In the making
See Steve Brodner drawing a set of famous faces for The New Yorker — commemorative of the Obama election. This is the last in a series of drawing videos done for the magazine, a series I’ve only now discovered. Brodner’s caricatures can sometimes be brilliant, & on the other hand can also sometimes be less than convincing for me. Regardless, it’s great to watch a face & figure illustrator of his caliber in action with pen. (See also his drawing blog.)
Fanboy
Well, this evening I got to indulge in a little unabashèd hero worship, and it makes now for a nice follow-up — completely unexpected, a week ago — to the immediately previous post. That same fellow Richard Thompson, about whom I’ve waxed enthusiastic here on occasion — since about a year ago — and who has on occasion done this blog the honor of a visit, mentioned on his blog yesterday that there was to be an editorial cartoonists’ talk down in the D.C. suburb of Bethesda today, and that he’d be one of the talkers. Having no other plans, I went to hear and meet him, naturally. It turns out, actually, that he’s not much of a talker. It also turns out that, in person, he’s just a great guy — as I’d always suspected he might be.
Congrats
Yesterday, the 24th, marked a year’s existence for the internet home of Mr R Thompson’s Richard’s Poor Almanac and Cul de Sac — now pretty much my favorite spot in the whole world wide web. Thompson is one of the first artists I turn to to recall why drawing & the love of it is a gift to be taken with gratitude. And when doubts assail, it’s Richard Thompson & his fine humor that can keep me feeling that Washington, D.C. & suburbs must, after all, have some meaning & a place in history. I thank heaven for the web and for Thompson’s evident pleasure in a steady online readership. To Mr Thompson, then, congratulations upon a year’s service at making the net a happier place; and to you, dear reader, every fitting exhortation that you make his blog a regular stop in your online reading rounds.
Bring back the Pinhead!
“You dumped some of the worst, strips that had declined years ago to an embarrassingly low level of staleness, or even simply to mere amateurishness. I applaud that.
But you also got rid of one of the very best! Bill Griffith’s Zippy is constantly fresh, constantly a reader’s intrigue & delight, constantly alive & engaging as graphic form — and all in spite of the severe limits the newspapers place on the comic strip format today.”