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Family Distraught over Charles Schulz Biography
2007-10-08 21:26:00
An extensive and much anticipated biography of Char les M. Schulz, creator of the comic strip “Peanuts”, by writer David Michaelis, is due for publication next week. Some of Schulz’s family members have reacted negatively to the portrayal of the cartoonist as “cold and tormented”. Technorati Tags: Books, Cartoons, Comic Strips, Comics, Peanuts
More About: Family , Biography

Most Banned Book of 2006
2007-10-08 04:05:00
This article from the Detroit Free Press, is about the sort of thing that makes me wonder whether I should laugh or cry… Actually, it relates to this post. Whereas the group in the previous post (Happy Endings Foundation) may have turned out to be fake, this is unfortunately very real. “And Tango Makes Three” by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, is a book about penguins. More specifically, about two penguins taking care of an egg that isn’t theirs. Problem is, both grown-up penguins are males… A Central Park Zoo zookeeper watches as two male penguins care for a rock as if it were an egg. He gives them a fertilized penguin egg, and the chick that hatches is named Tango. Opponents say the story promotes homosexuality and is inappropriate for 4- to 8-year-olds, the book’s intended audience. That’s why it’s the most challenged book of 2006, according to the American Library Association. According to the article, a challenge can rang...
More About: Book , Banned

The Egg of Death…
2007-10-07 03:18:00
Don’t ask… This is just a sketch, or rather, the beginning of a painting that I found sitting around in a distant folder on my computer. I did it to test out some brushes in Photoshop. I usually paint all my stuff in Corel Painter, but sometimes it’s nice to mix things up a bit using Photoshop. I found this brush that creates a neat effect of simulating canvas texture. Unfortunately, this was so long ago, I’m not even sure how to find back to that brush again… You can see some of the brush work in the close-up below. Technorati Tags: Art, Corel Painter, Digital Art, Drawing, Illustrations, Paintings, Tablet, Wacom
More About: Death

Parents Burning Children’s Books
2007-10-05 14:41:00
***Update: This may be a hoax!*** This is somewhat following up on yesterday’s post about Funky Winkerbean and those people who feel a need to censor the work artists do. This is much, much worse… A group calling themselves the Happy Ending Foundation dislike children’s books with not-so-happy endings and want them banned from libraries, including Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. But they take it one step further, they are taking it upon themselves to burn any children’s books they feel don’t fit into their happy little world. It’s so outrageous that I even start wondering if it could possibly be for real. These misguided people are trying to shield their kids from “inappropriate material”, but I do wonder what will happen to those kids once they get out into the real world and realize that it’s quite different, with few fairy tale endings… They must be stopped! Technorati Tags: Books , Censorshi...
More About: Children , Parents , Burning , Parent

Funky Winkerbean Cancer Death
2007-10-04 18:54:00
These kinds of complaints really bother me! I’m not a regular reader of Funky Winkerbean, but kudos to Tom Batiuk for taking on a subject that’s such a big part of so many people’s lives.Some people want to be shielded and look, in this case, to newspaper editors to help them with that. As newspaper readers, let’s stay away from insinuating ourselves into the decisions cartoonists, or any other artists, make and the stories they want to tell us.My own comic strip just ran for six months in Norway without any interference from editors or anyone else (Norway’s very different that way — the tolerance level is way higher!). I was free to do exactly what I wanted with no censorship. I think it made my strip that much better. Let Batiuk write the strip he wants to write! Not every strip needs a roll-on-the-floor funny punchline. This current story line is very touching and clearly important to do. Technorati Tags: Cancer , Censorship, Comic Strips, Co...
More About: Death

Tintin Book Banned By US Publisher
2007-10-04 04:17:00
The forthcoming release of Hergé’s “Tintin in the Congo” has been cancelled, due to what’s widely considered to be racist content. Publisher Little, Brown Book s for Young Readers has also decided not to include it in a boxed set of all the Tintin books. There can be little doubt that the book has strong racist tendencies, but viewed as a document of its time (Hergé was Belgian and the Congo was a Belgian colony at the time of the original publication in 1931), it should still be made available to the public. This momentary lapse from the otherwise brilliant Hergé, should not stand in the way of a complete collection of his work. Tintin is the reasons I became a cartoonist, and I think it deserves the full treatment, despite the controversies concerning this particular installment. I’d much rather they left out the unfinished book, “Tintin and Alph-Art”, which will be included in the boxed set. Technorati Tags: Belgium, Books, Comics, Gra...
More About: Banned

Cartoons As An Escape In Baghdad
2007-10-03 03:30:00
From the Institute for War and Peace Reporting: Baghdad residents are escaping the violent reality of daily life by watching hours of anything from cartoon shows to music videos. Technorati Tags: Cartoons
More About: Escape , Esca

…And Cars Will Fly!
2007-10-02 01:13:00
Here are Scott Adams’ (Dilbert) thoughts on the future of newspapers (and comic strips). Personally, I think it’s going to be impossible to predict, and if I were to make an attempt, I’m sure it would all sound ridiculous in a few years’ time.I mean, who in 2003 could have predicted that half the population would be wearing ugly, plastic shoes with holes in them by 2007?? Still, it’s a fun read (like most of his blog, and he makes some very interesting points. Technorati Tags: Comic Strips, Newspapers, Web Comics
More About: Cars

Mr. Media Interviews
2007-10-01 01:57:00
Mr. Media ’s (Bob Andelman) site is a really useful place for those interested in in-depth, quality interviews, both written and audio, with people in the media. It also includes people involved with comics, such as cartoonist Mark Tatulli of the previously mentioned comic strip Lio and his editor, Lee Salem, of Universal Press Syndicate. I, personally, also very much enjoyed the interview with Seinfeld’s “Soup Nazi”, Larry Thomas. So, I highly recommend Mr. Media’s blog and podcasts; it’s a place where you could easily spend most of your work day… Technorati Tags: Blogs, Books, Comic Strips, Comics, Syndication, Writing
More About: Interviews

The Phantom by Lee Falk
2007-09-30 03:05:00
I came across this blog post today, which got me thinking about one of my favorite comics growing up, The Phantom by Lee Falk . It is just about the only super hero comic I ever read. I never read The Phantom comic strip much, but I was addicted to the comic books in the late 80s and early 90s. I’m talking about those great bi-weekly books that were so popular in Scandinavia at the time. I read the Norwegian version, Fantomet, which also had a lot of guest appearances from other comics. For example, it was my first exposure to The Spirit by Will Eisner. The stories were generally solid, but what really impressed me was the art. There were artists from all over the world working on the various issues, but Scandinavia and South America seemed to be heavily represented. Some of my favorite artists included Kari Läppänen, Sy Barry, Hans Lindahl and the prolific cover artist Rolf Gohs. I’d also like to take the chance to mention one of my teachers from The Joe Kubert Sch...

Wall-E Pixar Movie Poster Revealed
2007-09-28 18:34:00
Pixar has revealed the teaser poster for their next movie, WALL•E. It looks like another interesting concept. View the teaser trailer here. Technorati Tags: Film, Movie s, Pixar
More About: Movie Poster , Pixar , Poster , Wall

Pogo Special Birthday Special Cartoon
2007-09-27 18:14:00
I’m posting this because some might find it interesting. It’s a 1969 Pogo cartoon special by Walt Kelly and Chuck Jones. Read more about it and watch it here. Honestly, I didn’t last more than a few minutes myself. The comic strip is my all-time favorite (I have an original on my wall) and it was just too painful to watch it animated with voices that sounded nothing like what I imagined. What was UP with Pogo having a woman’s voice?? Good lord! Anyway, take a look at it, if you dare… Technorati Tags: Art, Comic Strips, Comics, TV
More About: Cartoon , Birthday , Special

How I Work - A Step by Step Tutorial
2007-09-27 02:00:00
This is a cover I did just last week. It’s for the current graphic novel I’m working on, which I also wrote. It features a nine year-old boy who has to help some animals hunt down a big, scary, bullying lion. I decided I’d try to put together a step-by-step tutorial of how it was created, from the initial sketch to the end result. It’s fairly representative of how I do these kinds of paintings and illustrations. 1. I started out with a very small color thumbnail, with just general shapes and colors to get a feel for the layout and positioning of the characters. At this point, it was just one of several ideas and I actually didn’t think I’d go ahead with this particular sketch at the time. At some point, however, I started feeling that it was the best situation to represent the story on the cover, so I went ahead and played some more with it. For this stage I used my staple brush in Corel Painter, the Wet Gouache Round in the Gouache brush cate...
More About: Tutorial , Work , Step

Teacher Resigns Over Graphic Novel
2007-09-25 18:03:00
Here’s a very good article from The New Haven Register talking about graphic novels in the wake of a high school teacher resigning after parents complained about him recommending a graphic novel to a student. Teacher Nate Fisher was first suspended and then resigned after his recommendation of Daniel Clowes’ Eightball #22 was deemed inappropriate. It’s disturbing how uninformed some parents are about the literature children find interesting. For example, here is a quote from the article: “It’s definitely the hottest thing going in high school libraries,” said Stephanie Shteirman, the library media specialist for New Haven’s High School in the Community. “It’s because as librarians, we’re looking for any type of access point into our collection. We want kids to read; that’s the bottom line.” The preconceived notions about what comics are, that a lot of people carry around with them, are not a good basis for informed decisions about ...
More About: Graphic

A Graphic Novel Panel
2007-09-24 18:48:00
This is a panel from the book I’m currently working on… Technorati Tags: Art, Books, Comics, Digital Art, Drawing, Graphic Novel
More About: Panel

Digital Inking “Pepsi Challenge”, Part Deux
2007-09-23 22:25:00
Which one is inked digitally and which one is inked on paper? One was done on Bristol board, using a Raphaël Series 8404 sable brush and Black Magic ink and one was done on a Wacom Cintiq UX21, using Corel Painter X. Technorati Tags: Art, Cintiq, Comic Strips, Comics, Digital Art, Drawing, Wacom
More About: Pepsi , Challenge , Part , Halle

How Do Dinosaurs…?
2007-09-23 04:16:00
Here’s an excellent recommendation for a fun series of children’s books by Jane Yolan They come highly recommended by my 3 1/2 year-old and the illustrations by Mark Teague are especially impressive and funny. Technorati Tags: Books, Children’s Book
More About: Dino , Dinosaurs

Lio by Mark Tatulli
2007-09-22 03:14:00
Lio is an exceptional syndicated newspaper comic strip, one of the best to come along in many, many years. It’s a wonderfully imaginative, funny and very well-drawn pantomime strip. Take a look at it and read a Q&A with its creator, the very talented Mark Tatulli, here. Technorati Tags: Comic Strips, Comics, Syndication

Animated Bayeux Tapestry
2007-09-20 19:24:00
This is very interesting. The Bayeux Tapestry shows the events leading up to the Norman Invasion and culminates in the depiction of the Battle of Hastings in 1066. I found this animated version of the tapestry through a post at this blog. Take a look! Read more about the tapestry here. Technorati Tags: Animation, Art, History, Battle
More About: Animated

Cartoonist Imprisoned in Bangladesh
2007-09-20 02:48:00
Outrageous quote from a BBC News article: “Mr Rahman was jailed under Bangladesh ’s emergency laws. These give the authorities powers to hold people without charge if they are deemed to threaten national security.” Technorati Tags: Comic Strips, Comics, Newspapers, Politics
More About: Glad

Ebay Sale of Belgium halted
2007-09-19 17:50:00
Someone attempted to sell Belgium ! The starting bid was at 1 Euro, but the auction was halted by Ebay after 26 bids, when the price had reached 10 million Euros. What a bargain that would have been! Technorati Tags: Auction, Belgium, Ebay
More About: Sale

Web Comics in Museum
2007-09-19 17:30:00
An exhibit is now open at the MoCCA (Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art) in New York City showcasing some of the best web comics available. Included is work from award winning cartoonist, Brian Fies, of Mom’s Cancer. Read his blog here. Technorati Tags: Art, Comic Strips, Comics , Digital Art, Web Comics

Talk Like a Pirate Day!
2007-09-19 14:46:00
In celebration of today’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day, it might be a good idea to get a Corsair Ergonomic Keyboard for Pirates… RRRRRRRRR! Update: How to talk like a pirate. Technorati Tags: Keyboard, Pirates
More About: Talk Like A Pirate Day , Rate , Irate

Independent Bookstores Doing Well
2007-09-18 13:48:00
Good news for those trying to keep up the good fight against the big chain stores. From the New York Daily News. Technorati Tags: Books, Children’s Book
More About: Independent , Doing , Epen , Well , Dependent

Japanese Politician gets the nerd-vote
2007-09-18 13:23:00
One of the candidates to the job as prime minister in Japan, Taro Aso, has a special place in his heart for Japanese comics fans. A fan himself of manga, he has found particular popularity among the younger crowd. From the International Herald Tribune. Technorati Tags: Comics, Politic s
More About: Nerd , Vote , Politician

Spots Comic Strip Collection
2007-09-17 20:40:00
Awhile back I put together a collection of my comic strip, “Spots ”, in book form and published it on Lulu.com. It contains (almost) all the strips that were produced. Spots was a strip that ran here at lundentoons.com for sometime, as well as in other print publications, both a newspaper and in magazines. The book is 57 pages long and available for a mere $9.95! Technorati Tags: Books, Comic Strip s, Comics, Newspapers
More About: Coll

“Panda Rolfsen” Ends…
2007-09-16 20:59:00
Click the image for larger version. My comic strip, “Panda Rolfsen”, has been running in the Norwegian newspaper, Aftenposten, for six months now. It got voted out recently, and this weekend I drew the last few strips. Unfortunately, my moose character, Sverre Ellingsen, didn’t take the news very well… Translation: -The red stamps across the panels say “Voted off!”. -Panel 1: “Come on, it’s our last strip today…” “No, I don’t want to!” -Panel 2: “We have to go now, unfortunately…” “NOOO!!! I DON”T WANT TO!!! -Panel 3: “AARGH! LET ME STAY A BIT LONGER!!!” What a sad, pathetic end it is… Technorati Tags: Comic Strips, Comics, Newspapers
More About: Ends

Washington Post killing comic strips
2007-09-15 19:31:00
It’s good to know that someone’s looking out for us… We’d be so lost (and offended!) without them! Technorati Tags: Comic Strips, Comics, Newspapers, Politics
More About: Washington , Washington Post , Post , Comic Strips

Character Sketches
2007-09-14 18:49:00
Here are a couple of more character designs and sketches from my book, the main character on the left and a pirate on the right. Incidentally, the pirate was the very first drawing I ever did on the Cintiq. Technorati Tags: Art, Cintiq, Comics, Designing, Digital Art, Drawing, Graphic Novel, Illustration, Tablet, Wacom
More About: Sketches , Character , Char , Hara , Etch

Cavalier Daily Cartoonist Fired
2007-09-13 16:13:00
As a follow-up to this post, here’s an article in the Washington Post about the outcome of the controversial cartoon printed in the Cavalier Daily . Cartoonist, Grant Woolard, has been fired from the newspaper. Technorati Tags: Comic Strips, Comics, Newspapers, Politics
More About: Fired , Lier , Vali