gloeckner, Lisa Hanawalt, Chip Kidd, David Mazzucchelli, John Porcellino and Brian Ralph. If you are like us, you are most excited about the chance to meet the legendary Jack Davis, who was not only an EC Comics mainstay, but one of the original MAD artists and one of the most influential illustrators of the 60s and 70s with his unmistakeable "bigfoot" style. So YEAH. Amazing.

Cartoonist/journalist Susie Cagle has a full report on the events on the night of her arrest along with 100 other Occupy Oakland protesters, from the fires at the barricades to jailhouse indignities.

On October 21st, Stephen Bissette from The Center for Cartoon Studies met up with Oliver Goodenough from The Vermont Law School to discuss Jack Kirby and his relationship with Marvel Comics. The Comics Journal put the audio up and it is a good listen with a nice James Sturm introduction