Characters From Cheating #8

Roskopp evolution.. Jim Phillips.

You all should know by now that my biggest inspiration dating back to my childhood is the epic illustrator for Santa Cruz skateboards, Jim Phillips.. I just can't blog about his influence enough on this site. I was flipping through his book, Art of Jim Phillips, and I got lost in nostalgia for the Roskopp series of graphics. I believe I had every later one, but not the first two. Enjoy.

 I had literally 10 of the "face" deck below.. the round tail was revolutionary. I learned so much on this deck below, that it defines my dedicated skating years.

Characters From Cheating #7

Home at last.. sketching on airplane..

Got home to Montauk from Singapore last Sunday, and I've been doing next to nothing for a week solid. Laying around enjoying (or not) the rain and the cold, letting my skate injuries heal. I love the contrast of the two places I live and work. Below.. airplanes are great for sketching, and given a 20 hour flight, that's exactly what i did to stay occupied:

Below.. home at last, Bud Lime in hand.. my favorite beer in the world.

Characters From Cheating #6

Characters From Cheating #5

Characters from "Cheatin'" #4

Characters from "Cheatin'" #3

'Jake' from "Cheatin'" #3

Baron von Munchausen - Gustav Dore

Hello Junketeers- speaking of Junkies- its well known that I'm a junkie for old cartoon books especially ones with no punchlines; visual gags. So every time I travel to a new city or country I like to scout the used book shops for old out of print books. I've gotten a pretty good collection. I have every book about Charlie Addams and I have an all most complete collection of VIP (Virgil Partch) books.

I think this obsession began when my folks gave me an old copy of Andre Francois cartoons when I was a kid. I still have and treasure that book.

It's gotten to a point where I have to cover my eyes when I pass an antique book shop, for fear I'll go in there and spend all my money. At this point I have to be careful because my book shelves are beginning to collapse due to over weight cartoon books.

In any case, about 15 years ago I discovered a large edition of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, illustrated by the great Gustave Dore. It was from a British publisher, Cassell, Petter and Galpin, but oddly there was no publishing date, but it seems to be 100 years old. I got it for a great price ($25) because it was falling apart. The spine was busted and the pages were quite loose. I took it to a friend of mine and he fixed the spine for about $100.

But the strange thing is, I forgot to read the damn book! Well having just finished a wonderful book, Gilliam on Gilliam I remembered my old edition of Von Munchausen and took it down and began to read it. I should have Netflixed the Terry Gilliam version to compare to. But I do recall the sequences in the Middle East and the world's fastest man. But what was particularly interesting was the Gustave Dore art work which was on every page (Man, that guy was prolific!) I only knew the french genius' work with huge religious themed books, “Dante's Inferno”, Milton's “Paradise Lost”, and stuff like that. But, these drawings were quite the opposite. Whimsical, humorous and surreal, What a revelation! In fact I remember about 20 years ago when I used to hang out with a Brilliant character artist, the late, David Levine, and he said I should check out Mr. Dore's humorous works and I thought he was crazy. But if you look at his pen and ink humorous sketches compared to David Levine's you can see the huge influence the french artist had on David.

In fact I was so inspired I may try to create an animated version of the legendary tall tales of the Baron. They are public domain, by the way.

Thanks for your interest!

Dave Devries interpretations of kids drawings..

 

Illustrator Dave Devries has a lot of intersting comic work, but this grabbed me over everything else.. i've never been one of those people to be in awe of kids drawings, but this is a total different way of appreciating them! enjoy.

ASIFA Awards

It seems like the annual ASIFA east animation always ushers in springtime in NYC. The weathers’ always beautiful and its a great excuse to wear casual summer wear.

This year I was notified that our studio was winning two prizes. “Catalyst” in the commercial category and “Guard Dog Global Jam” in the experimental category. Imagine Bill Plympton in the experimental category!

Not only that, but some of the best films were in the experimental section. New films by Karen Aqua, Janet Perlman and Brett Thompson.

So I was wonderfully amazed when I won 1st place (actually I didn’t win it, there were 180 artist who really created the film!)

After the ceremonies were concluded and all the films were screened we all retired upstairs at the New School and had food and drinks generously served by Nancy and Jennifer and we gossiped about which films received prizes and which films didn't. Fortunately no one hated my film (at least not to my face). Although I heard some nasty gossip about some other winning films (no names).

I introduced myself to Jane Wu, who did the charming award winner, “Book Girl and Cabinet Girl”! I got very drunk and started ranking on the winners.... No I'm kidding. Actually all the winners were pretty good. Even my Scribble partner Pat Smith won a prize for his excellent “Masks”.

So next year be sure to enter your short to ASIFA East or at least come to the party - it's a Blast!

Character from "Cheatin'" #2

Screaming Man

Laughing Man