David Chelsea's Blog, page 33

Wizard World Chicago: The Interview

Patric Lewandowski

I’ll have more to say about my time at Wizard World Chicago soon, but for now, here’s an interview recorded at the Con by cartoonist and Minneapolis Media Institute instructor Patric Lewandowski. The interview mostly deals with perspective and my two books on the subject, but it also touches on 24 Hour Comics and some of my recent projects like SNOW ANGEL.

David Chelsea is watching:

Rembrandt

Starring Charles Laughton

You can read the complete interview here, but here’s an excerpt:

Patric Lewandowski (PL): My students love your book. I love your book! My teacher made me read it in college. I think it’s an educational classic in the making. That said, let’s talk about the perspective book. Your background is illustration and then you got into comics. What led you to making the perspective book?

David Chelsea (DC): I had always wanted to do a book on perspective.Years and years ago, I was good friends with Gary Faigin who wrote the book on facial expressions, and he took me out to lunch with his editor who was pumping me to do a book about comics. This was before McCloud’s book and before I was into comics in a big way. I had done comics in high school, but I had dumped that for illustration when I came to New York. I said, well comics is nice, but I’m not terribly qualified to write a how-to book on comics and the editor said, “That’s okay, if you were any good, you’d be too busy to do one.”

Patric’s blog

You Know You Want More Facebook Posts.

David Chelsea is reading:

Blue Plate Special: An Autobiography of My Appetites

by Kate Christensen

Future Miami Vice star Don Johnson and future Lesbian Folk Idol Holly Near in The Magic Garden Of Stanley Sweetheart, 1970. I have never seen this movie- I mostly posted the pic because Holly totally looks like she was drawn by R. Crumb:

This cover could be the least appropriate use of stock art ever- theoretically, it’s illustrating a story about public bathrooms. Is the guy opening a bottle of wine so he can pour out the contents and pee in it?

When I first heard the song “The Man On The Flying Trapeze” (in a version by Alvin and The Chipmunks), I misheard “betrayed by a maid in her teens” as “betrayed by a maid and her team”, and pictured a team of maids who looked like Rosie from the Jetsons:

Separated At Birth?:

TILTH? Evidently an acronym, but for what? Ben suggested Today I Looked Towards Heaven, while I like Take It Less To Heart:

My Favorite Bit From JESUSLAND

My dear friend Mary Robinette Kowal, the Hugo Award-winning author of a popular series of fantasy novels set in the era of Jane Austen (the titles so far have been GLAMOUR IN GLASS, SHADES OF MILK AND HONEY, and WITHOUT A SUMMER), is playing host to me on her blog this week. Mary has a regular feature she calls MY FAVORITE BIT, which she describes as follows:

A short (400 to 1,000 word) essay on your favorite bit of your new work. This can be a scene, a sentence, a character, or a bit of world-building. It can even be a piece of research that never made it on the page. The key is that it’s something that you love LOVE sooooo much. This is your chance to be enthusiastic and geek out over that favorite thing you wrote but don’t expect anyone else to notice.



David Chelsea is reading:

Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero

by Danny Fingeroth

Mary Robinette Kowal

So far, most of the contributors have been her fellow novelists, but the submission guidelines say she’s open also to “game designers and artists”, or in my specific case, “graphic novelist promoting a new collection of his 24-Hour comics.”

The bit I describe is a short sequence from JESUSLAND, a 24 Hour comic which appears in the collection EVERYBODY GETS IT WRONG!, published by Dark Horse. I won’t spoil it for you, but it deals with Mel Gibson’s Anti-Semitism, Scientology, and a much-censored passage from Chaucer’s CANTERBURY TALES.

Read David’s MY FAVORITE BIT entry on Mary’s blog.

Mary Robinette Kowal’s home page.

My thanks to Mary for graciously hosting me.

One Week From Today: Wizard World Chicago

Calling all Chicago-area fans! I had meant to post about this some weeks ago, but I always fall behind on this blog in the summer. My second comics convention appearance this year will be at Wizard World in Chicago starting one week from today, on Thursday, August 8th 2013. I’ll be selling copies of my books and original art and presumably meeting new people, and if I at least break even I’ll do it again next year.

David Chelsea is reading:

Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls

by David Sedaris

Donald E. Stephens Convention Center

Fellow guests will include fellow comics creators Stan Lee, Chris Claremont, Neal Adams, Dan Parent, and Danny Fingeroth, actors Andrew McCarthy, Michael Shannon, Verne Troyer, Summer Glau, Alan Tudyk, Wil Wheaton, Lou Ferrigno, Linda Blair, Ralph Macchio, and Jason Priestley, as well as basketball player Dennis Rodman, and that’s just the ones I’ve heard of!

A stellar lineup to be sure, but please drop by my table (B35!) in Artists’ Alley first, and check out this panel on Thursday:

Creativity That Lasts

As an artist, writer, actor, musician or creator, there is nothing more challenging than the development of the creative process. Is art birthed from the spontaneous or is it a result of a carefully crafted rhythm and structure? In this panel, esteemed creators, David Chelsea (Snow Angel; Dark Horse Presents; Welcome to the Zone), Trevor Mueller (Albert the Alien; Reading with Pictures), Dan Parent (Archie; Betty and Veronica; Sabrina the Teenage Witch), and Rob Prior (Spawn; Deep Space 9; Evil Ernie; Heavy Metal) describe how to overcome creative obstacles and share their keys to unleashing creativity. Moderated by Tony Kim (ROOM 42)

My Table

Wizard World Comic Con Home Page

My bio page

Wizard World Comic Con Chicago

Donald E. Stephens Convention Center (Rosemont)

5555 North River Road

Rosemont, IL 60018

Thursday, August 8, 2013 – 3pm – 8pm

Friday, August 9, 2013 – 12 noon – 7pm

Saturday, August 10, 2013 – 10am – 7pm

Sunday, August 11, 2013 – 10am – 5pm

Kaleidoscopic Tilings #1

This could be part of the Facebook posts series, but it kind of got bigger than that. It all started last January, when I saw some unusually ornate and convoluted ice crystals on the roof one morning, which I simply had to photograph:

David Chelsea is watching:

Grey Gardens

Their brocaded appearance made me wonder how they would look tiled and repeated in Photoshop, so I took a photo, cropped a section and created this image file, which to my eye looks like a Persian rug:

That got me wondering how that Photoshop technique would look applied to similarly nonobjective images, so I tried it out on a few paintings by people like Franz Kline and Willem De Kooning:

I then went through a heavy phase of applying this technique to everything from coffee stains to photographs of naked mole rats. There was a period when I was posting at least one example a day to my Facebook page, sometimes putting my own spin to images in the news. Here is my version of the leaked self-portrait by George W. Bush:

I have long been a philistine about abstract art, but once I gave it the kaleidoscope treatment, I could start to see the appeal. A Jackson Pollock action painting makes some fine stoner psychedelia. John Updike once remarked that abstract artists must have to work very hard to avoid any pattern suggesting a human face, but once you introduce mirror symmetry, faces and figures are impossible to avoid. To my eye, Pollock’s painting teems with samurais and Buddhas:

The aesthetics of kaleidoscopic tiling are sideways of what I ordinarily like. I’ve been putting images from artists I admire through the treatment, and in many cases the results are blah. Maxfield Parrish looks dim and watery, Norman Rockwell looks like a delft tile, E. J. Bellocq looks like a test pattern. What comes off best in this more or less random selection is the Laocoon (bottom row, third from left), which has a nice H.R.Giger grossness, a Polaroid of an ex-girlfriend with plenty of decay caused by spotty toner (second row left) and a beige and gray pattern just below it that was formerly a Philip Pearlstein. The Lucian Freud example to the immediate right is typical; the forms in the twisted sheets are far more visually interesting than the slice of naked model.

I’m not sure where I take this idea next. Textile patterns? Wrapping paper? In the selection below you have sculptures by Jeff Koons, photographs by Joel-Peter Witkin, George W. Bush and Scarlett Johansson’s self-portraits, and an image from Paris Hilton’s sex tape (shot in night vision, hence the nice green):

My Facebookfriend Andrei Molotiu posted a student drawing of his a while back, highlighting its accidental resemblance to a Pollock drawing:

(Molotiu on the left, Pollock on the right.)

To amuse us both, I tiled the image to show how easily it converts to a flooring design, then Photoshopped it back into its natural environment:

All of this kaleidoscoping has gotten me to pay more attention to random textures out there in the world, and at home. Here is my studio sink:

The geometry of kaleidoscopic tiling is interesting. Although there are an infinite number of possible radial patterns (any even number will work), there are only four shapes of tile that can form patterns that repeat infinitely; a rectangle and three kinds of triangle- equilateral, 45°-45° right triangle, and 30°-60° right triangle (an equilateral triangle cut in half). Each produces patterns with a different character- a rectangular pattern forms into strips that look like wallpaper, while a 30°-60° triangular pattern has a very pronounced radial appearance, and the other two are somewhere in between. The basis can be anything you choose- an original design, a portion of a photograph, a scrap of dirty napkin, or as in this case, a Monet painting of water lilies:

Maybe my favorite so far is this image of Pope Benedict, because his head is just about visible if you look twice:

Bye, Bye, Benedict

Still to come: my first kaleidoscopic tiling commission.

Obama’s All Ears

Op-ed Illustration for INX

Go to the INX website to license this illustration and many others!

CD Cover: All Our Luck Is Changing

Every once in a while, it’s fun to do a CD cover. This one is for Bay Area musician Claudia Russell’s new album ALL OUR LUCK IS CHANGING. I was hired by Claudia’s husband, musical partner, and graphic designer Bruce Kaplan.

David Chelsea is listening to:

Theodore Rex

by Edmund Morris

Bruce Kaplan & Claudia Russell

Fun fact about Claudia; her father was British vocalist Val Rosing, who sang lead on bandleader Henry Hall’s hit recording of The Teddy Bear’s Picnic.

Claudia & Bruce Bobbleheads

My favorite tracks on the album are two nostalgic tunes about childhood, the title track and PIRATE GIRLS. In addition to physical CDs, you can purchase songs by download.

You can preview three of the songs here.

Pencil thumbnail.

The most fun part of the job was designing Bruce and Claudia bobble heads to go on the dashboard of the car. Bruce also adapted the bobble head art for a fridge magnet.

Photoshop collage

Bruce and Claudia are having a ”Virtual CD Release Party” on Facebook this Wednesday, July 10th, and I am theoretically attending, though I have no idea what that entails. Virtual Twister? Drink apps? Here’s a link to the page. If you aren’t on Facebook yet, this may be the excuse you need to sign up.

Claudia & Bruce fridge magnet. Not shown: Claudia & Bruce t-shirt.

Speaking of CDs: My sister Anny‘s newest, JANUARY, is out shortly. Buy it even though I didn’t do the cover! Anny will be a doing a Portland-area house concert at an “undisclosed location” in August. Details forthcoming as they develop.

A Few More Funny Facebook Posts

Brits and Canadians make the best Presidents!:

David Chelsea is listening to:

Petra Goes to the Movies

by Petra Haden

Jews make the best Nazis!:

Remember the hypothetical Trillion Dollar Coin? Here was my proposed design:

I believe it is high time we honored an artist on one of our coins, and America’s Most Beloved Illustrator seems like a natural first choice. His most familiar image, Freedom from Want, could not be a better fit for such a high denomination; with a trillion dollar coin in the vault, who could want?:

Power Girl’s costume regularly tops lists of Most Sexist Superhero Outfits Ever, thanks to its cleavage hole. I decided to replace it with something that is not only less revealing but also goes better with the name:

I say Arm The Children- it works in Rwanda:

KBOO Interview Archived!

Just in case you missed hearing it live, the good folks at KBOO-FM have kindly archived Monday Sampler host Fortunato’s interview with me and my daughter Rebecca from last Monday (the segment with us begins at the 58:00 mark). There was chat about my new book, Everybody Gets it Wrong! : David Chelsea’s 24-Hour Comics Volume 1., as well as strange and exotic A Capella records from my collection, interspersed with charming live performances from the group Boy & Bean.

Boy & Bean

For those wanting to know a bit more about the music played on the program, here are some notes:

“If”, The Modern Barbershop Quartet:

The Modern Barbershop Quartet was a group of studio singers assembled by producer Snuff Garrett for one recording in 1974. Here are the original liner notes by Laugh-In announcer Gary Owens:

Thurl Ravenscroft

The magnificent history of the Barbershop Quartet is a complex story that has many facets… Unfortunately, I don’t know the story, so I’ll tell you about the album instead. The Modern Barbershop Quartet (or the MBQ, as it is seldom referred to) has recorded some of the greatest song hits of our day (Friday) in the style of those turn of the century hirsute foursomes, and the result is a delight! You may recall the big Barbershop Quartet craze when you or your parents were in college and some of the names synonymous with harmony…. the Buffalo Bills,for example,… somehow you can imagine four energetic, kinetic singers gathered together with big handlebar mustaches drooping or lifting with the voice of the individual… I had in mind one of the great groups of the 50s, the Turgleman Sisters: Patty, Lou-Ann, Sheila-Jean, and Fred! The man who thought up this fun concept is a radio producer whose accomplishments in the industry are legion… Snuff Garrett. Thomas Garrett has always been several years ahead of his time (and several miles ahead of the law), and his creation of the Modern Barbershop Quartet deserves kudos from all of us! He has gathered together some of the greatest singers in the world… Ron Hicklin, Thurl Ravenscroft, Gene Merlino, and Gene Morford…. and they have recorded a most pleasant sound that will make any Barbershop fan want to plotz! You may want to practice with your own throbbing uvula as the MBQ belts out today’s favorite hits in the style that blossomed anywhere in a time when America looked forward to what we now call nostalgia.

(By the way, bass Thurl Ravenscroft is better known as the singer of “You’re A Mean One, Mister Grinch”, and the voice of Tony The Tiger).

Songbirds Of The South

“Jesus Met The Woman At The Well”, The Songbirds Of The South:

The Songbirds Of The South were an all-female Gospel group from Memphis, Tennessee, active in the late 1940s. Not much is known of them, and they have left only a few recordings. One of their members was Cassietta George, who went on to a long career with The Caravans.

Norfolk Jubilee Quartet

“Dig My Jelly Roll”, The Virginia Four:

According to several sources, “The Virginia Four” are actually an alias for The Norfolk Jubilee Quartet, a popular Gospel group from Norfolk, VA, who began their recording career in 1919. This recording is from 1939.

Tetes Noires

“Selcric”, Tetes Noires:

Tetes Noires are reputedly the first all-female rock band from Minneapolis. They released three albums in the mid-1980s before disbanding. Most of their output is straight-ahead rock and roll; as far as I can tell they released no other A Capella songs recorded backwards. Despite their Minnesota pedigree, they seem never to have performed on A Prairie Home Companion.

Tenores De Oniferi

“Serenada de Ierru”, Tenores de Oniferi:

From Amazon. com:

The polyphonic singing of Sardinia is one of those art forms that hits you like a lightning bolt the first time you hear it. You sit and ask, “What is that sound? How do they do it?” It is ancient (maybe dating back as far as 1,000 years), with a dependence on dark, not-quite minor-key harmonies and rich overtones. Key to the sound are the rough-hewn su basso and sa contra singers, whose guttural quality defines everything else about the music. That is countered by a crystal-clear third voice and a classic tenor lead vocalist. The blend is unique in the world of singing. It’s an acquired taste for those who are used to simple harmonies and tight choral arrangements, but given a chance, the sound can be quite addictive. Although less known and hyped up than the Tenores di Bitti, Tenores de Oniferi are every bit their equal. –Louis Gibson

Buy Music!:

Rebecca and I talked about the most recent 24 Hour Comics session at Things from Another World, and it would be nice to be able direct you a link to both comics online. Patience, people! Webmaster Brad Smith of Hot Pepper promises to post both of them, along with other stories from that session by Rachel Nabors, Paul Guinan, Tom Lechner and others, as soon as he returns from WebVisions Barcelona.

Buy My Book!:

RIP, James Gandolfini:

Illustration for the New York Observer, 2007

David Chelsea is reading:

Moving Innovation: A History of Computer Animation

by Tom Sito