Drawn

Here’s a video (yes, I’m making you click thru for a good reason) about the importance of caricature and political cartoons, in relation to a petition for better public recognition in the form of awards just like our fellow artists get.

I have been publicly critical for some time about Canada Council’s structure and dated policy, which excludes “commercial artists” (never adequately defined) from support. Illustrators of all stripes are prevented from applying for the art funding, with the exception of graphic novelists under Literature, and that’s a recent change that doesn’t go far enough. In my opinion, the lack of research & development opportunities perpetuates the very aspects of “commercial art” that the policy-makers disliked some half-century ago when they put this policy in place: reliance on safe, market-driven, or American precedents.

Now, Canada’s political cartoonists have mobilized to make change and get the recognition as a serious art form and social force that they deserve. Sign the petition, and make all the arts equal.

jcstearns:

Visual Storytelling on Steroids

This is one slide from an incredible example of how graphic journalists are mashing up audio, photography and illustration to tell complex and in-depth stories.

This piece from Luke Radl focuses on the NATO protests in Chicago last month. Matt Bors of Cartoon Movement notes in an email that this may be the first cartoon in which all the text is in HTML, therefore search engine friendly.

Click through the entire piece, listen to the audio and check out the photos here: http://www.cartoonmovement.com/icomic/38 

P.S. For more great graphics journalism see Susie Cagle’s Tumblr.

(via futurejournalismproject)

futurejournalismproject:

Reporting on Africa Through Interactive Comics

via Color Lines:

I ask Bunmi Oloruntoba why he works in comics; his answer speaks volumes.

“In many ways, the medium is like the African continent itself: it’s misrepresented,” he says. “When it comes to the continent, you know, it’s the conflict, it’s war, it’s the famine. And in comics, it’s Spiderman, the Hulk, superheroes! One genre within the medium has grown so large that it eclipses the medium, and people can’t see the potential. Just like it’s hard to see the humanity, the complexity, the drive of all the things Africans are doing, because it’s been eclipsed.”

This eclipsing is what novelist Chimamanda Adichie has called the problem of the ‘single story.’ Oloruntoba, a Nigerian-born journalist and academic in Washington, D.C., is proposing a solution: collide Africa’s single-story problem against comics’ single-story problem, and see what interesting new particles appear. With literary editor Emmanuel Iduma, he runs 3Bute.com (pronounced tri-bute), adapting other writers’ stories about Africa into three-page comics — and then wrapping those comics in a ‘mashable’ layer that lets any reader dot the panels with their own public annotations. Mouse over a drawing of a laptop surrounded by partiers, and you can watch a Youtube music video of the Hausa hit they might be dancing to; mouse over a drawing of Charles Chikwanje boldly refusing to reveal the name of his gay lover on Malawi television, and get a recommendation for a biography of Bayard Rustin. It’s new-media innovation, historical context, Wikipedia rabbithole, and sometimes even loyal dissent, side by side. And all of it is a living antithesis to the single story.

FJP: What’s really neat is that 3Bute uses what they call a mash-up platform that lets writers and artists collaborate on the 3 page visualizations. Each works like a pinboard where readers can tag a story with relevant context. Visit the site and check it out.

Image: 3bute.com collaborated with the Caine Prize, Africa’s leading literary prize, to adapt all the stories shortlisted into comics. Above is a screenshot from Bombay’s Republic by Rotimi Babatunde.

This relates to our previous post on the state of editorial cartooning in Canada and the US, specifically about what was said regarding “journalistic cartooning” in other parts of the world (I’m paraphrasing).

Good morning. Tom Gauld is posting his comics on Tumblr!

Charles Addams

(Source: loveage-moondream, via groeneinkt)

soupsoup:

David Fitzsimmons/The Arizona Star

Beautiful illustrations from French illustrator Gwendal La Bec — nice loose, scratchy lines and dry brush effects. Looks so effortless.

(via How Hard Is It To Get a Cartoon Into The New Yorker? - By James Sturm - Slate Magazine)

James Sturm writes about his experiences drawing and submitting cartoons to the New Yorker.

cartoon food chain (by Justin White)

heyoscarwilde:

Green Parade

art by Arnold Roth (circa 1958) :: scanned from Humbug :: Fantagraphics Books :: 2009 

Sam Gross: Sex, Race, and Frogs | The Comics Journal

New Yorker cartoonist Sam Gross numbers and catalogues every cartoon he has drawn.

It’s from a great interview at the new Comics Journal site with one of the funniest New Yorker cartoonists there is.

My work hasn’t changed because of The New Yorker. I don’t do things for The New Yorker; I do things for me. I don’t do anything for The New Yorker because I operate on the premise that Bob Mankoff can be there today and gone tomorrow, and the same with David Remnick. Somebody else could come in and have a totally different outlook and I will either fit in or not fit in. If I’ve geared my work toward the people that were there before, I’m basically embedded with these older people and I’m screwed. But I am my own person. You either take me or leave me, simple as that.

Food cartoons by Berger and Wyse

Joe Berger and Pascal Wyse have a weekly food cartoon in the Guardian. I’ve never seen these until now, but they’re pretty great.

Their site has plenty more, and don’t miss the animation page, for stuff like this:

docshaner:

It’s not even from Peanuts but this is absolutely one of my favorite Charles Schulz cartoons ever.  I laugh every time I see it.