Book Smarts

This cartoon was recently reprinted in a text book titled Social Psychology(10th edition, McGraw Hill) that my friendly UPS guy dropped on our front stoop the other day. It's loaded with cartoons by my esteemed colleagues. This cartoon was featured in the chapter; Social Psychology and the Sustainable Future. I have a feeling this book might wind up being the sleeper Valentine's Day gift of 2010.

Back to The Future

Here's a cartoon from 24 years ago. It was published in Relix magazine. They were the first publication that actually paid me for using my cartoons. Relix, at the time, was primarily devoted to the Grateful Dead and other related bands. These days in addition to covering the projects of the surviving Dead members I think they cover the whole jam band scene. I recently heard from Toni Brown, Relix's former publisher and editor. She was nice enough to send me a copy of her new book 'Relix, The Book' which chronicles the thirty or so years she worked on the magazine.

As you can see from my cartoon I wasn't big on punctuation back then. Still, the gag ain't too shabby. For those interested, I no longer resemble either one of the guys in the cartoon.

How'd I do That? Pt.3

In the unfinished drawing (see previous post) I was dissatisfied with the bearing of the guy talking. Since he's supposed to be in charge I wanted him more physically imposing than how I originally drew him. I also felt his expression didn't capture what I was going for. You can see that I pretty much used the sketch of the head I made on the unfinished drawing as a model for the finished drawing.

Although I didn't scan the penciled drawing I did scan the unerased inked version which will allow a glimpse of the pencils below.

Ok. That's it. Lesson's over. Really. Thanks for stopping by.

How'd I do That? Pt.2

Well, of course, I forgot to scan the rough pencil. Luckily, for the purpose of this exercise, when I was half-way through inking the rough I realized the character doing the speaking wasn't working and that I needed to start over. If I don't like a drawing, or feel some element isn't working, I'll usually correct it before I start inking. In this case I must have been distracted while inking and by the time I realized the drawing wasn't happening there wasn't much I could do except cut my losses and redraw it. Since I do my drawings on relatively light paper-24lb laser jet-I can easily trace the layout of an inked drawing without a light box which really speeds up the process in a case like this.