David Chelsea's Blog, page 19

In The Studio With Jacob And David

Ever wish you could eavesdrop on the chatter between me and my sometime assistant Jacob Mercy? Well the first of what promises to be many episode of our new tandem podcast is up on iTunes. The talk ranges from Tim’s Vermeer to Milo Manara to Thomas Eakins’s habit of tracing from photographs, but the overall stress is on comics. Lend an ear!

David Chelsea is listening to: The Kingdom of Speech

by Tom Wolfe

Two By Rebecca, One By Ben

Snow Angel Signing at Words & Pictures

Mark your calendars- this Saturday at 11 I’ll be signing copies of my recent SNOW ANGEL collection published by Dark Horse, as well as demonstrating art and coloring techniques (including airbrush) ably assisted by my daughter Rebecca, at Books with Pictures, a new comics shop at 1100 SE Division St, in Portland, OR. The store, which opened in June, carries a wide range of books, including super hero comics, indie comics, kids’ picture books, all-ages comics, LGBT comics, and small-run handmade comics.

David Chelsea is reading: Whistlestop: My Favorite Stories from Presidential Campaign History

by John Dickerson

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/145...

This announcement from the Books With Pictures site says it all:

Snow Angel Signing

Saturday, Sept 17, 11 am – 1 pm

Snow Angel is an ordinary little girl who acquires magical powers when she makes an angel in the snow. Featured frequently in the pages of DARK HORSE PRESENTS, Snow Angel is now starring in her own comics collection from Dark Horse. Join Snow Angel creator David Chelsea and other members of the Snow Angel team to learn about this gorgeous all-ages comic, enjoy a reading, and explore how the art was made, including an airbrush demonstration!

SNOW ANGEL airbrush panel in process
Finished SNOW ANGEL panel

If you’re in town, drop on by, and bring the kids!

What You’ve Been Missing on Patreon

I have been so busy over recent weeks that I have not kept up with blog posts, though I have been posting material to my Patreon page on a fairly regular basis: drawings of Tom Terrific from when I was five, end strip comics drawn at the beach, and the like. I have also managed to keep up a page a week on ARE YOU BEING WATCHED?, my Reality TV webcomic. Right now we’re in the middle of a return to Expulsion Island, Mugg’s second chance to appear on the Survivor-like program from which he was ceremoniously voted off earlier in the story. One of his fellow contestants is a slumming celebrity you might recognize:

David Chelsea is watching: Series 7: The Contenders (Marathon Edition)

starring Brooke Smith

Mugg and Mandy are the final two contestants this time, but they learn that the producers have changed the rules, and instead of facing a vote from a jury of their peers (or barring that, a selection by Nate Silver), they must choose weapons and fight to the death. Mandy seems surprisingly cool with it:

The sequence where Mugg and Mandy are stalking each other includes an homage to Milo Manara’s controversial Spider-Woman cover from a few years back. I am indebted to my colorist and sometime assistant Jacob Mercy for coming up with a situation in which that cheesecake pose is not only appropriate, but necessary- crawling through a cave over sloping ground:

Readers may assume this plot twist is borrowed from The Hunger Games, but actually I had more in mind my favorite film ever about Reality TV, Series 7: The Contenders, a satire from 2001 starring one of my favorite actresses, Brooke Smith (who is possibly best known as the kidnapped girl in Silence Of The Lambs):

By the way, if you are coming late to ARE YOU BEING WATCHED?, or missed some weeks and want to catch up, check out the Tumblr archive, starting here.

Also recently posted, a 7 page comic featuring Singar & Mingo:

Singar and Mingo were two little tomato characters in bedtime stories I used to tell Ben and Rebecca. This comic is an adaptation of one of their favorites. I drew it in seven hours as part of my second 24 Hour Comics session on August 29th, 2004. This story has appeared in print twice, as part of the 24 HOUR COMICS ALL-STARS anthology from About Comics, and the Dark Horse collection Everybody Gets It Wrong! and Other Stories, Volume 1: David Chelsea’s 24-Hour Comics, but because of the limitation of printing technology, without the red marker color I used for emphasis. Now here it is as I originally drew it.

Patreon is a reader-supported site, but all comics content is free. If you like what you see, tell your friends, and $how Your $upport!

24 Hour Comics: The Documentary

A 24-hour comic is a 24-page comic book written, drawn, and completed in 24 hours. As I have mentioned before, I believe myself to be the World Record Holder in number of 24 Hour Comics completed, sixteen in all. My last 24 Hour Comics session was in May 2013 at Things From Another World in Portland (I’ve been busy, but I hope to draw at least one more later this year), which was recorded for posterity by documentary filmmaker Milan Erceg (who in a prior life served as assistant on my book PERSPECTIVE!), in his long-awaited documentary 24 HOUR COMIC. Three years in the editing, Milan now has a fine film ready to send out to the festival circuit, and you can have a preliminary look by viewing the trailer at the official website here.

David Chelsea is reading:

Harvey Kurtzman: The Man Who Created Mad and Revolutionized Humor in America

Milan Erceg

The film features an appearance by 24 Hour Comic originator Scott McCloud, who started it all back in 1990:

Scott McCloud

By the way, you can read my comic from that 2013 session, ALL DAY AND ALL OF THE NIGHT, on my Patreon page, starting here. It is a slightly self-referential story about drawing a 24 Hour Comic, and it serves as the basis for the second part (that I haven’t drawn yet) of the webcomic currently serializing on Patreon and Tumblr, ARE YOU BEING WATCHED?

The other subjects of the film are worthies all: Opal Pence, Rachel Nabors, Paul Guinan, Tom Lechner, Jacob Mercy, Pete Soloway and my daughter Rebecca Celsi (she’s kind of not that much in the trailer; blink and you’ll miss her).

Opal Pence
Rachel Nabors
Paul Guinan

Paul Guinan’s thoroughly brilliant comic from the session featuring his steampunk automaton Boilerplate is available in minicomic form at his website.

Jacob Mercy and Pete Soloway
Pete Soloway
Rebecca Celsi

I will keep you up to date on any future screenings or video release of 24 HOUR COMIC as I hear about them. Thanks for reading!

The Modern Love Podcast with Titus Burgess

The Modern Love Podcast has revived yet another of my old New York Times illustrations and put it on the web. In this episode, the actor Tituss Burgess (“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “30 Rock”) reads the essay “A Prince Charming for the Prom (Not Ever After, Though),” about a gay student who forgoes the prom of his dreams to help his female friends realize theirs.

David Chelsea Is Reading: THE GOLDFINCH By Donna Tartt

Titus Burgess

The essay was written by Frank Paiva in 2005 during his senior year of high school. Today he lives in New York, where he is a writer, actor and tour guide. You can find Mr. Paiva on Twitter.

New Stuff On Patreon: WELCOME TO THE ZONE Rebooted And More!

I have been preoccupied with edits on my latest book, PERSPECTIVE IN ACTION, for the past few weeks, and so I have not been putting up regular blog posts about my Patreon page. However, I have been faithfully posting material every week – fan art from my illustration days, cards from the BLOCKBUSTERS OF RHYTHM & BLUES set, and so forth, as well as new pages of my web comic ARE YOU BEING WATCHED?

David Chelsea Is Reading:

Peter Arno: The Mad, Mad World of The New Yorker’s Greatest Cartoonist

by Regan Arts.

In addition, last week I posted the first five pages- beginning with this one– of WELCOME TO THE ZONE, my distopian 1995 graphic novel set in a New York neighborhood much like the East Village, just in time for the Republican national convention which nominated Donald J Trump, whose doppelgänger in the story is real estate developer Ronald Duck.

WELCOME TO THE ZONE cover

This is a version which readers already familiar with the book will not have seen. Originally, I drew the art in a noir-ish pencil style, with a full range of gray tones. Since I did not trust halftone reproduction of the time, I converted that style into line by making photocopies of my pencil drawings and inking over the copies. This resulted in a very grainy, stippled-looking style for the final art. Halftone reproduction is not an issue when putting art online, so I have gone back to the original drawings and rescanned them, also reformatting the original square pages into standard comics pages (21 years ago I was heedless of commercial reality, but if and when this new version of WELCOME TO THE ZONE makes it into print, I definitely want the book to fit onto comic shop racks).

First page of WELCOME TO THE ZONE as originally published, 1995.
Page one of Patreon version.

In addition to Ronald Duck, the five page sequence includes an attack on hapless tourists by a pack of giant wild dogs, and an attack on a helpless folk singer by a gang of knife-wielding skeletons. I will be adding WELCOME TO THE ZONE pages every month as I complete them, but if you would like to read ahead to the end, the original book is out of print but widely available from online sources such as Amazon:

Previous blog post about Ronald Duck, and other Donald Trump caricatures of mine.

Interview with comics writer Michael Aushenker about WELCOME TO THE ZONE.

Meanwhile on ARE YOU BEING WATCHED?, my reality TV-meets-the-Faust-legend webcomic, the Kibble Kitchen sequence in which Mugg and Mandy competed to make cat food is now concluded. This week Mugg drops in on the devil while he is up to his latest version of routine mischief, hunting Northern Spotted Owls:

Kibble Kitchen included a final bow for our recently deceased cat Bingo (star of his own 24 hour comic, BINGO THE CAT). He appears as one of three feline judges:

Three Cool Cats

Bingo’s successor, Winston, is still a frisky kitten and has yet to appear in my work, but no doubt he will:

Winston

Patreon is a reader-supported site, but all comics content is free. If you like what you see, tell your friends, and $how Your $upport!

By the way, if you are coming late to ARE YOU BEING WATCHED?, or missed some weeks and want to catch up, check out the Tumblr archive, starting here.

OK, Here’s ANOTHER Modern Love Podcast

Right on the heels of last week’s podcast with Catherine Keener comes another audio version of a Modern Love column I illustrated for the New York Times back in the day. In this case, it’s the very first one from October 2004. Veep and Arrested Development star Tony Hale reads Steve Friedman’s essay about a guy who can’t quite grasp that his girl is trying to let him down easy.

David Chelsea is watching:Rock That Uke

starring Janet Klein

Tony Hale

Another Modern Love Podcast

Here’s another podcast version of a MODERN LOVE column I illustrated for the New York Times back in the day, with the illustration nicely displayed. The essay “Live Without Me, I’ll Understand” by Katherine Friedman Holland is read by the actress Catherine Keener, familiar from The Forty Year Old Virgin, Capote, Being John Malkovich, and every Nicole Holofcener movie ever.

David Chelsea is reading: Forgotten Fantasy – Sunday Comics, 1900-1915: Visions from Lyonel Feininger, Winsor McCay and Many More (Giants of the American Comic Strip)

Catherine Keener

David Finally Makes It Into The American Bystander!

I had a very odd experience on Facebook a few months ago. I noticed an item posted by my friend Howard Cruse, about a new humor magazine called The American Bystander, which was mounting a crowdsource campaign to get into print. What struck me as odd was that I had been peripherally involved with a magazine by the very same name launched by National Lampoon editor Brian McConnachie in 1982 that never made it past prototype.

David Chelsea is listening to: M Train

by Patti Smith

The American Bystander: The 1982 prototype

I was contributing illustrations to the Lampoon at the time (under my legal name David Celsi), and had heard about the project through the Lampoon grapevine. By the time I came aboard, the prototype was all full up, but I contributed to a group page of written-down dreams. I was promised space in the magazine one it began regular publication, which never happened.

My 1982 contribution

I immediately posted a comment to the Facebook thread, asking Howard if there was any connection to the 1982 American Bystander, and he replied that the name was no coincidence- that McConnachie’s baby had risen from the grave after 34 years, with Brian very much involved. When I mentioned that I had contributed to the original issue, Michael Gerber, one of McConnachie’s co-editors, asked me to submit work, and now I have a page in Issue #2, which came out this month.

My page in The American Bystander

Here’s what I wrote for the contributor’s page:

David Chelsea has lived in a state of suspended animation for the past 34 years. When THE AMERICAN BYSTANDER was in the planning stages back in 1982, David was tapped as a possible contributor, but the only work of his that made it into the prototype issue was a single paragraph in a group page of written-down dreams. Imagine his surprise at seeing an announcement on Facebook that THE BYSTANDER was finally beginning regular publication. All that has happened in the intervening years– the thousands of illustrations in publications like THE READER’S DIGEST, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORK OBSERVER, SPY, and THE NATIONAL LAMPOON, the awards, the world record sixteen 24 hour comics, the seven (so far) published books, 25 years of loving marriage with his wife Eve, the two brilliant and creative children they have raised, all of this has been mere prelude to David finally seeing his artwork in the pages of THE AMERICAN BYSTANDER.

Michael selected four of my ANAPEST strips, which all appear together on a single page. I am in extremely good company; the other contributors include not only Howard Cruse and Brian McConnachie, but two figures from my personal comics pantheon, Rick Geary and M.K.Brown, as well as an array of other heavyweights like Ron Barrett, Roz Chast, Shannon Wheeler, Peter Kuper, Jack Ziegler, Mimi Pond, Rick Meyerowitz, Shari Flenniken, and B.K.Taylor, many of whom also contributed to the 1982 prototype, and a few who were not even born in 1982, like Kate Beaton and Julia Wertz.

Pages from The American Bystander #2

The American Bystander Issue #2 is available for $25 at better newsstands, and not at all in digital form! You can order it, and Issue #1, on The American Bystander website. No doubt a crowdfunding campaign for Issue #3 is gearing up, and I will keep you posted.