Scott McCloud's Blog, page 9

How I Spent My Summer Vacations

Here's some more very old art from the vaults, probably from elementary school. Click on the either of the small images here to see a bunch of my crazy kid drawings.

When I was about 8 years old, my friend Karl Zimmerman showed me how he made cool spaceship designs using an old chemistry template (looked a bit like this) and similar tools. I starting doing the same, gradually settling on the mighty eraser shield as my tool of choice.

Later on, I started making 3D drawings on graph paper (probably also Karl's idea) that could be viewed by crossing your eyes until the two middle images merge. Here are some examples of some simple 3D doodles. It's the same basic process used in these recent experiments.

Pretty much all my friends' parents were scientists of one sort or another, so it was a kind of nerd utopia. The West Boston suburbs of the '60s and '70s were a lot like Silicon Valley is now.

I often wonder what the kids of Silicon Valley who've grown up in the '90s and '00s have been dreaming up lately. Are any of you out there? What was your childhood like?

Friday Odds and Ends

Here's a new comic from the relentlessly strange and consistently intriguing cartoonist Brett Harder. I've mentioned Harder on Twitter a few times, but not here on the blog, so time to rectify that.

Returned from New York last night, following yesterday's Doodle 4 Google award ceremony. The kids wore t-shirts with their doodles on them and were all super-adorable (and a bit nervous!).

Big congratulations to grand prize winner Matteo Lopez, his three winnners circle companions, as well as all 40 finalists. You were awesome.

The festivities were MC'd by the legendary Marissa Mayer along with doodle masters Ryan Germick, Sophia Foster-Dimino, Mike Dutton (who did the great final art for the Eisner doodle), and Jennifer Hom. I also had fun talking to fellow judges Jeff (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) Kinney, figure skater Evan Lysacek, and the Whitney Museum's Kathryn Potts.

And yes, the food at Google's new New York offices is just as good as Mountain View's.

Regarding Tuesday's post, You can read more about (and of) The Influencing Machine on Slate today. Check it out.

Finally, regarding Monday's post, yes there is a comics writer named Stuart Moore, but no, this is a different guy.

Have a great weekend!

Y'know, I Almost NEVER Do Sketches…

…unless it's for a good cause!

Larry and I met in LA last week and I did a whole bunch of sketch cards for the CBLDF's upcoming Liberty Trading Cards project. Keep an eye out for more announcements; a lot of great artists are participating.

Off to New York today and tomorrow for the Doodle 4 Google award announcements (I was a judge).

Back to blogging Friday!

The Influencing Machine

I've been dying for an excuse to plug The Influencing Machine by Brooke Gladstone and Josh Neufeld, since I read an advance copy several weeks ago, and this PW article oughtta fit the bill (though I'm a little embarrassed to be once again linking to an article that turns around and plugs me back at one point =•_•=).

The Influencing Machine is one of the best non-fiction comics I've read. I'm a long-time listener/reader of both Gladstone and Neufeld, and their work dovetails beautifully here as they tackle the important and timely issues of media evolution and influence.

Gladstone's work for NPR's On the Media has always been top-notch. Her probing, far-reaching editorials for that show set the tone for The Influencing Machine. This is an ambitious book, and it delivers. I'm delighted that she chose comics (and Neufeld!) to help hammer these vital issues into our minds.

I strongly recommend both the book and, if you haven't heard it before, the show.

Atwomic: A Twitter Comic?

Stewart K. Moore sends word of a new experiment, via Twitter, to create 100 parallel interpretations of the same story.

He has plenty of info in his blog entry today. The action starts at the comic's brand new Twitter feed.

In related news: Are hash-bangs really necessary, The Internet? I've stripped one out of the above Twitter url, and it still… kinda works, but I just don't understand why any new innovation (cool javascript tricks) should be allowed to reduce the functionality of a really useful old one (easily shared urls).

[Mom: You can ignore that last paragraph.]

UC and UX

Great little article at UX Magazine applying some ideas from Understanding Comics to icon design and related issues.

I've given some talks on similar issues during web design workshops; focusing on the challenges of what I've been calling "cognitive load time": how fast do users grok what's on their screen, regardless of how fast it all renders/downloads? Looks like the idea is just as relevant in other UX circles.

One of the important benefits of fast-loading, iconic imagery is that we not only understand each piece of an interface more quickly and intuitively, we can also absorb the whole screen's many relationships or patterns more easily. Knowing the Parts = Appreciating the Whole.

Chapter Two… Glad I wrote that one.

[via Tom Crawford and Nathan Bashaw]

Slow News Day

Did I mention I saw Thor? Someone said it was cool that the love interest got a cute sidekick this time. I agree.

And no, I am not referring to Stellan Skarsgård.

Planting the Flag in Gainesville

Check out this fundraiser for The Sequential Artists Workshop; a great new school to be built in Gainesville, Florida, under the direction of Tom Hart. Definitely a worthy cause.

I wish I could have had Tom as a teacher when I was starting out. With your support, others will finally get the chance to be taught by Tom and other great teachers in the coming years.

Note: The campaign at Indiegogo is similar to Kickstarter, but with the important difference that all your contributions are tax-deductible.

Aww, Just Read This…

There's some real wisdom in this comic, apparently by a young Norwegian artist that I (and I suspect you) have never heard of.

[Update: It apparently was first posted on her deviantART page and yes, she's from Norway.]

Thanks to Bill Amend, by way of Raina Telgemeier, for pointing to this gem today.

Another Excuse to Link to Emily Carroll

As long as I kinda chided her last year for having such a scattered presence online, with no obvious site to point people to, I'm duty-bound to pass along the happy news that Emily Carroll has a proper website now.

Keep an eye on this artist. She's already on a lot of her fellow cartoonists' short lists, and I get the feeling that she's got a lot up her sleeve still.