Turkey Day Warm Up

Late Night Spot

TakePart.Com asked me to do a cartoon on World Food Day, which was friday of last week. A topic that normally wouldn't lend itself to a cartoon but I took it as a challenge. If you'd like to learn more about the ongoing food crises all over the world follow this link.

You're In Good Hands

Check out this cartoon at TakePart.Com!

Guido Guy

Check out this character I designed! Positively offensive!

Get Real

Pick up today's Los Angeles Times and you'll find this cartoon on page A35. I was told they're going to post this on latimes.com so I'll link to it there when it's up!

Survivor: Wasilla

I'll be posting more of these cartoons soon. You can view the weekly cartoon at TakePart!

Human Nature

This cartoon appears in today's Los Angeles Times, page A21. It was fun for me to exercise my editorial cartoon muscle after not using it for so long. I dusted off the cobwebs and got down to business though. I did at least four different cartoons and this was the last. The caption really didn't come until the end, right as I sent it out. Sometimes it's the process of doing the thing that produces the end result.

Here is a poster I did commemorating the death of MJ. Follow this link if you're interested in buying it!

Story Muscle

I’ve always felt that drawing was like any other form of exercise; the more you practice the better you become. It’s hard to get worse at something if you practice enough. Except for, maybe, golf. It turns out that coming up with cartoon ideas, or story ideas, sort of works the same way. The more you exercise that muscle the stronger it gets.

I recently took a storyboarding workshop with Karl Gnass at the Animation Guild. The point of the session was to create stories through gestural drawing. Specifically, by setting up 1-2-3’s, or an Action, an Effect, finished by a Result. Most stories, short and long, work in this fashion. The evil guy concocts a plan, drinks the evil potion, and turns into a monster.











Karl brought in an actor and he did a wonderful job modeling. He had a suitcase filled with simple costumes and changed them frequently. He’d hold a pose for a few minutes so we could capture the gesture. If we were told this was the “first” position, we would then take a few minutes and draw the second and third actions from imagination. Likewise, if we drew the last pose then we’d take a few moments and draw the first and second poses, simply making them up.

I found this a fun way to exercise that creative muscle. It forces you to imagine something that wasn’t there before--- a story! With a beginning, middle and an end. No matter how simple. The other great thing is that the drawings don’t have to be great. They just have to convey movement and energy.





I think the clown costume was my favorite.

It's That Time Again

It's that time again. Time to cower in the darkness; the only light present is the soft glow of fear emanating from the little box. Remember SARS? Bird Flu? West Nile Virus? Killer Bees? There's always something new to be afraid of. Better go out and buy something.

Internet Vacation

Well, I’m all tanned, rested and reinvigorated from my Internet vacation! It feels so good to be back. I nearly forgot every username and password I have.

I’ve been drawing more than ever and will provide info on the different types of projects I’m working on soon. I'll be back blogging regularly in no time! For now here’s a couple items:



I’ve been doing some illustrations for the Los Angeles Times! Most editors and management at the Daily News had an unhealthy dislike for their crosstown rival. I always thought it was a far superior paper and have enjoyed it for a long time. So, it feels good to see my work on the Op Ed pages. The above is one of the first illustrations they asked me to do of California senator Dianne Feinstein.



Here is another of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

On another note......

It’s Earth Day tomorrow and I wonder, does the planet know it’s Earth Day? Is it celebrating deep within its fiery core? There’s no way to know, I suppose, without throwing yourself into a volcano to find out. Here is an Earth Day cartoon for the globe and everyone living on it.




I'm also drawing one cartoon a week for TakePart.com, a social action blog. This cartoon will be up all day tomorrow so be sure to check it out!

Red Carpet

In case you were wondering what the stars will be wearing this year......

Darwin Day

Today we are celebrating 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin. Much maligned by the religious and true believers he is certainly one of humanities greatest thinkers. Here's a nice piece about the origins of Darwin.

Corporate Ladder

Bunny Madness

So, the first thing I thought I'd do with my unemployment from newspaper cartooning was take a red-eye flight to New York, put on a bunny sock puppet and play a multi-colored baby piano.



This is from a scene called "Bunnyland" in which a rabbit goes to heaven and finds a crazy bed with two sock puppets having sex next to a piano. The rabbit has gone to this place because he's been eaten by a large green monster with purple horns.




All this bunny madness was for a video my brother was making. A monster chases a bunny through the woods and he lands in a graveyard and makes his way into the heavens. Sean came up with the concept and I helped design some of the sets. He and small crew of talented individuals painted the sets and built puppet monsters and rabbits. Curious Pictures were kind enough to let us invade their studio for a weekend and shoot this crazy thing. Here's a sketch of the graveyard:



And what it turned into:



Here are some headstones I desined for the bunny cemetery and what they turned into:





I also helped assemble all of this. It was a ton of fun as you can imagine. There's a cut away scene in which some sock puppet bunnies are cowering in fear in the middle of the woods. I designed this one and my brother painted it beautifully:




The cool perspective came from the way it was laid out:



All in all it was a fantastic trip. I met and worked with a lot of really talented people, got to make some new connections and catch up on some old ones, and otherwise create interesting things. All the footage will now go into the editing room and hopefully something will come out on the other end. I'll be sure to post it here as soon as it's finished.

Top Chef

The Good Ol' World Sandwich joke! Ha!

Big Dick

MR. LEHRER: Okay, okay. Why do you believe that the public approval, at least measured by the polls and other things, is so low – in your case, almost historically low?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Have you checked it recently? I don’t know what it is.

MR. LEHRER: I have, I have. The – in terms of history, polling goes on 70 years. The only vice president that’s ever had a lower approval rating is Dan Quayle.

Can you believe that? Cheney is more popular than Quayle?!!!! Clearly something is horribly wrong with this world. If you want some more Dick you can read the transcript from the here.

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night!!

Because we the people of these United States suffer from a uniquely American case of amnesia, George W. Bush and his cronies will all be but a faded memory in a matter of months. Memories of a political time so rotten, so insipid, so filled with emptiness--they must purged from our collective mind. Yet, their policies of greed, torture, corruption and imperial ambition will endure for generations. The destruction they have wrought all across the globe and at home will not be so easily forgotten among those whose lives have been destroyed.

So, let’s celebrate their departure!!! Let us rise up and thank Providence that their reign of terror has ended. Send the Yellow Rose of Texas back to the dusty little Crawford town where he belongs! Send the greatest villain in American history back to his job at Halliburton! But mostly, let us say goodbye to the worst presidency ever to befall this great nation and let us vow to never, ever, let it happen again.