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A long time ago, I posted on this blog about a new pet mouse for my studio.  Well, he lived to be the ripe old age of two (life expectancy 1.5 - 2 years).  He started with the name Alfredo, which was later changed to Leon since it seemed to fit his personality more.  My nieces always asked if he was awake when they came to visit, and loved feeding him sunflower seeds....and I always found his little nose sticking through the cage to greet me when I walked in the room.  For such a small soul, you had a big heart, Leon, and we will all miss you.

I’ve always known that South Park is produced on an uncommonly fast production schedule, but I never realized how brutal that schedule is until I watched The Making of South Park: 6 Days to Air. The 42-minute documentary, which debuted last fall on Comedy Central, is currently available to view on Netflix streaming, which is where I saw it.

The bulk of the behind-the-scenes footage was filmed over the course of a week in April 2011 as Trey Parker and Matt Stone worked on the season 15 premiere episode “HumancentiPad.” Directed by Arthur Bradford, the film is filtered through the experiences of Parker and Stone, who lead the writing and production team through the show’s insane six-day production schedule, in which an entire half-hour episode is written, recorded, and animated entirely in Los Angeles. To put that into perpsective, most other animated TV shows have production cycles that last anywhere between 3 to 10 months, and are animated in far-flung studios halfway around the world. It’s understandable why South Park seasons are broken down into seven-week cycles because it’s hard to imagine them maintaining that pressure cooker environment for fourteen weeks in a row.

The production schedule, however, also plays a role in the show’s ability to remain timely and relevant in a way that few other animated shows could ever hope to be. In many ways, the pace of production—and resulting comedy—resembles live-action productions like Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, and other late-night talkshows. Parker, who is the show’s primary writer, discussed how the discipline of a tight schedule prevented him from overthinking ideas:

“I always feel like, ‘Wow I wish I had another day with this show.’ That’s the reason that there’s so many episodes of South Park we’re able to get done because there just is a deadline and you can’t keep going. Because there’d be so many shows that I’m like, ‘No no it’s not ready yet, not ready,’ and I would have spent four weeks on one show. All you do is start second guessing yourself and rewriting stuff and it’s get overthought and it would have been 5 percent better.”

Also surprising was how creatively involved Parker and Stone remain in their creation. After sixteen seasons, they are still calling the shots, and they don’t appear to have surrendered their creativity to the big Hollywood machine. Compare that to a show like The Simpsons, which is run by a gaggle of writers and producers, and would probably roll along fine even if its creator Matt Groening ceased his involvement.

The documentary left me with some questions, too. For example, I had always considered Trey Parker and Matt Stone to be equal creative partners, but Bradford’s film portrays Parker as the captain of the ship. In fact, it’s never made implicity clear what Stone does while Parker is working on the script. Clearly, their collaboration works, but I would have liked to see their unique partnership explored further.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Matt Stone, South Park,

When I saw the word this week I thought-- I have just the thing! I've been working on a coloring book based on the alphabet, and as you can see I'm almost done.

Just two more letters to go.... yeah, that's right. Not all alphabets end with Z!

This also seemed appropriate for today since last night, the Curiosity Rover made a successful landing on Mars-- even though it didn't use the bouncing ball technique the last two rovers employed. I'm impressed and amazed that such a rube goldberg landing technique worked!


Bigger image here: http://lizjonesbooks.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/1833/121704
(Anyone besides me totally frustrated with the new Scrapbook? Oy)

A pursued fox is transformed into a very foxy female in A Fox Tale, a beautiful new short made by four students – Thomas Bozovic, Alexandre Cazals, Julien Legay, Chao Ma – at the French super-school Supinfocom Arles. Check it out:

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | One comment | Post tags: Supinfocom

This photograph taken some time ago I felt deserved a second look.

Also..I’d like to acknowledge a nomination for the Beautiful Blogger Award. I’m deeply honored by the nomination because it comes from someone who’s photography and intelligently sensitive writings about photography and art set him way above the pack. Here’s a link to Munchow’s Creative Photo Blog. It’s well worth checking out.

This new independently produced web series by illustrator Mike Geiger starts today. It’s simple stuff, but I love the clean look and fun poses – for more info and future episodes: click here.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Mike Geiger

For Nora's birthday, her mom sneaked all of her Lunch Lady books from her room, mailed them to me and then Nora was presented with the entire LL collection, autographed on her big day.

This is the thank you note Nora sent. It is simply the best ever and it will hang in my studio to remind me of the kids reading my books!

Keep reading, Nora!

Created by Marcos Saboya and Gualter Pupo, aMAZEme immerses the audience in a labyrinth of books.

By participating in the installation, the audience discovers new textures, images and emotions. They become surrounded- hypnotized – by words and thoughts, designs and patterns. There appear to be secrets hidden in the installation’s walls; walls of up to 2.5 metres high, built from thousands of books, forming a large Maze of more than 500 square metres

(Via PBS)

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Also worth viewing:
Born Modern: Alvin Lustig
Designers Bookshelf: Sean and Nicole Flores
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Good News!
I will be running the Treasure Maze again soon - that one that ran at the National Maritime Museum last year or so. This time I'll have more time to set it up, so it'll be great, and covered in stencilled sea monsters by me!

I can’t wait for Domitille Collardey’s new Wreckhall Abbey webcomic to begin. It seems like my whole Twitter is talking about it, in between talking about the Mars robots. She’s rolling out previews very cleverly, both at the Tumblr site and via Twitter. If you’re not already familiar with her work, it’s great. 

Hi All,
Registration for our 2012 Illustrators' Day is now open at http://sbillustrators.blogspot.com/p/illustrators-day.html. The date is Friday, August 31st at the Decatur Library from 10:00am to 4:00pm. Our fabulous speakers include: Kelly Barrales-Saylor, former editor/art buyer at Sourcebooks and current Editorial Director for Albert Whitman & Company; multiple award-winning illustrator R. Gregory Christie; best-selling author/illustrator Peter Brown; and illustrator Michael Austin. It should be a wonderful affair - I hope to see you there!
Elizabeth O. Dulemba
SCBWI Southern Breeze Illustrator Coordinator

RELEASING 4 NEW Stamp Kits this THURSDAY, August 9th over at Unity! :) Keep your eyes open and keep checking back for some sneak peeks, both here and at the Unity fb page.

Here's a small peak into the project I've been working on for most of the year, Rock and Roll Highway: the Robbie Robertson Story, by Sebastian Robertson.  It's due out from Christy Ottaviano Books (an imprint of Holt) in Fall of 2013.

Edited and with a Foreword by Holly Thompson,
Tomo
Stone Bridge Press, 2012.

Ages: 12+

‘Tomo’ means ‘friend’ in Japanese and the purpose of this Anthology of Teen Stories is to offer friendship to Japan following the Great East Japan Earthquake of 11 March 2011: specifically, the book is dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives and to “all the young people of Tohuka”.  Author Holly Thompson (The Wakame Gatherers, Orchards) has gathered contributions from creators of prose, poetry and graphic narrative, as well as translators, whose shared connection is Japan.  Their work makes for a remarkable collection.

Many of the contributors’ names such as Alan Gratz, Wendy Nelson Tokunaga, Debbie Ridpath Ohi,  Shogo Oketani, or Graham Salisbury may already be familiar to readers; others such as Naoko Awa (1943-1993) or Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933) will be less so, though famous in Japan.  A great deal of Tomo’s success lies in its blend of expertly translated older stories with contemporary, new writing, and this is true also of the stories’ content.  Many modern Japanese phenomena colour the stories, such as the particular fashion of Harajuku girls (“I Hate Harajuku Girls” by Katrina Toshiko Grigg-Saito) or the Purikura photo sticker booths (“Signs” by Kaitlin Stainbrook), yet these sit easily alongside more traditional stories such as the magical Ainu fable “Where the Silver Droplets Fall”, transcribed and translated into Japanese by Yukie Chiri (1903-1922) and translated into English by Deborah Davidson.  The anthology is all the richer for its varied array of writing, and its success is also in a great part due to the skill of the different translators involved.

The thirty-six stories are divided into sections: Shocks and Tremors, Friends and Enemies, Ghosts and Spirits, Powers and Feats, Talents and Curses, Insiders and Outsiders, and Families and Connections.  The opening story, “Lost” by Andrew Fukuda, is the gripping account of a girl regaining consciousness in a hospital bed following the Kobe earthquake in 1995; the other four stories in that opening section, including Tak Toyoshima’s graphic strip “Kazoku”, all have the raw immediacy of being set in the aftermath of the March 11^th disaster.

Among the other stories, readers will find stories to suit every mood: thought-provoking tales of conflict, spine-tingling ghost stories (I’m glad all these happen to have fallen to my reading in hours of daylight!), ostracism and friendship, romance, magic and surrealism.  Yearning to belong is a thread running through many stories, and the intensity for those characters seeking their identity is heightened where they are part of a bicultural family.  Nor does the collection flinch from addressing racial prejudice or the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War.

As with all good short-story anthologies, Tomo needs to be read slowly in order to savour the intense individual flavors of its contents.  Framed by an extract from David Sulz’s translation of Miyazawa’s thought-provoking poem “Be Not Defeated by the Rain” as well as Holly Thompson’s moving Foreword, and a glossary and note on the book’s contributors (a rich mine for future reading), Tomo is a very speci

Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day? is one of my favorite books so I thought I would take it out to read to the Rain Dragon, though it is a kind of old for her.

She's thinking, "Were those pigs eating bacon?"

I’ve written about the “Walmart headache” in my book, so it surprised me when I had a similar experience there the other day.

It’s the beginning of the month when I like to load up on groceries. I’m very systematic that way. I buy plenty of meat for Sarah’s special meatloaf I make for her, and tons of cans of potatoes. I was singing away, prancing around the Wallyworld aisles as I ran down my list of food and goodies for my new- found hobby of learning how to cook.

Everything was going swimmingly well although I did feel a little closed-in when I noticed how many folks there were who also had the idea of loading up on groceries at the beginning of the month. Recognizing that feeling I wrapped myself in several colored bubbles for emotional protection.

I made it to the bread aisle this time when it hit me. What it felt like was the stomach flu overcame me. Making it to the other side of the store felt like an impossible task of walking through mounds of glue. Did I have food poisoning? my brain screamed at me. I was learning how to bake and cook. Maybe it took that long to “kick in.” (I do have a dramatic mind.)

Luckily, I was almost done with my list.

My mind was racing. How could this be? I even wrote about this in my book! I had my bubbles on! I grabbed my flower essences from my purse.

I pushed my cart to the checkout line and used it for balance as now I felt wobbly. There were tons of people around the checkouts–only 3 lines open out of many and everyone was crowded in like a tight elevator.

I grabbed a magazine at the counter to distract myself. That helped. Although it’s sad about Penny Marshall’s health and Katie Holmes looks somber. Finally, I brought in my Turtle Shell all around me safe and sound. And the nausea went away.

What happened in Walmart? I think the store is set up with no air flow, no windows. The energy just sits there in little globs and if you are empathic, you pick it up, especially if you are open psychically. That particular spot probably had one stuck spot that registered as overload in my body and so I shut off. Often, we resonate to certain emotions that we are feeling or wanting to be known, but that’s a whole other blog post.

Did you ever have that happen to you? What worked and didn’t work?

Remember I told you about my Little Free Library? One of the reasons I wanted to take it on is I wanted to paint again. Since I work digitally and write on my computer, most of my creativity has been restrained to this desk of late. I hoped doing the Little Library would shake me out of that rut, and it worked!
     When author/illustrator Katie Davis came in town a day early for a conference to go play, we headed to Wild Oats & Billy Goats. It's this ADORABLE gallery in downtown Decatur, Georgia, chocked full of folk art.
     Quick note: This may sound strange, but I usually hate going to galleries. Most people walk in and go WOW. I walk in and go "Why didn't I think of that?.." or "I could make that..." or "That gives me an idea..." Galleries end up being very frustrating places for me. But this one is something special. This one I walk into, and not only do I buy a lot of artwork, I get inspired to contribute to the collection.
     Katie struck gold there for all her holiday shopping and while she was purchasing, I talked to the manager. How do they handle framing, what's their commission, etc, etc. I walked out with a newfound resolve to create some art with their gallery in mind.
     So this past weekend, I hit Home Depot and Michaels for supplies and I went a little nuts. Here's our dining room table right now:

     How long do you think hubbie will let me keep it this way? Hmmm? I hope as long as it takes me to figure out these danged peaches I want to paint. So far, so... well, not great.
     But the sculpy!!! OH, I had FUN with the sculpy!!!
     My whole life I've made these weird little trolls whenever I get near sculpting media. This time was no different. I haven't painted them yet, but here they are so far...

     What do you think, do you like them?
     Stan asked, "Why do you keep making them picking their noses?"
     "Because trolls are gross and that's what they do," I say.
     I don't know why I get tickled over these little dudes. But now I'm thinking pandas and mermaids... I need to go buy more sculpy. Mostly because I'm going to have to make a whole slew of these things before I get close to being able to part with them! And how many should be Christmas gifts first?
     Meanwhile - I'm having a blast!

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Here is another painting I have listed for a charity auction. This is a BIG one! Help my painted pumpkins help others who have less food than ourselves. Please visit http://www.acrossaday.com for details. NOTE: 100% proceeds of this particular painting will be donated with the exception of P&H, tax if applicable & Material cost. Shipping is the responsibility of the winning bidder. Silent