The wonderfully demented art of Basil Wolverton, a cartoonist who helped put the “Ugh” in ugly and the “Gross” in gross-out with his work for Mad Comics (later Mad Magazine) in the 1950’s and 60’s, will be on display at the Gladstone Gallery in New York From June 20 to August 14, 2009.

The gallery has a selection of his work online that inclides pieces from many stages of his career, from early, more innocent cartoons, to the gross-out “Beautiful Girl of the Month” that made his reputation, to the apocalyptic Bible illustrations to which he devoted his later career.

There is a review of the show in the New York Times.

For more, including links to more of his art on the web, see my previous post about Basil Wolverton.

Georgia artist Don Coker found himself at a crossroads this year when the round of cutbacks and layoffs sweeping the newspaper industry (which is being hit by both the economic downturn and the changing paradigm of how news is delivered) caused him to be laid off from his long time position as a newspaper illustrator, cartoonist, caricaturist, art director and designer.

Coker had for a couple of years been following the “painting a day” phenomenon, and was particularly inspired by its originator, Duane Keiser, and an early practitioner, Julian Merrow-Smith (see my posts on “painting a day“, Duane Keiser, and Julian Merrow-Smith).

Coker decided this was an opportune time to explore that avenue, and started a painting blog called “A Daily Curmudgeon“. The intention is to do small oil paintings in the format common to painting a day blogs, 5×5 or 5×7″, but to indulge in his fondness for whimsical character studies rather than the usual small still life or landscape subjects that are the staple of the genre.

Coker says his painting process is to start with a blank canvas or gessoed illustration board and to take a small brush loaded with burnt umber and just start pushing and pulling until an image begins to suggest itself. This has led so far to an array of odd characters as well as a portrait of Shakespeare and a homage to Van-Gogh self portraits.

Be sure to click on the images in the blog to see the large version, and Coker’s technique, which can be painterly or smoothly refined as subject dictates.

Something tells me that Coker’s interests and multi-faceted talents will lead to a wider range of subject matter and approach in the future, but in the meanwhile, his small painted characters are a delight (and a steal at the auction prices he’s asking, I don’t think anyone knows about his blog yet, he just started a few days ago).

Cartoonist and illustrator Chuck Dillon, who teaches at the Hussian School of Art here in Philadelphia, has condensed some of his observations about students over his 10 years of teaching, and produced cartoon drawings/infographics of 20 student “types”.

Inspired in part by Daniel Clowes Art School Confidentaial, a graphic story (made into a movie by Terry Zwigoff) that did a bit of similar classification of art students, Dillon came up with 20 classifications, like Student 1.0, the Anime Student, the Snob/Fine Art Student, the Mom Student, the Comic Book/Geek Student, etc.

Dillon posted them on his blog, 30×30, asking “Which Student are You?“.

You may be disinclined to identify, as most of his characterizations are negative and drawn from the inevitable frustrations of a teacher who is trying to communicate something through the barriers people often erect in the name of identity, but it’s amusing to see his take on them.

Personally, I found it difficult to identify for another reason. Enough years have passed since I was in art school that many of his types don’t resonate with me, largely because the social/pop culture phenomena to which they’re tied (anime, metal, gaming) didn’t exist at the time. Other types with which I might have identified (60’s counterculture types) no longer apply. Also I went to a different kind of art school, Hussian is a small commercial art school, a sharp contrast in some ways to the medium sized fine arts academy that I attended.

Still some things are universal, and even though we all know it’s not a Good Thing to classify people by their appearance, it’s fun to sort into “types”.

It’s also fun to compare Dillon’s categorization of student types with his assessment of himself over time in a two part series called “Through the years…” and “Through the Years (part2)“, which preceded his student types, and was inspired by the Draw yourself as a teen meme started by webcomics artist Dave Valeza (see my post about Draw yourself as a teen).

The rest of Dillon’s blog varies from posts about his process to train sketches to various finished and unfinished projects, like his Philadelphia Zoo Annual Report Comic Strip. Dillon also has a web site which showcases some of his other work.

[Via Drawn!]

Mike Lester is a Georgia based illustrator and cartoonist who just received the National Cartoonist Society’s Ruben Award for Book Illustration, for his illustrations for Cool Daddy Rat, a read-aloud children’s book written by Kristyn Crow.

In addition to his numerous illustrations for children’s books, Lester is an editorial cartoonist for the Rome News-Tribune, and also does a range of other commercial and editorial illustration.

Lester is also the creator of the Mike du Jour semi-animated cartoon for DowJones.com and Work.com

His web site includes a range of his cartooning, comic strips, characters and illustration, though it’s a bit disappointing that there isn’t more of his children’s book illustration featured on the site. It’s in his loopy, sprightly children’s book characters that I find the most delight in his work.

Perhaps you’ve seen his unforgettable drawings in the introductory animation for the PBS Mystery! series (animated by Derkek Lamb); perhaps you’ve seen one or more of his over 75 published books; or perhaps you’ve somehow encountered stray examples of his wonderfully eccentric pen drawings, filled with enigmatic figures in long coats or longer dresses, as likely to hold a knife as a croquet mallet (though either could be equally suspicious of being a murder weapon), and children of questionable intent and even more questionable future; and, of course, perhaps you’re already a devoted Edward Gorey fan.

Gorey himself was something of an enigmatic figure, considered eccentric by some, with a perhaps undeserved association with grim, morbid or horrorific work, when in fact his work has always been whimsical, with just a twist of macabre humor.

Gorey’s wonderfully retro drawing style, at times spare, but often filled with luxurious swaths of pen and ink texture, lends itself perfectly to his off-kilter view of the world and the charming denizens with whom he populates it.

His small, utterly charming and disarming picture books (which you may or may not consider children’s storybooks, depending your thoughts about books in which terrible things happen to the children involved), are wonders of wordcraft as well as spellbindingly drawn. The seemingly simple haiku-like captions make you pause, and pause again, while a slow motion laugh arises, ghost-like, from the bottom of your brain pan and finds its way to your mouth as you stare.

Gorey is sometimes associated with Charles Adams, the two were acquainted and shared the same literary agent as well as admiration for each other’s work. An association I like to make is with the wonderfully off-kilter cartoons of B. Kliban, who I’m certain must have been influenced by Gorey, (as he was by Saul Steinberg), and who, in turn, was a prime influence on the Far Side’s Gary Larsen (along with Gorey, Adams and Gahan Wilson – it all comes around, folks).

Gorey said his fascination with the macabre began at age 5 when he discovered Bram Stoker’s Dracula, was “scared to death” and began to teach himself to draw. Though he worked in Doubleday’s art department for years, his own book ideas were rejected by publisher after publisher until The Unstrung Harp made it to press and began a string of successful titles.

He later did set designs for the Broadway version of Dracula, in which the entire sets were large reproductions of his pen drawings, intricately detailed castle interiors and drawing rooms; and entirely black and white, except.. one object in each set was brilliant blood-red.

You can now buy a fold-out and fold-up toy book version of the sets as Edward Gorey’s Dracula: A Toy Theatre: Die Cut, Scored and Perforated Foldups and Foldouts.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a major repository of Gorey’s work on the web, so I’ve gathered some scattered resources below, though most of them are not representative of his best work..

If you haven’t exposed yourself to Gorey’s brain-tweaking and eye delighting books, I might recommend Amphigorey, an inexpensive collection of several of his small books (which was followed by several other collections in similar format). There are, of course, many other titles.

If you live within reach of Southeastern Pennsylvania, you can still catch a terrific show of Gorey’s originals, Elegant Enigmas: The Art of Edward Gorey, at the Brandywine River Museum until May 17, 2009. (Here is a review of the show, and background about Gorey, from the Philadelphia Inquirer.)

The Edward Gorey House, in his former home in Yarmouthport, MA, is open to the public on a regular basis.

Addendum: Michael Connors of Morguefile has written to add this link to reproduction of Gorey’s Gashleycrumb Tinies, his “Alphabet Book” (delightful!).

The results are in for The New Yorker’s 2009 Eustace Tilley Contest. See my recent post about the 2009 Eustace Tilley Contest for an explanation.

You can view the 12 winners as a slide show, or as thumbnails. You can also view all 2009 entries. You can see the original Eustace from the cover of the first issue of The New Yorker here.

I love the Watchmen graphic novel cover parody by Marcus Thiele (above, center, larger version here).

You can also view the 2008 winners (thumbnails) or all 2008 entries (on Flickr).

Just for fun, I actually entered this year (image at left, larger version here).

My entry didn’t make the cut, but it was fun to draw; even though, with my usual insane schedule, I was working on it at the last minute (literally — I submitted it one minute before the midnight deadline); and for someone who hardly ever posts my own work on this blog, here I am doing it twice in a row.

It’s fun to look through the whole range of entries, particularly if you saw last years’, and compare some of pop culture influences relevant to the times (lots of iPhones, financial woes and Obama images this year).

See also my post on last year’s contest, The Many Faces of Eustace Tilley.

(Image at top, left to right: David Leonard, Marcus Thiele, David Cook, Adam Koford, Charlene Chua, Eric Almendral)

As I promised in my post about The Many Faces of Eustace Tilley last January, I’m letting you know about the 2009 Eustace Tilley Contest in time to participate if you’re inclined.

Eustace Tilley is the name given to the foppish character drawn by art director Rea Irvin for the first cover of The New Yorker in 1925 (image above, top left). The character has returned for a reprise on the anniversary issue each year and has essentially become the magazine’s mascot.

Last year The New Yorker began a contest in which entrants create their own version of an alternate or updated Eustace, and the winners are featured in a slide show on the magazine’s web site (some of last year’s entries shown above as well as in my previous post). Last year they were also featured in the print version of the magazine, but they don’t mention that on this year’s page about the contest, so I think it’s just online this time.

The contest is only open to residents of the US and Canada (with the exception of Quebec). To enter, you sign up, confirm your registration and then upload your image(s) as a jpg, png or non-animated gif file, ideally 465×633 (must be in vertical orientation).

You can submit multiple entries (up to three, I think). The entries must be received by midnight Eastern Time on January 15, 2009, and the winners will be announced on February 2, 2009.

There’s no particular prize other than inclusion in the slide show of the 12 winners, which will be chosen by the New Yorker’s art editor, François Mouly; and, of course, the fun of creating your own variation of the character.

You can see the submissions to date for the 2009 contest here, the winners of the 2008 contest here, and a Flickr gallery of all 170 entries from the 2008 contest here.

You can also see a gallery of some of the variations on Tilley that the magazine has commissioned as covers from various artists, including Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Charles Burns, Roz Chast, Robert Crumb, Anita Kunz, Carter Goodrich and others; and an article about the history of the character by Louis Menand, Mystery Man: The many faces of Eustace Tilley.

I’ll write another article when the contest results are posted in February and we can all see the new round of thoroughly modern Tilleys.

[Via Kottke]

Saul Steinberg’s brilliant expressions in the medium of cartoon art have brightened eyes and tickled brains for the better part of a century. (See my previous article on Saul Steinberg.)

Romanian born, trained in Milan and other cultural centers of Europe, Steinberg emigrated to the U.S. and became familiar to many Americans through his long time association with The New Yorker; where his humorous, thought provoking, and uncannily clever drawings delighted readers for over 60 years.

Residents of the U.K. now have an opportunity to view some of his original drawings in an exhibition that runs until February 15, 2009 at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London.

Those of us in other parts of the world can pick up the exhibition catalog or Joel Smith’s Steinberg at the New Yorker, or simply search through the New Yorker’s extensive archives of cartoon art at The Cartoon Bank.

[Via Art Knowledge News]

Here’s a great idea, started as a simple notion by webcomics artist and blogger Dave Valeza, and now snowballed into something of an internet meme.

The suggestion was simple: “challenge: draw yourself as a teen“, supplemented with “if you are still a teen, draw your future post-teen self”.

Word has gotten around, as people have participated and posted the results on their own sites and blogs, and the list on Valeza’s blog is now of over 400 links and growing.

Some of the participants have done “then and now” versions, in which their teenage self is contrasted with their current identity, complete with notations on hairstyle, clothing choice and attendant paraphernalia like sketchbooks, music players and reading matter.

Some of the drawings are more accomplished than others, of course, but many are quite well done; and even the less sophisticated drawings are often enlivened with wry observations and remarkably self-confessional critiques of former (and present) selves.

The list is too long to explore all at once, but it makes a nice diversion to bookmark and revisit occasionally. It would be nice if there were a more formal arrangement with thumbnails and such, but that’s a lot to ask. Valeza has marked off the list at increments of 50, which can help you keep track.

On many of the images, you have to click through several links, and various interfaces (LiveJournal, Flickr, deviantARt, etc.), to get to the full size images.

Some of the drawings are essentially condensed tales of growth, angst and self-awareness, worthy of more filled out short stories. Others are simple drawings of a past self-image, but there is much food for thought here, both in terms of stories and artistically.

(Image at left, left to right, top to bottom: Kennon James, Jacob “Gil” Paul, “buttface makani”, Steve Wolfhard, “lokabrenna” ,Viki Nerino)

[Link via Drawn!]

I was sorry to hear that Will Elder died last Thursday. He was one of the best, and certainly one of the funniest, comic book artists (those of you in the expensive seats read “graphic storytellers”) ever to put pen to paper, and always one of my favorites.

For a brief appreciation, see my previous post on Will Elder.