Bill Plympton

Although I didn't go to Plymton's night lecture, I did attend most of his talk earlier on that day. I though he was an entertaining speaker, and I really enjoyed his work, even though he "pimped" it quite a bit. He told the audience what film shows they should try to enter, with a matter-of-fact manner: "These are the good ones. Try for them."

His list was:
Oscars
Cannes
Sundance
Annecy
Clevoront Ferrarr
Ottowa
Aspen
Stuttgart


Then he showed us his music video for Parson Brown called “Mexican Standoff.” He went on to describe how NOT to draw cartoons and where his money comes from. This breakdown was long overdue; never in an artist’s lecture that I’ve attended has an artist openly told us how you get paid. It was thrilling.


Next he went over his influences, beginning with Disney, naturally, and ending with Roland Topor, a French animator.



At the finale of his talk, he sat down and drew dogs or Santas on his postcards for any student who wanted one. A few monetarily gifted young people purchased his dvds he had arranged in a neat row.

All in all, I thought he was a good artist for us students to listen to.

Meda and Veda Rives's Lecture

Veda and Meda Rives (pronounced "Reeves) are identical twin sisters who specialize in book arts, printmaking and papermaking. Their art has been displayed in the U. S. and Japan, and Veda teaches at Illinois State University, Illinois. Though they produce work together and separately, they founded Mirror Image Press together, as a play on a printmaking term and their familial tie. The twins were as "twinny" as one imagines, finishing each other's sentences and dressed in the same style of clothing: long-sleeve shirts and slacks.

When they are working on separate projects, Veda prefers monotype with abstract shapes/landscapes, while Meda likes letterpress projects coupled with collage of old materials.

As they led us through their joint work, they spoke about spiritual growth and the sort of finding-yourself-journey that many artists stay away from because of its saccharine, sentimental tendencies. Despite the hominess of their concept, their work was done on a large, interesting scale. In the studio they use both Eastern and Western papermaking techniques in a hybrid style that adds character to the work. By implanting natural items into the paper—such as sawdust, seeds, and ground herbal tea—Meda and Veda give the paper a beautifully layered consistency. They create books, which look like large sheets of paper to the newcomer, and hang them from the rafters, so that the book envelops the viewer. This and the actual work itself saved the twins from being really...normal.

Final Illustrators 40 - 45

45. Marc Tobin has worked for clients such as Jiffylube, Wells Fargo, McDonald's, Glenco/McGraw Hill, HR Magazine, CNET Networks, Chevron, Sea World Graphics, and KFC. He attended college at Keystone College in La Plume, Pennsylvania, where he received an A.F.A. He went on to Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia to obtain his B.F.A. He does illustration work of all kinds, including logos, posters, cards, murals, web graphics, and animation. He is also versed in a plethora of computer programs like CorelDraw and Photoshop.


44. Frank Stockton lives in New York, creating work for clients like The New Yorker, Esquire, Penthouse, and GQ. He attended Art Center Design College in Pasadena, California, where he received his BFA in Illustration. He is fascinated by adventure stories, like Indiana Jones, and directed his art in a very masculine direction. He uses photo reference, draws, scans the drawing, prints it in blue on bristol and inks. Then he scans it back, and colors it in Photoshop. http://www.lostateminor.com/2008/07/29/the-inside-word-on-illustration-from-frank-stockton/


43. Greg Horn is a digital painter who mainly creates work for comic book covers. He mostly works for Marvel, but he also does freelance work for companies like Allstate, Nike, GM, and Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Video games are part of his repetoir, such as 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS, CITY OF THE DEAD, and STARCRAFT: GHOST. Magazines he's worked for include Wizard, PCGamer, PSE, Mad Magazine, Toyfare, and OXM, not mention work for role-playing games and novels. His career has mostly spanned the past five years alone, and he has licensed just about any merchandise you can imagine. He loves pinups, and of course, specializes in super heroes.


42. John Hendrix was born in St. Louis, Missouri, drawing. He loved comic books, and decided to pursue his art career at the University of Kansas, specializing in graphic design and illustration. He did graphic design work to save up to go to New York. When he got there, he went to school at The School of Visual Arts in the program Graduate Illustration as Visual Essay. He taught for four years at Parsons School of Design while working as Assistant Art Director at the New York Times. He then moved back to St. Louis, where he teaches illustration to undergraduates at Washington University. He has more awards than this entry allows, from 2004 to 2007, and to top that off, he's worked for Rolling Stone, the New Yorker, and Sports Illustrated.


41. Alex Grey was born to a graphic designer, November 29, 1953 in Columbus, Ohio. He played with dead bugs as a child, and when he was old enough, he attended Columbus College of Art and Design. He only went two years before painting billboards for a year. Then he studied with Jay Jarslav at the Boston Museum School. He spent five year attending Harvard Medical School, studying and documenting human anatomy and conducted experiments relating to possible healing energies. His doctor colleagues noticed his artistic skill and had him do medical illustrations. He later taught at Artistic Anatomy and Figure Sculpture for an entire decade; now he heads Visionary Art at several different locations, along with his wife Allyson. He has done work for Tool and Co-Evolution Quarterly, among others.


40. Hans Rudolf Giger was born in Chur, Switzerland, on February 5, 1940. His father was a chemist, prompting Giger to study interior and industrial design from 1962 to 1970 at the School of Commercial Art. He suffers from night terrors, and his first paintings he created at school were actually a means of art therapy. His painting "Necronom IV" inspired the design for 1980's Alien movies and landed Giger an Oscar. His work appeared in Omni Magazine and was featured on many album covers. In Gruyeres, Switzerland is the H. R. Giger Museum, opened in 1998. Most of his work was done in ink until more recently, he chooses markers, ink, or pastels.

Illustrators 33 - 39

39. Matt Sundstrom was born in a small town in Connecticut that was in the middle of two competing casinos. He attended Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, and graduated with an illustration BFA in 2001. He uses brushes, ink, and Photoshop to create his work, which often deals with nature and geography. He takes liberty in translating his Swedish name into "A tidal stream that you should avoid rowing your viking ship through." His website http://www.driveintothesun.com/ is dedicated to a series of work he created while on a road trip from New Hampshire to Oregon.


38. Seo (pronounced like "Sue") Kim lives in Toronto, Canada. She works extensively in her sketchbook, creating many caricatures in a variety of media. Another hobby is life drawing, sometimes zoo animals or people in everyday life. Some of her influences are Marlo Meekins, Graham Falk, and Dan Hay.


37. Milton Glaser was born on June 26, 1929 in New York. He attended High School of Music and Art before graduating from Cooper Union. He then studied under Giorgio Morandi in Bologna's Academy of Fine Arts, paid for by a Fulbright Scholarship. Four years after graduating he founded Push Pin Studios, and later, Milton Glaser, Inc. During this time, he co-founded "New York Magazine." He designed logos for Bob Dylan, DC Comics, and the famous "I Love New York." His work is displayed in several museums across the globe.


36. Brandon Dawley has spent a life abroad, living in Las Vegas, New York, San Francisco, and Athens (in Georgia). Though he has worked for several different kinds of industry—retail, publishing, film, and apparel—he is on the lookout for a job currently. Dawley employs both computer and traditional techniques in his illustrations and comics. Currently, he's living in New York again at the age of 37.


35. Simon "Cookie" Cook works as a sock monster creator, a graphic designer, and an illustrator. In his most recent project, he and a friend walked the Continental Divide from Mexico all the way up to Canada. The journey was documented and nominated for a genuine Webby. He is working on t-shirts for an undisclosed fashion label and stitching a mascot for the 2012 Olympics to take place in London. He has also created work for Nokia, Cadbury's, and the BBC.


34. Michael Arthur is a gestural artist who works almost exclusively in ink, without pencil guidelines or rough drafts. Though he earned a PhD degree in Theatre History and Criticism, he draws rehearsals of theater and dance troops, alongside regular people in coffee places and the subway. He has worked for/with the Tribeca Theatre Festival and the Drama Dept. On Broadway, The Martha Graham Dance Company, and American Ballet Theatre. He has drawn Christmas cards for a New York charity named God's Love We Deliver. In 2005 he published a limited edition collection of his drawings for the Martha Graham Company. His work has been displayed at Lord and Taylor's, and famous people like Whoopi Goldberg purchase his originals.


33. John Allison is a webcomics pioneer; his first was called "Bobbins." One of his newest is "Scary Go Round." After being laid off his day job in 2003, Allison devoted his time to doing webcomics and earning his living by taking freelance jobs. He now produces all his art by way of Cintiq in a program called Manga Studio. Though he resides in the UK, he feels that webcomics are less popular there.

A Mini-Review of Julia Walker's Lecture

A Rick Joy work

Julia Walker is an art history professor at one of our rival schools, Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. She was educated in San Antonio, Texas, and received her graduate information in Pennsylvania. Her specialization is in Post-Unification Government Architecture. She titled this lecture "Sustainable Chic: The Style of Building Green." Our professor Adrian Duran introduced her as a returned favor; he explained that five years ago he visited SCAD, where she introduced him.

House of Earth and Light

Her talk was informational but less than thrilling. Her language, though poetically beautiful at times, did not really convey her main point: that building simply green should be the future of architecture and housing. She showed us examples of various architects' works, including Anne Marie Russell, Frank Lloyd Wright, Al Beadle, Judith Chafee, Rick Joy, and Marwan Al-Sayed. Most of the work seemed to stick to an international-style look, and the some of the buildings could only be afforded by the upper class of our society. Her most helpful words came during the questions segment when she talked about the cost of some of the greenest building materials featured in some of the slides. Then she went on to say that the upper class shouldn't be the only people who have access to well-planned, greener houses. From a post-colonial perspective, her slides contradicted her thesis, as the majority were made by Caucasians for the wealthy, with the exceptions of Wright's Ocatillo Camp and Al-Sayed's House of Earth and Light. Her heart was in the right place, but her judgment of societal connection had a faulty foundation.

Illustrators 28 - 32

32. Tom Wilson II has been working on his father's Sunday strip "Ziggy" since 1987. Wilson graduated from Boston University with a BFA, after studying graphic design at Miami University. He began working for the New York toy company Amtoy as a director of new projects. His first comic strip was called "UG!," and later he took over "Ziggy." He was employed at Richard Sanders International, a gathering of creative minds. Wilson has worked on branding for many powerful companies, including Disney, AT&T, Hallmark, Ford, Chrysler, Johnson & Johnson, and American Express. Then he started his own company named Character Matters, specifically for developing branding characters to be licensed.


31. Mort Walker was born on March 10, 1923. At 11, he sold a cartoon to an area newspaper, and four years later he was drawing a weekly strip for the Kansas City Journal. At age 18, he reached the station of chief designer in Hallmark Cards. He took literature classes at Washington University and journalism classes at the University of Missouri before spending a short time in the army. He was an editor for Dell, where he invented his most famous work "Beetle Bailey." The comic is still going strong, published in roughly 200 newspapers worldwide. Though he has assistants, Walker still oversees production of his strip in his Connecticut studio, nicknamed the "laugh factory." He was awarded a Rueben in 1954, and opened a museum dedicated to the history of cartoons in 1974. He is also a published cartoon historian and dabbles in children's books, too.


30. Alec Stevens is from Brazil, but he attended school at several U.S. locations such as the Joe Kubert School of Cartooning, the Art Institute, the Art Students League, and the Don Stacy Studio. His first job in comics came when he was twenty; he adapted "The Sphinx Without a Secret," an Oscar Wilde tale. He began working for Fantagraphics, producing many titles. A couple years later he made his own graphic novels "The Sinners" and "Hardcore" at Piranha Press. He was in the hospital for a time and wound up becoming a Christian during that time. His work became Christian, and he became an instructor at Joe Kubert School in 1992. In 1993 he met Neil Gaiman and drew some of his series "Sandman." He continues to do illustrations and comics to date.


29. Patrick McDonnell was born March 17, 1957 in New York. He attended the School of Visual Arts and graduated in 1979. From there, he worked as a freelance illustrator for magazines like Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, and Reader's Digest. Also during this time, he made his first comic strip called "Bad Baby" that lasted for a decade. In 1994, he decided to start the comic "Mutts," which enjoyed enormous success. Part of this was because Bill Watterson was discontinuing "Calvin and Hobbes," leaving a Mutts-sized hole in the Sunday funnies. McDonnell is a cartoon historian, and helped to write "Krazy Kat: The Art of George Herriman," published in 1986. More recently, McDonnell has been creating children's books.


28. Gerald "Jerry" Dumas was born in 1930. Though comics were a childhood passion, he studied English in college, before editing text for Mort Walker's "Hi and Lois." He started drawing for a strip called "Boner's Ark," then co-created and drew "Sam's Strip" with Walker. "Sam's Strip" was essentially a talkshow strip where the main character interviewed other characters from other strips. During the two years that Sam's show ran, Dumas did editorial illustrations for the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the Post. About a decade later, Dumas and Walker started a new strip with Sam called "Sam and Silo." Dumas continued with English, writing for strips like "Rabbits Rafferty" and "Benchley." He has also published a novel called "An Afternoon in Waterloo Park," based on his childhood memories.

Illustrators 23 - 27

27. Though born in Maryland (Jan 27, 1957), Frank Miller grew up on the East Coast. In 1978 he did drawings for "Twilight Zone" and "Spectacular Spider-Man." "Daredevil" was his first great accomplishment, which he drew and/or wrote for from '79 to the late 80s. He introduced the series "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" and "Batman: Year One." After bouncing between Marvel and DC, Miller went to Dark Horse, then back to Marvel. He worked with Dave Gibbons on "Give Me Liberty." He's done work for the silver and small screens, including "Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot," "Spawn," and "Sin City."


26. Joe Kubert was born on Sept. 18, 1926 in New York. At 12, he was inking for "Archie," and at 16, he was working for Police Comics, Smash Comics, and Speed Comics. In '42 he started working for DC Comics. He served in the military from '50 to '52, and came home to become managing editor of publisher St. John. Working alongside brothers Norman and Leonard Maurer, he created the first 3-d comics. 23 years later he brought the Joe Kubert School of Cartooning into existence. He has penciled and inked more comics than this blog can support, and his sons Andy and Adam Kubert are both accomplished comic artists.


25. Dave Gibbons was born April 14, 1955 in the United Kingdom. Fantasy Advertiser published his work when Gibbons was only 15. A few years later he started work at Fleetway, drawing for "Judge Dredd," "Dan Dare," and "Doctor Who." He started working for DC Comics in the 80s, for titles like "Green Lantern," "The Flash," and "The Legion of Superheroes." His most famous comic is "Watchmen," written by Alan Moore. He also partnered with Frank Miller, Andy Kubert, Steve Rude, and Mike Mignola. "Beneath a Steel Sky" was a computer game he designed characters for.


24. Jim Davis was born on July 28, 1945 in Marion, Indiana. He was a farm boy with asthma, so instead of doing chores, he drew cartoons. He had the lowest GPA at Ball State University, where he majored in Art and Business. He worked for an ad company before assisting on the strip "Tumbleweeds." He had a local strip called "Gnorm Gnat," which was declined by national syndicates. His greatest achievement, "Garfield," began on June 19, 1978 in a syndicate of 41 papers. Now, Davis has his own company called Paws, Inc. and Garfield is the most widely published Sunday strip to date. Davis still works on it, with assistants, and he lives in Indiana, but he has no cats. His wife is allergic to them.


23. Tim Bradstreet was born February 16, 1967 in Maryland. He started his self-taught career directly after high school by joining Fantasmagraphics. He did illustrations for role-playing games under his tutor Steve Venters. Some of his games include Twilight 2000 and Shadowrun. Some comics he's drawn include "Star Wars," " Age of Desire," "Blade," "Punisher," and "Hellblazer." He did concept art for the movie "Blade 2." He resides in San Diego, CA.