Is the Jackson Memorial Pop Art?

A feature by Ted Anthony of the Associated Press looking at the phenomenon that was the Jackson Memorial. I got a little ink:

“It’s pop art. But just walking down the street in America today is pop art,” said John Tebeau, a New York artist who uses cartoon art to interpret popular culture in his paintings.

Was the whole thing too much of a circus? Or would MJ have wanted it the way it was? A public death like this must make a lot of us think about our own memorial services. Hunter Thompson had his planned out 30 years in advance, leaving strict instructions (and Steadman-sketched visual aides) to blow his ashes into the sky from a red cannon. Live with style, go with style.

The Cannon, by Ralph Steadman

New York, David Byrne, Tutus, Rockettes

The Dadaist stage show master rocks Radio City Music Hall. Bertolt Brecht and Duchamp would be proud. This is transcending a genre.

Saw him do this same bit Monday at the Prospect Park  in Brooklyn. Larry, standing next to me, said it was “like getting a sun tan.” Yes it was.

Thanks, David! And the DANCERS, too! Holy moly.

Adrian Tomine! Seth! Al Jaffee! and more, this weekend in New York.

Comic Geeks Unite…. at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art’s MoCCA Art Festival 2009. Celebrate the great American art form. Meet legends like Al (Mad magazine’s “Mr. Fold-In”) Jaffee and newer talent like Dr. Sketchy’s Molly Crabapple. GT Lab’s Jim Ottaviani (the SI Newhouse of science comics) will be there, kicking off the publication of his latest science-themed graphic novel T-Minus: The Race to the Moon, the story of how the hell we got there.

It’s all Saturday June 6 and Sunday the 7th at the Armory on Lexington and 25th St. in NYC. Cost is $10 per day or a mere $15 for both.

More here at the MoCCA website.

27 Artists Showing off in Brooklyn on Friday June 5…

Mike's take on Spring

John's take on Summer

Mike Sorgatz and John Tebeau invite you to an opening at their new studio in Screwball Spaces. This is the first showing of the Spaces’ Gallery and Roof Deck. Come enjoy a summer breeze, glass of wine, great art and newly developed real estate!

183 Lorraine Street between Court and Clinton.
Friday, June 5th, 7-9 p.m.

Directions:  Take the F/G train to Smith/ 9th Street stop, walk to Court Street, make a left, cross Hamilton Avenue, walk two blocks to Lorraine Street, turn right.  You will see Treasure Island Storage Building, this is it!  We are on the 3rd Floor.  Enter through door with “Screwball Spaces” sign on it.

New York is Free Street Theater

New York Eye Candy

Walk down a street in New York, and you’re surrounded by art. And it costs you nothing.

The whole city is like a movie set, first of all. Every neighborhood, landmark and street seem like you’ve seen them on the big (or small) screen at one time or another, and you probably have. On top of that, the signage, Times Square, the taxis, etc? Those are all pop art. Then of course there is actual art art: murals, statues and whatnot, out there in courtyards, in the parks and on the streets for all to enjoy.

But I’m talking about something different here. It’s what’s happening on the streets and other public places. People. People amusing people. All the time. Sometimes on purpose (buskers, breakdancers, goddamned mimes) and sometimes unintentionally (angry old women bitching at length about cold eggrolls to a Chinese waiter who’s been in the U.S. two weeks and speaks five words of English).

And then there are the stunts. This week David Pogue from the Times wrote about a group called Improv Everywhere. Their public antics (breaking into an elaborate musical in a food court, freezing in place at Grand Central) add to the richness of New York art, and we are better for it.

Read Pogue’s article here. And when in New York, keep your eyes open. Art is all around you, all the time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah... Chicago. Close enough.

Three Reasons to Like John K

1. Ren

2. Stimpy

3. His blog

(Okay, there are more reasons, but why clutter this posting?)

John K, besides being a talented artist, is also a highly principled guy. He reveres good design and drawing, deplores much of the cluttered new “design” we see these days, and he tells us why on his blog, John K Stuff. He has a fine appreciation for quality vintage cartooning and layout, and carefully explains its merits, to both the professional and the layman.

And the man has a soft spot for the cereals (and their vintage packaging!) from our childhoods, too.

Good design. Right here.

Check out his blog, John K Stuff. I find it enjoyable and informative every time I visit and I hope you do, too.

Wacky Painting in Three Easy Steps

Remember Wacky Packages? Those fun little parody stickers we used to collect? Man, I was mesmerized by those. They still inspire my art today. I can’t resist parody.

Wackies made the cover of New York

I wanted to do a “beatnik” painting a few years back, and chose (of course) Jack Kerouac as the subject. Seems to me he was not only inspired by jazz, but wanted to write lyrically, like jazz musicians played. I imagined him hunched over his Underwood, like Dave Brubeck or Erroll Garner at the keys, typing away, rhythmically, in synchopated time…. Anyway, I wanted to do a painting of Kerouac that was more than just a portrait.

At the time, I was really into vintage jazz album cover design of  of the 1950s, especially the Blue Note label’s, which were mostly done by a guy named Reid Miles. He gave them a distinctive, cool, sleek look.

The era coincided with Kerouac’s coming onto the literary scene. It clicked: why not do the portrait to look like a Blue Note LP, circa 1957, the year “On the Road” was published? What, in fact, would “On the Road” have looked like if it had been a record, not a novel?

I found a picture of Jack and his muse Neal Cassady, taken by Allen Ginsberg, who in addition to being a poet was also quite a good photographer. [note: I wrote Ginsberg before he died,  and asked him if I could borrow images from his photos to use in my art. His assistant wrote back and said he was cool with it.]

I took the image of Jack and Neal, and built a parody Blue Note album cover around it. Jack and Neal headlined, sidemen included Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky and William S. Burroughs, all characters in “On the Road,” under various pseudonyms.

Photoshop version of the painting

The painting was in a group show and sold last week. Huzzah. Prints are available here.

Remember the Del Rio?

Del Rio: R.I.P.

Way back in 1997 I drew a cartoon based on observations I made while hanging out at the Del Rio restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was a fun project, and people enjoyed it, mostly I assume because of their love of the place, which closed in 2004. A damn shame, because the place had heart, soul, good music and the best freakin’ pizza in town. Not to mention the last wisps of Ann Arbor’s mythical 1970s funk factor.

I recently found my notes and initial sketches that preceded the cartoon, and I’ve posted them below, with the final product. Hope you enjoy a trip down Memory Lane, all you folks fortunate enough to remember this place.

What favorite establishments would YOU like to see get a similar cartoon treatment?

Dinner at the Del Rio, as it ran in Current Magazine

Humbug!

In 1956, Mad was the hottest thing since sunburn. It was selling out every issue, featured the best artistic talent in the industry and buoyed Bill Gaines’ EC comic book empire, unintentionally spawning several wannabe parodic rags in the process.

Editor Harvey Kurtzman wanted to upgrade Mad into a glossy magazine, paying big bucks to lure top writing talent. Gaines said no. Young Hugh Hefner liked the idea. Harvey and others made the leap to Hefner’s new, glossy Trump. It folded after two issues.

Then, after knocking back several alleged shots of Old Rotgut, Kurtzman, Will Elder, Al Jaffee, Arnold Roth and Jack Davis decided to start their own humor (also pronounced “YOO-mur” here in NYC) mag called Humbug. It was a site to behold. It blew many a young mind (see: “Crumb, Robert”). It folded after 11 issues, never to be reprinted. Until now.

Big Box o' Fun

It’s American popular history, kids. Dig in.

Seven Steps to Parody Design

The Call to Service

People love to steal cool glasses from bars. They break them, too. Some joints go through hundreds of glasses a year. One such place is the fabulous Bulldog in New Orleans.

They have a standing call to create designs for their pint glasses. If they pick your design, you get bragging rights to the glass, a free Bulldog t-shirt, and a gift certificate to use as you see fit.

Call to Arms

I like parody, so that’s the direction I decided to take when creating the design I eventually submitted last week. Here, I’ll walk you through the process.

The Inkling

First, the general idea. I make associations…. (to be read in an echo-y voice, like dream sequence narration) “Bulldog. Pub. English. Bulldog…. Hmm…. An ‘English bulldog’ reminds me of Winston Churchill. Churchill reminds me of WWII, and that makes me think of those cool old morale (or “propaganda” depending on which side of a subject you find yourself on) posters. The kind from the war that reminded people to ‘do [their] part,’ ‘keep ‘em flying,’ and (in Britain, anyway) keep a stiff upper lip in general.”

Putting all these thoughts together, I decided to create a design based on the look of a WWII poster, featuring a bulldog as the famous Winston Churchill “Roaring Lion” portrait by photographer Yousuf Karsh. According to legend, Churchill looks so pissed in this picture because Karsh had just removed the Prime Minister’s beloved cigar from his mouth. Ballsy move.

Legwork

I found images via Google, and damned it this bulldog doesn’t look just like Churchill. Look at the jowls, the frown and the shape of the head. Perfect.

Winston Churchill by Karsh

English Bulldog

First Draft

So I printed up the images and took them to the Starbucks located on the top floor of our neighborhood Barnes and Noble’s. Bookstore coffee shops are a great place to get work done. Seriously. Just ask Chris Brogan. There, wired on the magic bean and overlooking Broadway, I sketched away. Here’s the first run at it, from the original page in my sketchbook.

From my sketchbook. Smudgy!

I put the cigar back in his mouth for effect. It looked better. Badder. I had a general idea of what those old posters look like, and I wanted to keep this one dynamic and simple. I only had black and white to work with. No shading, no colors. I wanted the name of the bar, The Bulldog, to be big and bold and at an angle, an effect often used in those posters. I decided to put a Union Jack flag motif behind Winston Bulldog. Then I thought, hey, how about something at the bottom… maybe a twist on an inspirational phrase from the Great P.M.? Oh, yeah… he had that excellent speech about fighting the Germans every step of the way…. On the beaches, in the fields, on the streets, etc…. something like that. Hmm…. This is about beer, though. And this bar is in New Orleans, where, indeed, you can drink beer on the streets. Streets. How about quaffing them (beers) instead of fighting them (Germans)? Yeah, that’s kind of clever. Clever enough.

Final Artwork

Sometimes going from a sketch in a sketchbook (usually done very loosely with no pressure) to final art (done in ink, under pressure to achieve perfection) can be a travail. Not in this case. I rocked it. It progressed quickly and much to my satisfaction. I scanned the inked drawing, adjusted it in Photoshop (to achieve pure black and white with no shades of grey) and was ready to create the final design.

Bulldog Art

More Research

I found (thanks again, Google) a couple typical WWII posters, which gave me a better idea of the font to use. I also snagged a generic Union Jack motif, and converted it to just black and white.

Poster 1

Poster 2

Union Jack

Putting it all Together

In Photoshop, I created a file and laid the Union Jack down first, then Sir Winston Bulldog, then a couple white boxes, then the lettering. I decided to go with the font “Impact” which is a favorite of mine. It reads well. It’s fairly close in look to the WWII posters’ letters (especially when stretched vertically). It’s strong, bold. It worked. Finally I added my name and the copyright (don’t forget that, my friends) off to the side. Saved it as a grayscale jpeg file and boom. Donesville.

Final Bulldog Glass Design

The folks at the Bulldog liked it and will roll them out later this year. Don’t steal them, dammit. (I want some.)