The Electric Heartbreaker on DVD

This isn't cartoon-related, but I'll post it here anyway. Years ago, I co-created a live-action short film called The Electric Heartbreaker. Recently, we finally made it available on DVD, with fun extras and everything. If anybody's curious, here are a couple of clips:

official site

facebook

buy it on amazon ($9.99)

Nolen Noel

A slightly belated, but lovely nonetheless, card from our fellow SHC Nolen Otts:

Happy December

From our fellow SHC Howard Cruse:

Happy December
packed as it is
with holidays worth celebrating
and childhood memories
that hopefully make you smile.

If you click the link below, you'll find the cartoon I've drawn
as my contribution to this year's festivities,
as well a bonus link to a video
that the cartooning fans among you may enjoy.

http://www.howardcruse.com/cruseblog/xmas10.html

My Nightmare

First, a bit of background: For anyone who doesn't know, DummComics.com is a great site for web comics, featuring new strips everyday, by a brilliant stable of artists. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, they have one called 1930 Nightmare Theatre, by Ricky Garduno. It's an awesome comic.

It's been running for a long while now. If you haven't been following it, and you want to sorta catch up on the evolution of the strip, start by reading the first few installments, starting HERE (then use the arrows underneath, to navigate forward). Read a few pieces from the middle of the run, starting HERE. And read some of Ricky's most recent editions, starting HERE.

Now here's my news: Ricky Garduno invited me to do a guest strip for 1930 Nightmare Theatre! So I did, and it was posted on the site today. Check it out HERE. Like most of the guest artists, I tried to honor the spirit of 1930 Nightmare Theatre, while at the same time putting my own spin on it.

Inking in Illustrator

I'm still practicing my digital inking. I tried inking in Flash, then I tried inking in Illustrator with a Calligraphic Brush. Here are my latest experiments -- still inking in Illustrator, but this time using a set of Art Brushes that I made myself.



I get more accuracy this way. I mean, I can really get the ink line to sit RIGHT ON the pencil line, if I want. But I think it has a little less life than the previous two methods I tried. It lacks a certain spontaneity and humanity. Next I'll try inking in Manga Studio.

Burns, Baby, Burns

You may remember Area 47 Entertainment as the guys who made that Dag Nab Ants video I posted here recently. Jeremy Burns animates videos for the songs created by his brother Chris Burns and him. And now, they have their own SHC page, HERE. Take a look!

The Green Seed - "Crack Kills"

Hello people,
We recently completed a music video for the Birmingham hip hop group The Green Seed. They are excellent musicians in their own right and really enjoyed the video we made.
It contains pop culture references galore, so feel free to watch and repost!


Thanks for watching and support local music.

Cheers,
Brian Ratigan + Sugartooth

KoronisFest PSA/Poster Competition

Here's an announcement from the UAB School of Public Health: They're having a PSA/Poster Competition. Want to do some public health-oriented animation or poster work (or a live-action spot)? Your work could be screened at KoronisFest (at the UAB School of Public Health), and you could win an award and a cash prize. Submissions must be received by March 3rd, 2011. More info HERE.



If you have any questions that aren't answered there, email:

Joan Ohrn - johrn[at]ms.soph.uab.edu

Alabama Jungle

Our fellow SHC Christopher Davis created these beautifully simple images for use on Alabama and Auburn T-shirts.


Take your pick, and go to his cafepress page to pick one up. And for those rare birds who refuse to pick a side (like myself), he even has T-shirts for fence-sitters!

Sequential Olbermann

I just posted a short comic about Keith Olbermann's brief suspension, I hope you'll check it out.
Thanks,
Tim

Dag Nab Ants

Jeremy Burns animated this video for a song by him and his brother Chris "C.B." Burns. I'm hoping Jeremy will join the Salty 'Ham Cartooneestas, because this is pretty fun stuff.

Marvelham - by Rosko

Tongue and Pencil

In response to Chris Fason's post about Super Art Fight (below), I'll bring up another inspiring event, which also involves putting cartoonists in the limelight.

My buddy Chris Prynoski runs an animation studio in L.A. (and also in NYC now), called Titmouse, Inc. They've started putting on a show called the Titmouse Tongue & Pencil. So called because, while a stand-up performs, a cartoonist draws funny drawings in response to what he says, and the cartoons are projected behind the comedian in real time. Sometimes, the two forces clash, and sometimes they collude. Potential hilarity, either way.

Tongue & Pencil web site.

Tongue & Pencil facebook page, with good photos.

A Tongue & Pencil video - slow starting, but gets pretty good.

In the past, cartoonists performed live by way of vaudeville chalk talks. Maybe now they're wanting to take the stage again. Maybe we should think about bringing something like Super Art Fight to B'ham, or something like the Tongue & Pencil show, or some similar new invention of our own. Thoughts, anyone?

Super Art Fight

I've dabbled in Live Art a couple times back when Cave9 was still rocking and I have a cartoonist friend (Brandon J. Carr) in Virginia who's started "competing" with http://superartfight.com. Today, he posted this on his Facebook. And it's got me to thinking that that would be really really fun to bring to the 'Ham. Do you guys think we could pull something like this off? Maybe not immediately, but I'm sure that we have enough members with enough connections that setting something like this up would be plausible. Check the links and share what you think.

Nabbed Another'n

Introducing yet another new Salty 'Ham Cartooneesta: David Wheeler

Ghost Pokers!

Here's a bit of quasi-animated silliness that I made a while back but just uploaded to my youtubes account.

Recent Roundup

What's up, y'all?

I've just gone and collected a bunch of beautiful, somewhat recently posted work from some of the blogs and deviantART pages of our fellow SHC's. (You guys should come and post stuff here more often yourselves, just to keep the blog alive.)

If anybody has posted something else that they wish I'd included, let me know.

I can't take the time to turn all these names into links. If you want to see more from any of these artists, find them on the alphabetical list HERE.

Now let's look at some art!

Tom Briscoe


Tom Briscoe


Jessica Campbell


Kirk Creel


Howard Cruse


Howard Cruse


Chris Fason


Chris Fason


James Hislope


James Hislope


jenX


Hal Jones


Lorenzo Kirkpatrick


Heath McPherson


Melody


Mark Poe


Mark Poe


Perry Sessions


Perry Sessions


Jason Shoemaker


Stephen Smith


Pat Snow


Corey Stockley


Corey Stockley


Carolyn Wass


Carolyn Wass


Scotty White


Scotty White


Hayley "Sio" Williams


Hayley "Sio" Williams


Andrew Willmore


Andrew Willmore

Hundreds, If Not Thousands, Dead!

This isn't really cartoon-related, but . . .

I like this video, recently posted to youtube by The Birmingham Free Press, starring our fellow SHC Stephen Smith. I love how he talks. He has some kind of crazy (Cajun?) accent, which I find very pleasing, and I could listen to him for hours. However, he told me that he's actually from the B'ham area, and might have picked up the accent from his wife. I find that hard to believe; perhaps I just misunderstood his story. Anyway, here's the report:

Tim Continues to Rock

Our fellow SHC Tim Rocks has recently done a nice overhaul of his official home page.

Inking in Illustrator

I've dabbled with inking in Flash, and now I'm trying my hand at inking in Illustrator. I'm using the Calligraphic Brush method. I like it okay, I guess. It seems like it's a little more controllable than Flash, but the result sort of feels more cold. I haven't quite made up my mind about it. Neither way is quite as accurate as I might want.

(painted in PhotoShop)

Next I want to try inking in Illustrator using a different technique, before I move on to trying other applications.

Ed Gets Press

Check it out! Our fellow SHC Ed Abernathy was featured in a story on Fox 6 News.

Deviation

Li'l Hiatus

Sorry for the lack of activity here, the last couple weeks. I've been letting the jam blog languish, while I'm busy on some other stuff. It'll probably stay on the back burner for the next couple weeks, too.


If you want to see something here in the meantime, post something yer-dang-self!

Salty 'Ham Slam 9 - On Reflection

Our ninth official meet-and-greet was da bomb. We were at the J again, and we had 16 cartoonist-types in attendance! I'm pretty sure that's more than ever. Let's see, there was Richard Haigler, Ben Faucher, Frank Cummings, Garth Potts, Ed Abernathy, Tim Rocks, Chris Adkins, Christopher Davis, Lorenzo Kirkpatrick, Nolen Otts, Russell Quick, Tim Spinosi, and Sam McDavid were there. And we welcomed first-timer Perry Sessions. Plus special guest (and prospective new member) Kevin Van Hyning. And me, Chris Garrison. Crazy!

On the way in, the guys ogled a nearby roomful of nubile stretching women. Once the guys made it into our secret lair, they ogled Perry Sessions' binder full of girlie sci-fi drawings. So there was plenty of ogling to go around.

Foreground (left to right) -- Tim Spinosi and Nolen Otts discuss Tim's latest work, while Perry Sessions contributes to a comic jam. Background (left to right) -- Russell Quick, Sam McDavid, and Christopher Davis debate the rape epidemic in the Congo war. But . . . how is that a debate?

(left to right) -- Richard Haigler and Frank Cummings trade adventure stories from their years tracking Bigfoot. Why these two have never teamed up to nab the monster, I don't know. Tim Rocks looks on. Meanwhile, Ben Faucher (that's fo-SHAY) tells Lorenzo Kirkpatrick a few things he's learned about computers. "This is the return key." Way to start with the basics, Ben. Taking it back to 1981.

(left to right) -- Frank Cummings and Kevin Van Hyning admire the originals from this beautiful MAD-inspired piece by Tim Rocks.

Chris Adkins

Richard Haigler

Russell Quick -- apparently too quick to stay in focus.

Sam McDavid tells Christopher Davis where to put his bags. Talk about racist!

Somehow I didn't get Garth Potts or Ed Abernathy in any of my photos. Maybe I snapped these before those guys showed up, or else they just somehow eluded my lens without my realizing it. Sorry, guys.

Oh, some lovable moppets snuck in and stole our cookies! It was hilarious. I tried to run them off with old-fashioned phrases, like, "Shoo!" and "23 Skidoo!" But that only seemed to encourage them.

Lorenzo Kirkpatrick showed us some work from his web-comic, Alien Gladiators. He was planning to wait a while before telling the general public, but I'm leaking it to you guys here, because the work is SUPERB. So go check out Alien Gladiators.

We all went downstairs to see a bunch of work by Garth Potts, which filled two rooms, close to the main doors of the LJCC. Some sports caricatures, and some serious sports-related illustrations. Garth is so prolific, the work spills out into the halls and basically fills up the whole complex. If you missed it, drop by and have a look. I think it'll be up throughout the month of October.

Tim Spinosi brought this:


He said it was the first thing he's drawn with colored pencils in twelve years! Good job getting back on that horse, Spin Man. Let's see some more!

With all the camaraderie and discussion of tools and techniques, we barely had time to draw. But Kevin Van Hyning doodled this in my sketchbook:


And we added a few panels to some comic jams that we've started in the past, but we still didn't resolve the stories on them. Maybe I can get together with a few cartooneestas in the next few weeks to try and wrap up those stories, before posting them in their entirety.

Here's a brief comic jam we managed to do this time:


Unlucky Leprechaun credits:
panel 1 by Chris Garrison; panel 2 by Richard Haigler; panel 3 by Russell Quick, with story suggestion by Sam McDavid. Time was running short, and I thought that last panel about summed it up, so I put a cap on it by writing "End" at the bottom. It was either that or begin a long and complicated action-adventure, a la Tin Tin, in which our chubby heroine sets out to solve The Mystery of the Dead Leprechaun.

All tolled, everybody had fun at the slam, and many hands were shaken. So join us, won't you, for the NEXT Salty 'Ham Slam! (as yet unscheduled) (official members and invited guests only, please)

And you can look back at previous slams, here:

Slam 1
Slam 2
Slam 3
Slam 4
Slam 5
Slam 6
Slam 7
Slam 8