Bowie Doodle

This definitely started as a real project, and kind of devolved into trying to replicate instagram filters in Photoshop. Well, That's what it feels like anyway. That having been said, I like the black and white vector quite a bit, so maybe there's a future use for it......

Instagramed all to hell

Vanity Faired all to hell

Agamemnon-death-masked all to hell

One Does Not Simply Post Into Blogger

Just a doodle of Gandalf, nothing special, this is an old one too....

Halloween Episodes Are Best Episodes

Who remembers back when The Simpsons Halloween episode was like, the coolest thing? Back when all shows obeyed a narrative structure, and characters had to actually stay in character? I have a pet theory that classically TV shows had Christmas episodes and Halloween episodes and those were the two opportunities for the writers to go nuts: introduce mystical stuff, kill characters, have Santa Claus, Christmas miracles, It's a Wonderful Life parody episodes, etc. And then it would all go back to normal the next week.

And that's true from The Honeymooners to The Flintstones, Facts of Life, Saved by the Bell, Friends, etc.

And then come Family Guy (which I hate) and South Park (which I love), and the whole game changes. These shows both abandon the artifice of maintaining steady character traits, because it's more fun to see their points of view and intelligence switch episode to episode, and embrace cartoony logic as the rule for their shows' universes, because it expands the parameters of what the shows can tackle. But now every episode turns into a free-for-all. It's telling that The Simpsons get to kill or disfigure a character once a year, and South Park gets to once an episode.

And of course this so popular that it echoes back to other shows, on The Simpsons Homer gets to be a savant when it's comedically convenient, 30 Rock gets to treat humans like cartoons (again, love the show), and Community umm...exists.

Not that this is all bad, in fact it's kind of awesome. We've mastered straight narrative and now demand self-aware programing. But still, makes me remember how cool and new it was to see Bart play a raven to James Earl Jone's narration.


Oh, and the drawing isn't strictly for Halloween. I'm actually attending a Werewolf Bar-Mitzvah tomorrow.

May Mads Be With You

So my buddy Andrew Hegele is over at JoBlo.com, keeping it real and getting tricked into giving positive blurbs to Resident Evil movies. And Thursday he's interviewing director Nicolas Winding Refn (Valhalla Rising, Bronson, the Pusher movies) and the cast of the movie Drive (slated for release in 2011). Which is a pretty big deal because the guy really is a tremendous director and this is his first American film, he's moving up fast and seems to be retaining integrity too.
Also, Christina Hendricks might be in the room, and she's, like... the perfect human.

So I've sketched a (not great) Mads Mikkelsen to wish him good luck.

May Mads protect you my friend.


UPDATE: Again, need to enlarge it to really see it. Damn, need to start working smaller.

For Your Consideration

So I recently rediscovered the National Lampoon Radio Hour. If you are a fan of hilarity this is fairly essential listening, up there with Beyond the Fringe and Woody Allen's lone album as a standup comic: Standup Comic.

National Lampoon Radio Hour is every funny person working from the early 70's through the mid 80's, all before they were famous and/or dead. Belushi, Radner, Chevy Chase (back then Chevy Chase, not current Chevy Chase), two Murrays, Harold Ramis, Harry Shearer, Richard Belzer, and Michael O'Donoghue, among others. I remember listening to the program as a youngling (from CDs, I'm not old enough to have heard broadcast) and recognizing all of these guys from SNL and other projects. What I didn't realize though is that the cast also included Christopher Guest, who in addition to doing voices also did all of the spot on musical parody interludes. It's easy not to recognize him, and a few people I've talked to didn't. The impressions are so good you assume that it's actually James Taylor, Dylan, or a quartet of whalers from the Shetland Isles.

After working with this group he moved on to theater and assorted projects for a while before moving to SNL for a year during the '84-'85 season, where he did some crazy weird work with Harry Shearer, Billy Crystal, and Martin Short. It says a lot that their sketches are the only good work done during six years of Lorne Michaels's absence.Probably the best of these is Men's Synchronized Swimming, which has all of them.



Apparently the sport is now on the docket for the London 2012 Games

After that it was a few more years of slogging through crap (Princess Bride is also in there, so not too bad), until 1996 and Waiting for Guffman, after which he made the 'mockumentary' format redundant for everyone else.

A lot of people talk about how the films he's made since have affected the ever more popular look-at-me-I'm-just-talking-into-a-camera-we-don't-need-to-hire-a-cinematographer-style movies and television, which I think is a little ridiculous. What's still the most striking when you watch any of Guest's movies isn't the format, it's how much his repertory players -himself especially- disappear into the people they're playing. The Office, Cloverfield, etc. all play out with a wink and a nod to the camera, in the case of the American Office this is done literally, not to mention infuriatingly. Guest's movies could be mistaken for reality TV; which is to say that the people in them are so involved with living their ridiculous lives they don't have time to acknowledge the camera outside of talking head interviews.

This is sort of what he's been doing for forty years, it's the same reason I never recognized his voice on Nat. Lampoon as a kid. He's so dedicated to he character he's playing that there's never really a Christopher Guest on the screen to latch onto.

Also, yes, I have been watching all of his movies and mainlining acid recently, why do you ask?

Not Now Murray

Wow, not posting things really sneaks up on you. So, at the moment, considering a few things. The Neo-Futurists are adding our current president to their totally comprehensive wall of presidents, and holding a competition to select the winner. So.... think I'm entering that. Also, may be at Chicago Renegade Craft Fair the 11^th and 12^th, despite not having any crafts to sell. I think large scale paintings probably stand out. Well maybe, maybe not.

Also, that's supposed to be Bill Murray, in all his forms, National Lampoon through current. I seem to be seeing him in everything I watch for some reason.

A Clever Title. And Post-Its

Well, it's another post for which I have nothing. I have nothing to put here. There is not any content which occurs to mind which would comfortably occupy this space. Well, as I've managed three sentences out of the complete absence of thought, and one commenting on those three, it seems I've finally become a real blogger.

This week I've been trying to think of projects (none have occurred to me), and I'm feeling terrifically unimaginative. So I'm just gonna post some celebrities I've doodled on post-its.



One of these is Anne Hathaway and one is Cee Lo Green. See if you can guess correctly!

Oh, and apply to this, Mcsweeny's needs some crowd-sourced (read cheaper than freelance) writing done, and they aren't checking felony records as an entry prerequisite. So get to it.