Commission Sketch of Chris Hemsworth.

After a whirlwind tour of the southwest, I am finally home and ready to take a nap. Yet there is no rest for the wicked, new art to do, a book to illustrate, shows to prepare for, and generally going crazy… in a good way. So where to begin? Let’s start with a short recap of the shows I attended.

First up was there was the Long Beach Comic Expo which this year expanded to two days this year. This turned out to be a great move as attendance was great this year and everyone had a great time. We had an odd placement for our table that had me a bit worried, but it all worked out quite well. Lots of great costumes, fun panels for all ages, plus perfect Long Beach weather, what more could one ask for? Next year they are holding it earlier in the year on February 28th and March 1st, plus they are moving into the larger halls, roughly about five times of the space they had this year. So they are going bigger and better, hopefully they are not expanding too big, too fast as I love this convention and want to see it continue for years to come.

Maleficent and Evil Queen looking good… I mean evil.

Then it was off to the surface of the sun… I mean Arizona for the Phoenix Comicon, which was a fantastic show. There were over 77,000 fans in attendance that kept me and Shawn busy through the weekend. I was amazed at the cosplayers that braved the heat in full costume, brave dedicated fans they are. On a note about Phoenix, I love this show so much that next year is a big thing is happening. Drum roll please… I am moving out of the artist alley into a booth for the show next year. It is amazing and nerve wracking at the same time, but the correct move as my business moves forward and grows.

The minion of Mystical Apothecary

Shawn and I stayed in Phoenix for the week (thank you Keith), as we had a show the following weekend, Mad Monster Party. This was a small horror convention that took place in downtown Phoenix. It was a fun little show (lots of fun because we were next to our friends from The Mystical Apothecary) that has promise if they bring it back next year, lots of cool fans of horror showed up and there were some great celebrity guests to meet. One of the problems was that since it was the week after the comic con and there might have been some fans that were too worn out to come to this event. There were also some people that seem to find out about the event by happenstance and were unaware of the Mad Monster Party before hand. Their main show is in Charlotte, NC and that one has a great turnout; so maybe with some patience and love, the Phoenix show will grow to attract more attendees.

Taking Bumblebee down… plus Justin and Hilary Orr photo bombing.

Finally we headed north to the Amazing Las Vegas Comic Con, a show I vended at last year on their inaugural show. Taking place at the South Point Casino (which is quickly becoming one of my favorite casinos), this year it was bigger and better organized in the placement of tables and booths. Attendance was up this year, but sales were down slightly, but overall a successful show. Thanks to our booth neighbors of Abe Lopez and Stuart Smithee; also thanks to the photo bombers supreme of Justin and Hilary Orr from across the aisle.

With Abraham Lopez… and Nic Cage?!?

I have a few weeks off before San Diego Comic Con (sadly still no booth, but I will have art up in the Sails Pavilion gallery there), so I must go work on some new art pieces for the upcoming shows.

Have fun and keep creating…

–Diana

The post Home once again, at least for a moment… appeared first on Diana Levin Art.

In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, there’s no shortage of businesses offering unique artisanal goods, which makes it an ideal location for Dream Factory Animation, the new full-service boutique animation studio fronted by alt-cartoonist M.Wartella.

While Wartella formed his company on 12/12/12, the doors to his new studio on Humboldt Street officially opened in May of this year. An underground illustrator who has dominated the pages of alternative publications for the last two decades and animated on various music videos and television shows, he has spent the last three years animating nearly 300 shorts for Cartoon Network’s animated sketch comedy program MAD.

While discussing with Cartoon Brew the transference of his print aesthetic to the studio’s signature style, Wartella cannot help but extol the quality of animation talent that has found their way to his studio. “All the animators here are great artists in their own right; we only hire people who can draw exceptionally well.” Wartella is so concerned about only attracting top-flight talent that he has chosen to eschew the industry standard of utilizing unpaid interns in his productions, as stated in a recent press release: “Everyone gets paid for their contributions. In fact, we operate a unique profit-sharing system whereby our animators share in part of the studio’s profits at the end of the year.”

However, his talented crew and high-profile, lowbrow background are not the only qualities that make his studio special. Wartella enthusiastically touts the development of a personalized production system for creating his animated shorts. A proprietary blend, of sorts, that enables his crew to produce “anything” in the studio’s signature style, quickly and efficiently. “Using my secret formula, we can produce super-high-quality cartoons in a time frame that would be virtually impossible for any other animation studio to rival,” he says. “We can turn out a fully animated 30-second spot from top to bottom in one business day if we have to. This brings traditional animation within reach for almost any commercial business that wants to get noticed.”

And while Wartella hints at a few yet-to-be-announced projects, (one involving Punk Magazine cartoonist/writer John Holmstrom and another that will revive “a classic cartoon character” for Warner Bros.) the only one he speaks openly about is a new webseries being made alongside @Radical.Media for Conde Nast Entertainment called WIRED: Mr. Know-It-All.

A series of ongoing shorts, WIRED: Mr. Know-It-All, based on the WIRED magazine articles of the same name, is a digital age advice column providing answers to a wide assortment of modern questions from Facebook etiquette to child rearing in the information age. It is produced in the style of illustrator Christoph Niemann and conceived, developed and animated by Wartella’s team. “I don’t think there is any other studio in New York or the world that can crank out animation as efficiently as we can,” he says. “We have a solid formula and a great team!”

Vincent “King Mini” Stall has been an active artistic voice in the independent comic scene for well over a decade. An experienced screen printer and print designer, Vincent publishes comics and posters as “King Mini” in Minneapolis.

Vincent is also the co-owner of PUNY Entertainment, a digital media group that produces television and interactive pieces with credits that include Yo Gabba Gabba and Cartoon Network’s MAD series, among other projects. PUNY has studios in Minneapolis and Los Angeles. (Disclosure: Last year I was commissioned by PUNY Entertainment to work on some illustrations for interactive cereal websites, but did not work with Vincent directly.)

See more of Vincent’s comics and prints on the King Mini International website, his blog and Tumblr.

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Book Expo America 2012 just concluded here in New York, and once again it’s been an interesting trade show.  Some stuff was normal, some was new, and overall, I felt it was a good show.  My thoughts and discoveries follow.

✐

One interesting, if under-reported, improvement was the “Power Reader” program.  On Thursday, the last day of the show, when most attendees are winding down, BEA invited “power readers” to attend.  Twelve local independent bookstores and the New York Public Library invited their best customers to pay $45 to attend the show on Thursday.  What did they get?  I quote:

• Discover new and upcoming books before they hit the stands
• See and meet your favorite authors
• Talk to publisher about favorite books and authors
• Mix and Mingle with other book lovers and share your passion for reading
• Get autographs and advanced reads of unique books (quantities limited)
• Get tons of giveaways from exhibitors.  [62 different promos]
• Get a FREE POWER READER SWAG BAG at registration, filled with goodies like:
  • An advance copy (before books even hit shelves!) of an upcoming title from one of today’s hottest authors, including Debbie Macomber’s Inn at Rose Harbor, Dean Koontz’s Odd Apocalypse, and Karin Slaughter’s Criminal
  • A special edition copy of Justin Cronin’s bestselling sensation The Passage
  • A sampling of recipes from beloved QVC host David Venable’s first cookbook, In the Kitchen with David®
  • A Janet Evanovich magnet
  • A Debbie Macomber keychain
  • A sneak peek guide with the early scoop on forthcoming releases from bestselling authors

When BEA moved to the middle of the week (Monday-Thursday, instead of Wednesday-Sunday), I thought that BEA would be planning a weekend “Book-Con” for the general public.  After all, Reed runs BEA, and they’ve got experience running New York Comic Con at the same location. They could arrange booths so that a wall could be set up to reduce the size of the show (or they could fill booths vacated by trade exhibitors with retail exhibitors the next day).  The possibility of a huge weekend crowd (if 100,000 attend NYCC, how many romance, mystery, and science fiction fans would attend a book show, especially to discover new titles and meet authors (just like Comic-Con!)?) might reinvigorate the show, encouraging lapsed publishers to return to the show (or risk ending up on a waiting list, like at San Diego).

Would it be hard for publishers to shift from trade to retail?  Not really.  Most of the mainstream publishers sell books at the American Library Association shows.  Ever

Character Emotions MUST Spill Out into Big Actions

Characters, even supporting characters, should be bigger than life. No flat characters. Fiction demands round, “fleshed-out” characters. I’m working on a revision and I know this. Yet, when a friend read my revision, her response was that I needed big actions for my characters.

In the revision, I had noticed that the supporting character (Father) didn’t have much reaction to the main character (Laurel). I revised, adding in actions. But the actions were small: fist clenched, raising eyebrow, turning away.

Nothing wrong with those actions if Matt Damon was doing them on the big screen. There, the small actions would mean more. But think of him as Bourne and you’ll remember the BIG actions.

Revise for Emotions that Spill Out into Action

Revised: now, Father picks up a blanket and shakes it, snapping it up and down. He throws it onto a bed and when it falls off, he wads it up and throws it at the wall. It’s not the huge actions of an action-thriller, but in the context of the current scene, these are big actions. (Make sure you keep everything relative and in context!)

Even supporting characters need big actions. So, why didn’t I use them before? I think it’s because I’m a very restrained person myself. I keep a tight rein on emotions, not letting them spill out into big actions. That means for my characters, I need to push them to build emotions so strong that they MUST spill over into big actions.

And yes, the revision is much stronger. My early readers report that the Father is starting to come alive. Hello, Dad!

This parody of Marvel Super Heroes and Adventure Time aired on Cartoon Network’s MAD show last month. Even though its gone viral the past few weeks, it is just too good not to share here. Bravo Mad-men!

(Thanks, Bill Field)

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Adventure Time, Mad, Marvel Superheroes

Photo: courtesy of MAD Magazine

Wow, we’ve linked to some amazing Life Magazine photo galleries before, but here is a doozy:MAD Magazine: A Semi-Secret History with photos of MAD founder Bill Gaines from the files of current editor John Ficarra. Life made a few images available, but each is accompanied by Ficarra’s commentary on the site with even more history and insight.

Obviously being parodied in MAD was a badge of honor for this 80s TV cast.

Photo: courtesy of MAD Magazine

Robert De Niro and son visit the offices in the 80s. The gallery includes the Usual Gang of Idiots in the Alps, in France, in Hollywood and around the world…the MAD crew was always living the life. As rumpled and quirky as they appear, the Mad-men were icons of generation after generation of kids and celebrities. You think comics are cool now…but MAD was there long ago.

Photo: courtesy of MAD Magazine

Gaines, a notorious packrat, was the heart and soul of the operation not without his quirks, as one caption reveals:

“Back then, if you made a long-distance phone call, you had to fill out a little slip of paper that was part of what we called ‘Bill’s Bills Department.’ If it was a business call, no problem. But if it was personal, Bill would come around and collect that 73 cents it cost, or whatever it was. He was obsessive about this. Bill was as crazy and cheap as he was generous and kind. He would complain all day that no one would fess up to a 73-cent call, then because we were working late he would take us out and blow a thousand bucks on dinner. He loved big things,” says Ficarra. “He loved King Kong. He loved zeppelins. You can’t see it in this but the entire ceiling of his office was filled with antique zeppelins. He was a tremendous slob. Such an interesting guy, and one who could really cut through the bull.”

Photos courtesy of MAD Magazine

We couldn’t resist ganking this photo of Sergio Aragones on the 60’s show LAUGH-IN. Like we

Image via Wikipedia

What was the most painful text message you ever sent?

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First look at Warner Animation’s new MAD cartoon series. It starts airing September 6th on Cartoon Network.

“Thank heaven for little girls!”

Here’s a new character design for a promotional piece I’m working on. I have some more of her emotions on the drawing table as we speak.

I must say I’ve grown quite fond of her!

So many things that people do these days is a waste of time and energy. Like getting angry. Some people will get mad at the silliest things, but I guess it is hard to never get mad. Even I get mad sometimes. It’s a human emotion that is very hard to control, and usually gets worse if you try to control it.

Since there is no way, that I can think of, to never be mad then how about we look at ways to express your anger.

First off, yelling or raising your voice doesn’t help the situation. It almost always gets you more angry and probably gets someone else angry as well.

The thing that I do when I get mad is think about it. Think about what made you angry, and why it got you angry. Most of the time the answer to one of those questions will make you laugh. If another person made you angry then step into there shoes, metaphorically speaking, but if it helps to actually put your feet in there shoes go right ahead, just make sure there feet are out of them first. Most of the time the person that made you angry will have a good excuse, or they didn’t even mean to get you mad.

Life is short, don’t waste it doing something you might regret.

I decided to "redo" my original post with a different twist.

In a parody of a Slumdog Millionaire ad, Mad Magazine plans to spoof Bernie Madoff. (info and jpeg from walletpop.com)

By Anatoly Liberman

Insanity is a relative concept. What’s meat (normalcy) for one is insanity (poison) for another. Language shows how fluid the boundaries of madness are in human consciousness. One can rise from the abyss or fall into it depending on the caprices of the speaking community. Especially characteristic is the history of the adjective mad. (more…)

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from March 1959, by Kelly Freas