Mike Witmer Pointed this article out. Very fascinating thought on the importance of presentation when it comes to displaying your work for a client or a customer.

We all know presentation affects consumer perceptions of quality and value, and people will frequently assign one of two identical items as being proportionally better than the other simply based on more attractive packaging or presentation.

This same concept not only applies to consumer products, but for services and art as well. No matter how great your talent, Delivering your message to the wrong crowd will get you nowhere fast.

Check out the article here.

I have been given the fantastic opportunity to attend the 2010 Festival of Cartoon Art at the Ohio State University this October. From what I have gathered from cartoonists that have attended in the past, it should be an exciting weekend of fellowship with other artists who share a passion for cartooning.

However, this weekend also holds very special meaning for me because Dave Kellet of my favorite webcomic Sheldon will be speaking to a room full of professionals and academics about the future of cartooning. Yes, Dave will be talking about Webcomics.

In his own words:

At the 1989 Festival, Watterson spoke of the incredible potency in comic strip cartooning: This rarest of arts that let one artist, one voice, speak to millions. This artform that lets the personal outlook shine through, where so many other mass media arts do so by committee.

So to be invited, some twenty one years later, to speak at the very same gathering of professionals and academics, is magical to me. (It’s humbling beyond words, too, in a stomach-churning way…but let’s focus on the magical aspect of it.)

Because, the funny thing? The thing I want to talk about? Is actually that very same Watterson speech from 1989. Or rather, to offer a loving and respectful rebuttal to it, from 21 years on. I want to speak to his concerns about the space allotted comic strips in newspapers; about zombie comic strips still being drawn long after their original creator had died; about why so many features have stale, interchangeable voices; or why so many are merely advertisements for dolls and greeting cards; or why comic strips in general have been on this slow, downward trend of diminishment in American life for the past 20-30 years

Because basically, I’m going to talk about this incredible change of fortune for the comic strip. I’m going to talk about Webcomics.

This means a lot to me because I feel that, in many ways, Dave Kellet is the spiritual successor to Watterson. The work he produces speaks to the adults who grew up reading Calvin and Hobbes, as well as their kids who are now turning away from newspapers and looking to webcomics for their cartooning entertainment. Plus, Dave is not only a very funny guy and a talented artist, but he has the educational background and the knowledge to speak with long time professionals and educators on their level about comics. Webcartoonists have been looking for an “ambassador” to represent us and “legitimize” us for a very long time, and I think that Dave Kellet may just be the man for the job.

So anyway, It should be a very interesting weekend for webcomics and I am very excited to get the opportunity to go!

Tom Racine is one of those really lucky guys that you just can’t help but have a tinge of jealousy toward. As podcast host, he has had the pleasure of interviewing many of the greatest cartoonists working today, from Jeff Keane (Family Circus), Tom Richmond (Mad Magazine), Jef Mallet (Fraz), Dave Kellet (Sheldon), and Patrick McDonnell (Mutts) to name just a few.

So when I got a little email in my inbox from Tom saying that he wanted to have me on his show, Tall Tale Radio, as a guest, naturally I was a little surprised at the invitation. When He said he wanted to record the interview on April 1st, I was sure it was a prank. But it was no prank! Tom had me on to discuss Robot Beach, and to take the opportunity look at the cartooning world through the eyes of someone who is brand-new to all of this. Hopefully I was able to provide some insight on the subject.

The interview has kinda forced me to reflect on the state of Robot Beach over the last week or so, and I want to take a moment to thank everyone who reads my strip. I am just a few months away from my one year anniversary and I am sure that I would not have made it this far had it not been for all of the support I have gotten from everyone in the form of comments and personal emails. I have made a lot of really great friends because of Robot Beach and those relationships just push me to constantly do better. Robot Beach originally started as a simple three year project. A simple story with a finite end. However, I have been having so much fun lately that I have recently decided to drop the original plan and continue drawing the strip for the foreseeable future. So, as long as you keep coming back, you can find new Robot Beach strips here for many years to come!

So go check out my Interview with Tall Tale Radio and please forgive my nervous incoherent ramblings. Thanks again for the wonderful opportunity Tom!

Orson Welles gives us six minutes of what he does best. Cartoon Brew frames it up perfectly:

This video of Orson Welles has absolutely nothing to do with animation, and it has absolutely everything to do with animation.

That host seems rather uncomfortable around Welles doesn’t she?

Eddie Pittman pointed this out: Watch this video taken from an interview with Frank Zappa and substitute the word “Music” with Comics, Animation, Film, or any media of your choice.

Here is a snippet of what he said:

“One thing that did happen during the Sixties was some music of an unusual or experimental nature did get recorded or did get released. Now look at who the executives were in those companies at those times. Not hip young guys. These were cigar-chomping old guys who looked at the product that came and said, ‘I don’t know. Who knows what it is. Record it. Stick it out. If it sells, alright.’ We were better off with those guys than we are now with the supposedly hip young executives who are making the decisions of what people should see and hear in the marketplace. The young guys are more conservative and more dangerous to the art form than the old guys with the cigars ever were.”

More discussion on this can be found over on Cartoon Brew.

The Gang over at Tall Tale Features have just finished completely re-working their website and have started a feature where they review one webcomic every week, and I am flattered that they have chosen to start things off with a nice, in-depth review of my little strip!

David Reddick, Norm Feuti, and Scott Metzger all contributed to the review. These three are extremely talented and established cartoonists in their own right, and it is a huge honor to get an honest critique from them. They had a lot of good things to say, and some very fair criticism as well. I will be sure to keep it their words in mind as I work to improve my strip. Be sure to head on over to the new Tall Tale Features site and check out the review! And leave a comment letting them know how much their thoughts are appreciated.

In other news, I did a little test this weekend to see how I liked drawing my strip live on Ustream. Turns out it works pretty well, and so I have decided to make a regular event of it. I will be drawing live every Saturday starting at 10:00 pm eastern. Feel free to swing on by my Ustream channel and say hi!

If your like me, (and I know you are) then you love robots. You also probably really love very finely crafted experiences that center around robots. If this is the case, then you are sure to love Machinarium. It is one of the most beautiful and meticulously created games I have played in a long while.

CGSociety has a very nice interview with Jakub Dvorský who was a chief designer for the game. He says:

“We felt we needed something warm with visible human touch in it to create a contrast to that robotic world that the character goes into, so we came up with an idea of hand-drawn backgrounds which are scanned and finished in Photoshop. Also the animations are mostly hand-animated frame by frame, the sounds effects live recorded and the music full of live instruments.”

The amount of time necessary to create a game in that manner is rather insane. It could be so easy (and must be terribly tempting) to use more “cost effective” methods for creating the art and animation, yet it is this carefully hand-crafted approach that gives the game it’s character and sets it apart from most everything else. It is really a marvel to consider the time and energy that went into the creation of this game.

Check out the interview, and please be sure to check out Machinarium as well.

The cartooning and animation communities recently banned together to help the family of Tim Hodge, a former Disney animator and a writer and director on the very popular Veggie Tales series. I don’t know Tim personally, but being a big fan of animation, and a HUGE Veggie Tales fan, his work has influenced me greatly over the years. I got to meet him when he came to speak at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and I was blown away by his enthusiasm and excitement in sharing his passion for art and animation with others.

Now we have an opportunity to help him and his family during a serious time of need. The following is from helpthehodges.com

On August 22, 2009 Matthew Hodge, the 17-year-old son of former Disney story artist and Big Idea productions director Tim Hodge, was in a serious auto accident. A train struck his car at 50mph as he was crossing the tracks. While Matt suffered neither broken bones nor any internal organ damage, he did receive severe head trauma causing him to remain in a state of coma today. Matt is a high school senior, a straight A student, and a drummer in his state championship marching band.

Being self-employed, the Hodge family has short term medical insurance that will not fully cover all of their bills. Additionally, with the care they are giving Matt, full-time work is not possible for Tim right now. This loving family is relying on their faith and the love of family and friends for their survival. This is a tragic accident that will forever affect their lives as the road to recovery for Matt may be a long one.

The National Cartoonist Society Foundation has set up an ebay auction in support of this cause. The list of contributing artists is too many to list here but many of the items for auction are simply amazing! (Original Charlie Brown art drawn by Charles Schulz anyone?) I highly encourage everyone to head over to helpthehodges.com for more information on how you can help today.

Well, 2010 is going to be an amazing time for Robot Beach and I wanted to share my plans for the coming year with all of you.

In addition to the comic, I will be creating a series of animated shorts for Robot Beach! Now, many of you probably already know this, but Robot Beach started its life as an idea for an animated series I had planned on creating over a number of years. I eventually came to my senses and decided that the story was just to big and the amount of work that would be involved was just to great for an animated series to work. So why the change now?

Well, It all comes down to concentrating my attention in the proper areas. The comic allows me to tell great jokes and a great story in a manner that works very well with the medium. However, with animation, I can deliver physical gags and humor that would be harder to convey on “paper”. To be clear, Robot Beach is first and foremost a comic. Always will be. The animation will never take the place of the comic. They are meant to be a nice little addition to the “Robot Beach” world that I am creating here.

The animated shorts I have planned will be 15 to 30 seconds a piece and done in a style that matches the comic very closely. The animation software I plan on using mostly is After Effects, (Although I would like to get my hands on a copy of Toon Boom and give that a try.) Depending on how much efficiency I can build into the process, I am hoping to get an animation released at least once every two months if not more often. Before I can start on any of this though, I have another personal project that I am going to need to get out of the way first.

All in all, it looks to be an exciting year for Robot Beach in 2010! I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I am sure I will!

Recently I was lucky enough to be interviewed by Paul Caggegi for his wonderful podcast show The Process Diary. We talked about Robot Beach, Annabelle’s Bistro, and other animation and illustration related topics. This was my first interview about my comic I and I think it turned out great. (Even though at times I feel like I was wandering about like a lost child in a world that I know little about.) Paul did a great job of reeling me in and keeping the conversation engaging and entertaining.