Spiegelmen & Sacco on the Danish cartoons

An interesting interview with two comics masters on the Danish cartoons;

SPIEGELMAN: I have spent a lot of time soul searching and still come out on the same side of the equation. If there's a right to make cartoons, there has to be a right to insult, and if there's no right to make cartoons, well, I'm in big trouble. And I think America might be too.

Link to article.

Emergency Meeting!

Yet another great post at The Religious Policeman about the Danish cartoon issue;

So what's going to happen is, that after boycotting their butter and Lego and so on, and trashing their embassies, and threatening their journalists with beheading, and generally lecturing them like naughty teenagers, we are going to send them a load of Mohammad biographies. Oh, how the simple citizens of Denmark will welcome such generosity! I can see them now, out on the streets, wiping the tears of gratitude from their eyes, as the lorries trundle into their town squares and deliver these little bundles of Islamic piety! How will they be able to contain their joy? It'll be the best thing that happened to them since Hitler came to town!

The Paperless Cartoonist

[NB: This was originally written for Make Comics Forever.]

I was invited to join this blog when I suggested a post about ergonomic and workflow issues while using drawing tablets—specifically pen monitor tablets, such as the Cintiq. Not long after I was invited to the blog, K. Thor Jensen posted an article, Wacomics, on his recent tablet experiences. The post covers Mr. Jensen's initial loathing of tablets, through to his eventual conversion and endorsement.

I was an early enthusiast of the digital drawing tablet, asking for one for X-mas when I was 13 so I could draw animations on our Mac—I was such a geek. In university I got a second tablet, a standard middle-of-the-road Wacom Intuos. It worked great. I use illustrator and I liked the brush strokes I could achieve with it. I grew increasingly comfortable with it and used the tablet often for finished comics or illustrations. Eventually I developed the same problem as Scott McCloud—a tingling in my right wrist—and had to stop drawing for a while. It also forced me to think about health & ergonomic issues. In part due to a desire to stop working on paper entirely, along with having read McClouds and various other reviews, I decided to invest in a Wacom Cintiq, referred to as a pen monitor. Essentially it is a flat screen monitor with a drawing pen and thousands of levels of pressure sensitivity.

I spent the first four hours using it chuckling, and often outright laughing. I understood why animation studios are switching to them. There is a massive potential to increase workflow with this tool. And, for the first time in like, fifteen years of doing art on a computer, I actually felt that I was encountering something new. Along with the Cintiq there are already a few pen tablet laptops on the market. Apple is rumoured to be producing some sort of a tablet device. If technology continues to develop as it has, in a couple years from now we should have the potential to make pressure-sensitive sketches on something like an Apple iPod. I've never even used a handheld, but I'm sure they're starting to develop built-in sketching functions.

The pen monitor made me think more about the workflow of a cartoonist/illustrator. I began thinking about the workflow potential of it even more after reading The Pushman And Other Stories by Yoshihiro Tatsumi (D&Q 2005). This book lead me to read an interview between Tatsumi and Adrian Tomine. The interview is long, but extremely interesting, as it's two grand masters of comics talking in detail about their working methods. I just love this exchange:

AT: Yeah. That's always been a mystery to me. How the Japanese artists are able to produce so many pages. I'm sure my publisher would allow me to create thicker comics, but it would just take me two or three years or something like that.

YT: I've done 50 pages in one night.

AT: What? 50?! Five zero?

YT: Yeah.

AT: How?!

YT: I didn't sleep, and I had four assistants.

A few lines down, it gets even better when they discuss a weekly schedule:

AT: So you were doing 12 pages a week? On your own?

YT: Yeah.

AT: I just can't believe it!

YT: 2 pages, everyday. It's far easier than 50 pages in one night.

Far easier indeed. After reading this I began to wonder how much a cartoonist could potentially produce in a night, using a Cintiq or similar device. McCloud has noted that he produces about a page per day for his new book with his Cintiq. That's 6-7 pages a week. I've managed to do a couple 2-page nights recently as well. They were long nights, though—lots of tea.

I still haven't found the ideal position for drawing on this monitor. I find I'm using the keyboard enough (in illustrator) to position it close to the monitor. I think I'd like the entire table it’s sitting on to be height-adjustable. I still find the best way to avoid getting sore is to regularly stretch, and walk away from the drawing board frequently. The Cintiq is a huge step up from the regular tablets simply in terms of ergonomics. You can lean over it like a traditional drafting table, or tilt it up and work as a painter would with an easel and canvas.

I haven't gotten rid of drawing on paper entirely, not by a long shot, but the Cintiq is a solid step towards the paperless cartoonist. When I have an iPod that I can scratch a few portraits on while sitting on the metro? Now that will make things interesting.

Recent Clickwheel notes

Recent clickwheel comments and idea generation; T Campbell; Fleen; Clickwheel forums

What Would Che Do?

I've begun publishing a comix called Now Leaving the Civilized Zone, which was originally the title of my masters comix thesis. My hope is to re-work and finally publish some of the stronger aspects of the MA travelogue comic, in addition to writing new material.

The first strip—What Would Che Do?—takes a look at voter dissatisfaction in Canada's recent election. This strip will be updated reguarly. Daily if I can remember.

Say goodbye to 2005...

With the final page of The Early Alarm posted last week, my 2005 work is finally all online. The work was written in the summer. Sketched in the early fall. Drawn, and colored through the late fall. Edited and re-drawn over the holidays. I've made note never to drag stuff out like that again. Though there are aspects to these strips I like a lot.

The Religious Policeman on the Danish cartoons

The Religious Policeman has some enlightening (and humorous) pieces on the Danish cartoon issues.

I have therefore given some thought to "spicing up" the story, and have come to the conclusion that we ought to find some other country, ideally small, harmless and inoffensive and with exports that do not appeal to your family, to demonize in addition to Denmark. I have therefore been reviewing all published representations of the Prophet (PBUH) to establish what countries could be blamed for them. Sadly, there are many representations out there, perhaps more than we ever imagined.

Link to original post.

Link to follow up post.

Danish cartoons

Those damned Europeans... at it again with their freedom of speech.

Cartoons in Danish and Norwegian newspapers depicting the prophet Muhammad in unflattering poses, including one in which he is portrayed as an apparent terrorist with a bomb in his turban, have triggered outrage among Muslims across the Middle East, sparking protests, economic boycotts and warnings of possible retaliation against the people, companies and countries involved. Link to Washington Post article

The next logical step is a full blown boycot of Danish anything.

Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassadors to Copenhagen and the boycott against Danish products quickly spread to other Gulf countries and Egypt as well. Link to Zaman article.

Link to Brussels Journal with cartoons in question.