Format

So while SAN is still bouncing around in this inchoate form (there's the vocab word of the day) I thought I'd start talking about structure. I'd like to say that I had an epiphany that I'm a formalist, that I've always been, but I'm not really sure that's true. I do know I love recurring design. For instance I've always enjoyed how anime tv shows almost always have 1) an opening theme song 2)an eye-catch, 3) an ending theme song and 4)a preview trailer for the next episode. Some shows go out of their way to use these conventions creatively. Once upon a time cartoons that I (and maybe you) grew up with always started up the show with an origin story (e.g. Thundercats, Wheeled Warriors, Smurfs, Kidd Video. Or even check out this X-Men Cover Gallery and notice how certain cover design conventions came into existence, such as the modern title font, or the headshots in the top left corner. What do you call these, framing conventions?

Well whatever term we decide on, I want to point out that these recurring designs are often the flavor and spice of our content. And with this blog, I know I'm heading in the direction of a pastiche theme, but format-wise I still feel like I'm drawing a blank.

So here's random stuff:



Kinetic Typography from samskee.



Little Gems
Picasso
Jean Shepherd
Astrid Lindgren

Pastiche . . .

(pas-ˈtēsh) is not hallucinogenic macaroni, but rather a hodge podge of imitations of other artistic works. If you've ever taken interest in art or writing in the Post Modern age, you've encountered it. If you've ever watched Family Guy you've been drowned in pop culture pastiche.

I think anything we create is in some way referential to something else whether it's unconscious imitation, homage, revisionist/commentary, or somewhere in the gray area of unintentional reference. SAN for me is exactly that, just a pastiche of the various streams of information that crawl through the back of my mind.

So this weekend I've been re-watching Kill Bill vol.'s 1 & 2. Just trying to comb through the soundtrack is dizzying, not to mention the film references! I really like to dig in with stuff like this that just has so much texture. I would say the Watchmen graphic novel and the Kill Bills are on about the same resonance when it comes to pastiche. Let's see how good the Watchmen film comes out.

Here's a stumble my stumble-bumper buddy Ace sent me about a savant who can recall and play every note of every song he's ever heard. I had to go and find some Mozart after hearing that.

Okay a couple of spotlights:

Kate Beaton - makes sexy comics based on history; shame on you for never checking her out---i mean looking at her stuff---i mean---drat. go!

John Allison - how can you pretend to like web comics and not be a Scary-go-round fan? No really. He's the truth.

Chris Hastings - Dr. Mcninja. Start here. Thank me later

Center Storm (Impromanga) - web comics began here(well kinda*) for me circa 2000

*originally hosted at pixelspace, since hot-potatoed to wherever it could.

also OCAD used to be somewhere else

Kelly Hamilton - She doesn't seem to have the buzz she had a year ago, but I still think she's top notch. Kind of reminds me of Cyril Pedrosa's work, and her tutorials are outstanding.

Daniel Krall - everything about his drawings is fun.

Jen Wang - and Vera and Pants Press still rock my socks

okay i'll stop for now.

btw i'm watching: Persepolis, The Honeymoon Killers, Owning Mahoney, A Woman Under the Influence, Kill Bill (of course), Full Metal Panic, Ducktales, Touch, Yakitate, Mighty Orbots, Future Boy Conan, Nadia, and a few others. oh and happy belated v-day.

What is a Sunday Afternoon Noodle?

Okay, I hope this is the first and last time that I hop on the meme-wagon (as if that's possible on the internetz) but this video has the charm and hilarity to stay funny years after the fact (provided memers don't hack & remix it to death)


is this going to be forever?

I watched 3 quirky films this weekend. Avida (2006), Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day (1996) and Babel (2006). I am reading Fresno Stories by William Saroyan,
Speaking with the Angel edited by Nick Hornby, The Complete Zot! Book 1, Essential X-Men Volume 8, and I recently finished the last 2 books of Bone, and the short first volume of King City by Brandon Graham.

I rescued a couple of books from a fire damage house including The Silmarillion, Star Wars, Dr. Strangelove, and two books from the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series. The light layers of soot give them the smell I remember on old books.

I've been designing tattoos, a business card, and working on a new way of vectorizing portraits. And today I'll probably probe through my taboo list, my stumbleupon list, and miscellaneous bookmarks to find some interesting topics to blog about next week. I'm hoping to get around to painting since I've got my brushes clean now, and I hope I eventually get out to take some ref photos. I still have panography projects on the backburner.

This is me. Constantly in the middle of a million streams of thought---where I like to be---trying to sort and bring order to the chaos--what I am compelled to do.

I woke up today with a similar buzz as poor, little David (after the Dentist) thinking about a marathon of a dream I was having. I've read that dreams are often the residue of the subconscious mind processing all the information stored in our short term memory. If that's the case, then SAN is just the dream at the end of the week. Or is it the beginning?

a few tools I want to share (the freeware PSA)
taboo - a firefox add-on that allows you to quickly bookmark pages and passages that you want to read later; it organizes them chronologically and displays them as thumbnail images. it also saves the local history of the tab which helps me backtrack my train of thought. i've begun to use taboo in place of read it later which was quite useful.

cool previews - kind of a picture-in-picture style of link fetcher. hover over a link, to be able to pop out a temporary window that will disappear when you hover outside the window. it also pops out temp windows in google images so that you can quickly browse the fullsize images without shuttling back and forth. what i like the most is the ability to highlight text and search your favorite databases/search engines (google, imdb, wikipedia, urbandictionary, amazon, etc.)

I promise I'll stop being lazy

February 1st. The solar and lunar new years have begun. The 44th President and first Black President of the United States has been inaugurated into office. And today the 43rd Superbowl airs on radios, television sets, and computer screens across the world. All this while I dig for something juicy, or semi-juicy, or quasi-juicy to post here for your (well really my) amusement. How about this:



My own absurdist reworking of Kazu Kibuishi's Amulet using the flash page creator at http://scholastic.com/amulet/ While you're thinking about that go see http://www.boltcity.com/amulet/ and find out who will star in the film adaption of the book, and when it will come out. You might as well take a look around Boltcity while you're there and check out the great stuff Kazu's done (Copper, Flight, Flight Explorer, Daisy Kutter). He's one of my favorite artist's right now and he draws from a lot of the same influences and interests that I do.



Here's a color rendition of a sketch by Alan Tew that I like to call Mr. Blue Penis. I've been a fan of Alan's crazy imagination and eye-popping figure drawing since 2001 about the same time I stumbled onto Bryan O'Malley's work. Both of these guys have influenced me for the last 7ish years.



And here are three ways I like to make ramen from the forthcoming Ramenu Blog. Y'know ramen is a recession proof food. Throw in some veggies, meat, poultry, seafood, or tofu and you've got a pretty hearty meal for a few cents. Some people think it defeats the purpose to add stuff, but those people are even lazier than me. Chop up a tomato and throw an egg in it and stop being lazy. Heh heh.