I don’t know how small long-eared mammals (not to mention the shelled embryos of certain avian species and similarly shaped confections) came to be associated with the Christian holiday observance of Easter, but there they are, popping up in popular culture all over the place.

Jonathan Jones, writing in his OnArt blog on Guardian.co.uk, uses that association with the upcoming holiday to suggest his top five rabbits in art.

It’s a fun idea, but for one reason or another, his article is only accompanied (at least online) by a single image. I won’t second guess his choices (as I’m all onboard with four out of five), but I’ve take the liberty of supplementing his article with images and, where possible, links to better examples of the works he mentions.

Images above: The Virgin and Child with Saint Catherine and a Shepherd, known as The Madonna of the Rabbit by Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), Young Hare by Albrecht Dürer, the March Hare from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Sir John Tenniel, Rabbit by Jeff Koons, early Bugs Bunny model sheet by Robert Givens.

Charles Kaufman is a painter, cartoonist, illustrator and comics artist. His work has appeared in a long list of publications, from underground comix and CARtoons to the Wall Street Journal-Europe, Focus, Computer Artist, Editor & Publisher, New Media and a host of others, along with a range of commercial clients.

His is the creator of Fred and Frank, a long running comics series published for U.S. military personnel stationed in Europe from 1979-1992.

Kaufman works both in digital media and traditional media like acrylic and pen and ink, applying his off-kilter style to gallery paintings as well as illustrations and cartoons.

His paintings, in acrylic on canvas and sometimes other supports like wood or paper, are often of cubist influenced compositions involving women, or wine, or wine and women, as well as a few other subjects including a selection of stylized landscapes. Kaufman has a description of his painting process here.

Among his choice of unusual supports for paintings are crushed soft drink or beer cans, panted with acrylic. The finished piece is then framed for hanging. His crushed can art is featured on both a website and blog.

Kaufman also creates limited edition 3-D constructions that are probably a little difficult to convey in photographs.

In addition he creates “Fish Art” under the pseudonym of F. Frank.

Some of Kaufman’s work is collected in a book called Detail Views: Paintings within paintings, that is available from Back Wall Art. New collections of his 116 Faces and Crushed Can Art are due soon.

I don’t often talk about my own projects on Lines and Colors, but sometimes they’re enough fun to be worthy of note.

PumpkinMixer is my new app for the iPhone and iPod touch. Like my other apps, DinoMixer and MonsterMixer, it was developed with my friend and colleague Leon Stankowski, who created the coding to fit with my design and illustrations, worked with me on the functionality and coordinated the sound.

Similar to the other “Mixer” apps, PumpkinMixer is based loosely on the old Surrealist game of Exquisite Corpse, in which artists would fold over paper and draw three independent parts of a drawing, head, body and legs, without seeing the outcome until all were in place. This concept made its way into popular culture as a children’s game (my friends and I played it in elementary school), and was eventually adapted in publishing as “mix-n-match” children’s picture books (usually spiral-bound, with stiff cardboard pages that are divided in three).

PumpkinMixer, like DinoMixer and MonsterMixer, is an electronic version of this. In the case of PumpkinMixer, you swipe side to side to swap sets of eyes, noses and mouths, with an extra horizontal band at the top to switch between three backgrounds. Swiping on the iPhone screen vertically switches between pumpkins and swaps out the colors of the animated “candle flame” behind the face cut-outs.

In designing the interface and creating the artwork, which was done digitally in Painter and Photoshop in the same way I draw my webcomic, Argon Zark!, I faced the same challenges I outlined in my post about creating the artwork for DinoMixer.

Like many illustration projects, this one, in addition to the design and technical challenges, had a deadline. Since PumpkinMixer just made it through the App Store approval process and became available today, one day before Halloween, you might say we just made it; though we obviously had an earlier release in mind.

On the other hand, you could say we’re just really really early for next Halloween!

Patrick Chappatte is a political cartoonist with an international reach, and a personal history to match. Born in Pakistan, Chappatte was raised in Singapore and later Switzerland. He lived in New York for a time and now lives and works in Geneva.

Chappette’s global view comes across in his cartoons for the International Herald Tribune and other publications.

He is known in particular for his forays into cartoon journalism, in which he visits parts of the world, reporting on the situation there in cartoon or comic strip form. An example is his In the Slums of Nairobi (image above, bottom), which was published in a series on Nairobi in the Global Opinion section of the New York Times website.

Note how the use of cartoon imagery, while it doesn’t lessen the impact of the dire situation, makes for a lower barrier to entry into an uncomfortable subject than stark photographs might have.

You can see some other examples of his work in this direction on graphicjournalism.net.

Chappatte explores this increasing trend toward cartoon journalism, along with the impact, influence and role of cartoons in world events, in a fascinating talk on The Power of Cartoons for the TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) conference (you can also view the video on YouTube). He punctuates his comments with some of his cartoons.

You can see more of them on his website (French version here). When looking through his cartoons by topic (drop down menu at right), be aware that most categories have several pages, accessed from small page numbers under the cartoon thumbnails at lower right.

His work has also been published in a number of books.

Despite the difficulties faced by traditional newspapers, and their resultant decisions to abandon much of their original content, like editorial cartoons (brilliant, of course — when cicrculation is dropping, drop the content people find worthwhile), cartoons will continue to play an important part in political and social discourse.

[Via Digg, via Geeks Are Sexy]

Taylor Jones is a caricaturist, illustrator and political cartoonist who is a regular contributor to EL Nuevo Dia, a newspaper based in Guaynbo, Puerto Rico.

He has adopted a nicely traditional cross-hatch pen and ink drawing style (like David Levine, looking back to the pen and ink illustrators of the late 19th Century) that he wields with aplomb while portraying and often skewering popular political and entertainment figures of the day.

He often produces color versions of his drawings which he accents with judicious touches of watercolor, enough to enliven the image while still leaving the appealing characteristics of the pen and ink drawing.

Jones’ web site has a modest gallery of his work, as well as a home page image that is replaced, according to him, “…daily, weekly, or whenever I feel like it”. You can find more of his work on Daryl Cagle’s Political Cartoonists Index (see my post on Daryl Cagle’s Professional Cartoonist Index). It’s not as obvious as it should be, but down amid the icons and stuff under the image are arrows for browsing through recent cartoons, as well as a drop-down menu for selecting a particular date.

In addition there is a selection of his illustrations on the Cagle.com site.

You can also go to the “Search For a Cartoon” page and search for Taylor Jones, for access to dozens of his cartoons (offered in both color and black and white versions).

Jones maintains his blog on the Cagle.com site. The blog covers a variety of topics, and the posts are always accompanied by one or more of his cartoon illustrations.

Scott Brundage applies his delightfully cartoony watercolor illustration style to editorial illustrations for clients like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Southern Living Magazine, The Artist’s Magazine and many others.

In addition to the cartoonlike visual approach, his illustrations often have a cartoonlike twist, or humorous variation on a common scene. This is often applied to his “Rollover” illustrations, web-specific illustrations in which mousing over the image reveals an alternate version of the scene (sometimes shown as an animated sequence).

Many of the latter have been done for Tor.com where he is a regular contributor (never too early to stock up on your Cthulhu Christmas Cards!). The Tor site also has a gallery of his work.

Brundage began his career while still a student at the University of the Arts here in Philadelphia, with the winning design for a children’s helmet contest, which was put into production by Bell Helmets. He is originally from Connecticut and now lives in New York City.

In addition to his web site, Brundage keeps a blog where you can see work in progress and other pieces not yet included in the galleries, like the image above, for a Tor.com Valentine’s Day Rollover, in which he has playfully recast a scene styled after Fragonard’s Rococo garden dalliances into a chase from The Wizard of Oz.

Edward Sorel’s wonderfully loose and gestural cartoon illustrations have been featured on the covers and interiors of magazines like The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Harpers, Forbes, The Nation, Esquire and The New York Times Magazine for a number of years.

His pen and ink and watercolor images capture personalities, places and situations with wry humor and an uncanny sense of place.

Sorel studied at Cooper Union and was one of the con-founders of the legendary Push Pin Studios. He has had a number of one-man shows, including a 1998 multi-room show at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC (see my post on The National Portrait Gallery).

A collection was published in conjunction with the show, Unauthorized Portraits from 1997. He has also illustrated a number of books and created numerous posters.

There is an interview here, conducted by artist Zina Saunders, along with Saunders’ portrait of Sorel. (Here’s my post on Zina Saunders.)

Sorel’s work has been compared to other modern masters of caricature like David Levine, and even to historic figures like Daumier and Hogarth.

Even among fans of his comic art masterpiece, Little Nemo in Slumberland (a group of whom I count myself an ardent member), few people are aware of the editorial cartoons of Winsor McCay.

During his stints as cartoonist for The Cincinnati Enquirer and The New York Herald, and through syndicated work for the Hearst papers, McCay did a remarkable series of editorial and allegorical cartoons. More social commentary than topically editorial, they were anti-materialism, anti-laziness, anti-drug and pro hard work and duty.

The best thing about them, of course, is that they were wonderfully drawn by one of one of the best draftsmen in the history of cartooning and comics.

In 2005 Fantagraphics published a terrific collection of McCay’s black and white work, Daydreams and Nightmares: The Fantastic Visions of Winsor McCay, 1898-1934 (more here), that is unfortunately out of print, but can be found used for essentially original cover price ($20).

In addition to McCay’s social commentary/editorial cartoons, the book includes pages of his early strips like Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, A Pilgrim’s Progress, Day Dreams and Little Sammy Sneeze. (Sunday Press published wonderful large-scale version of the latter, with color; my article here.)

Only a smattering of McCay material is online, but the generous and enigmatic “Mr. Door Tree” has published a number of McCay’s editorial cartoons on his blog Golden Age Comic Book Stories. Be sure to click on the initial images to see the large versions of the drawings.

Wonderful stuff.

[Link via BitterOldPunk on MetaFilter]