Andertoons Cartoon Blog

I've Moved Again

Just a heads up that we moved back to our old hosting company over the weekend.

I tried one of those cheapo ones for a year or so and decided my sanity is worth the few extra bills per month.

Anyway, if you notice anything funky at our favorite cartoon website I'd appreciate a heads up.

Thanks!

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Today's Work

Here's some random samplings of some custom cartoons I did today.

(I'd tell you what they were for, but then I'd have to kill you.)

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Day Gig Art

My first job out of college was as a salesman for Allstar Fasteners, a manufacturer of screws in the Chicago burbs.

I was hanging up my trombone and starting to figure out cartooning and was also interested in the internet. I managed to convince the owners to invest in a website to increase sales.

The two owners are good guys and didn't want to appear vane by posting a photo of themselves, but agreed some mention of them was appropriate at the end of the online "tour." So they hired a caricaturist to come in and draw them.

The results were mediocre at best; the kind of drawing you'd get a the fair or something. So I redrew them was able to justify drawing on company time.

Thus began years of finding ways to cartoon at my day gig; sometimes for company projects, sometimes when no one was looking.

Anyway, here's some early art that was probably my very first online:

Technorati Tags: andertoons, cartooning, cartoons

Toons in Stereo

I've recently been looking for an engaging (and hopefully quiet) toy for my son to help ease the arrival of his upcoming little sister.

We're not huge fans of toys that play for kids. You know -- press this button and watch it wiggle, blink and play music. I hate those.

So we've considered Tinkertoys, ColorForms, K'Nex and the like. But the one that most caught the cartoonist's fancy in me was the good old Fisher-Price ViewMaster.

While looking for reels to go with it, I found this great site with plenty of recent, and not-so-recent sets available.

Here's just a few of my faves:

"Clark Kent's first job on the Daily Planet Was reporting the opening of the Moon Gem Depository. Meanwhile, the arch criminal Mikro planned to steal the Moon Gem, but first Superman needed to be gotten rid of. Aided by his robot, Computer Crook Mikro went to work. And in the end Superman had saved the Moon Gem!"

Word is Mikro's working on yet another diabolical plan code-named "Vista."

"Bazooka Joe and his little pal. Herman, like most of the kids in Prairie City, headed for the Big Top when they heard the Dingling Brothers Circus was in town. And their great adventure began there ..."

Hollywood insiders report a current bidding war for an adaptation already creating a lot of Oscar buzz.

"Stanley says, Gramps, I don't know whether I can fill those magic shows like you did. Just then they hear fire alarms. The library is on fire! Stanley puts on the magic shoes and ... whoosh, Hammerman saves the librarian from the burning building. Well done, Stanley! More adventures of Hammerman and the archenemy Marmeister. From the 1990 TV series."

Parachute pants in 3D! What's not to love?!

No description on this one is listed, but I'm betting Beetle gets the crap beaten out of him after sleeping too late.

I'd buy it though if it had that hottie Ms. Buxley!

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Yes, I'm a Nerd...

...and probably the 500th fanboy posting this as you read it, but Spider-Man has always been my kinda superhero (gotta love a smartass) and I've really dug the first two flicks.

There's apparently a new poster out for the upcoming Spider-Man 3 (click thumbnail to enlarge) featuring our webhead in a black suit. If you don't know what that implies, I won't ruin it.

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Mike Lynch's Blog

I'm very pleased to announce another great cartoon blog in the making!

My cartoon compatriot, my brother in bristol board, my... guy I'm close to in a gag related metaphor, Mike Lynch, has launched his MySpace blog with all sorts of good cartoon chat.

There's a Krazy Kat mystery, a look inside gag cartooning, and a big orange cartoon-related cat that's actually entertaining!

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I Continue To Ask That You Kiss My Ass

Back in October there were plenty of reviews of The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. Most of them were your garden variety "Watterson is a genius" stuff, and Mark Luce's review for The Kansas City Star (no longer available online) was no different, other than this quote that really ticked me off...

"Watterson uses the lowest of culture (comics) for decidedly intellectual dialogue."

So I told Luce to kiss my ass. Done and done. Or so I thought...

Today I received this email from Mr. Luce:

Mr. Anderson,

I came across your dismantling of my review while PDFing my old review to a colleague. While I have no truck with criticism, I do, frankly, not like being told to kiss someone's ass.

My comment on cartoons being the lowest of culture is not a reflection on my hatred of comics, it is rather a reflection of reality.

When I teach the graphic novel of Kafka's Metamporphosis (Kuyper), I speak at length about the difference between highbrow and lowbrow. This is not a differentiation that I created, but rather one that exists whatever we feel about comics. Imagine trying to explain to parents who demanded to know why their kids were reading comic books to get an idea of where I am coming from.

My hunch is that if you had actually read my review you would see how much I adore cartoons, cartooning, illustration, whatever you want to call it. The review was about the magic of cartoons and being a kid, my goal not to trash comics but to celebrate them.

I have seen your work before, and I like it. But next time you ask someone to kiss your ass and link to a web site for their job, I ask that you fully read the review.

Thanks and best of luck.
Mark Luce

ps I like your first name.

(You know, I wasn't going to give this any more blog time, but this is almost too easy.)

Dear Mr. Luce,

To those parent complaining about their children reading comic books, I'd refer them to this article from The Christian Science Monitor. I think it's a fair look at the genre in education.

I also disagree again with comics being inherently "lowbrow," or the "lowest of culture", perceived reality of the book review literati though it may be. What about Lichtenstein? (Personally, I consider "Fear Factor" the cultural bottom.)

OK, I'm biased. I'm tired of cartoons being crapped all over, and this latest Danish thing isn't helping. But if you're looking for an apology, you're not getting it.

Yours in low culture,

Mark Anderson

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Color Comparisons

I recently sold a cartoon for greeting card usage that has been published previously in Reader's Digest.

Of course the card will be in color, but the size I usually work in for the Digest is much smaller than the final greeting card, so I had to do the color again from scratch.

Just for fun, I made sure I didn't look at the original Digest color (finished 11/14/04 according to the file info), just to see how different the greeting card version (finished today) might be.

Turns out I'm just not that creative when it comes to color (click to enlarge)...

Digest on the left, card on the right.

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Oliphant on Them Dam' Muhammad Pictures

There's a wonderful article in the Trib today by Pat Oliphant regarding the current Danish cartoon debacle.

...the initial reaction in the political cartooning community to what some see as a blatant, brave exercise of free speech in a free press in a free society was somewhat breathless admiration, so unused are we to seeing in newspapers such unfettered, politically incorrect use of this art. But what will the reaction be to all this among the high priests and prophets of the Counters of the Beans?

If there is any reaction, it will most likely be to make even more difficult the work of the cartoonist who has things to say and wishes to make a critical, legitimate and salient point, and make more remote the possibility of that point's ever being seen in print. As the euphoria fades, we may be left the winners of a Pyrrhic victory.

Good lord the man's well spoken!

I'm not going to comment on this whole thing as volumes upon volumes have already been heaped by men and women smarter and more eloquent than myself, but I never thought I would wish cartoons weren't in the news so much.

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Stupid Comics

I love bad movies. Not "I never really connected with the main character" bad, but "I can see the wires on the paper plate UFO" bad. (Check out the pics of my office. I, like the 40 year old virgin, actually have a framed "MST3K:The Movie" poster on my wall.)

So it's no wonder I also love bad comics. And there's plenty over at Stupid Comics. Here's just a small sampling (click to enlarge)...

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