Farewell, Maurice

Maurice Sendak. 1928-2012.

Anniversary Sale

On Wednesday, May 9th, The Daily Forlorn will be celebrating it's first anniversary. And to really celebrate, I'm handing you money.

Wait, no... that can't be right. Let me check my notes...

Ah, here it is... all items on the Forlorn Funnies store will be 25% off. That was it.

The discount will only be from 12am May 9th through 12 am May 10th (CST), so if you wanted to purchase a daily drawing, original art, postcard set, or book, do it between those hours and use promo code 25DAILY01

John Cleese: How To Be Creative

(via Boing Boing) The great John Cleese being great, talking about how to foster creativity in your life. Plus some screw-in-the-lightbulb jokes.

Thurber Days, Part Three: Giant Sloths and Creepy Babies

And here we are: the third and final installment of random pictures I took during my residency in Columbus.

As a student at The Ohio State University, one of the places I spent an inordinate amount of time was the Orton Geological Museum. There was almost never anyone inside, so I could spend long spans of time just staring at one of my favorite things on earth: the skeleton of the Giant Sloth.

It was good to be back and visit my old friend and see that some of the display cases are still in the same state they were twelve years ago. The museum itself is a sort of strange meta-exhibit. Simultaneously distant and familiar. And perfect.

Of course what documentation of a trip anywhere would be complete without a creepy baby head? I was disturbed by this in the office of Columbus Museum of Art's own Jeff Sims. It was a bit blurry every time I shot it, as if its creepiness wouldn't allow a clear picture.

Creepy baby head says: thanks for looking at these pictures. See you next time.

Things He Saw

In case you missed it (as I did for the first few installments): Master drawer of everything and everyone, Jason Polan, is tackling a recurring piece for The New York Times, straightforwardly titled Things I Saw. If you haven't seen what he saw, get to seeing it. You'll be glad you did.

Thurber Days, Part Two: A Walk To The Garden

And here's part two of my pictures from my stay in Columbus. As I warned before, I don't tend to take pictures that provide much of a documentation of the area in which I'm staying. (Ample evidence of that is that I stayed in a two bedroom apartment in Thurber House for three weeks and took no pictures of the apartment itself.) I'll easily spend a half hour photographing a slab of concrete and ignore the thing I "should have" photographed. I can't really explain it... put simply, I have no idea what I'm doing. So enjoy these photos!

Anyway...

The pictures above and below are of sculptures outside Columbus Museum of Art. The Museum is about a block from Thurber House, so I walked by these all the time when going to get lunch or dinner. (Recommendation: sweet potato fries at Tip Top. Excellent.)

From the museum, I crossed the street and shot around a million pictures of my new favorite building: the Motorists building. Good God, do I love this building. It's so perfectly boring! Anything could be happening in there and probably doesn't! I could shoot pictures of it all day.

This great parking garage and the polar bear (maybe it's a polar bear? anyway, that's what I decided it must be) were right across from one another. What's the story that connects them? That's how far too many books get started in my head.

From there I reached my destination for this particular walk... one of my favorite places in Columbus: Topiary Park. Topiary Park isn't necessarily the most gorgeous park or garden, but the bizarreness of its centerpiece – a recreation of Seurat's "Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte" in shrub form – appeals to me in so many ways that I've always loved coming here and just contemplating it. The thought process, the approval, the maintenance of it... it's all pretty fascinating.

On this visit to the park, there were some excellent ducks that were disagreeing with one another and putting on quite the air and water show. And the only thing better than ducks going nuts in a topiary park is two little blonde twins losing their minds with glee at witnessing ducks going nuts in a topiary garden. You can just barely see the little fowl enthusiasts in one of these shots.

Bang Bang Over Broadway

Well, not Broadway exactly, but in New York anyway: Comedy Bang! Bang! will be debuting on June 8th and billboards have popped up in New York promoting it.

The motorcycle/teeth fellow (snuggling under host Scott Aukerman in the top billboard) features prominently in the animated title sequence I drew for the show. I'll post some work from that in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for it.

Thurber Days, Part One: House and Grounds

Here's the first of three installments of the pictures I took during my residency at Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio. (My apologies for the quality of some of these pictures: I was still working out the variables of a recently acquired camera, so some exposures weren't quite what I intended.)

To explain briefly about the house's setup: The two bedroom apartment is in the attic of the house, and roped away from tour groups and guests. The second floor is offices and Thurber's bedroom. Also there is a chamber pot (hopefully no longer in use). The main floor is where people enter (naturally) and also houses the gift shop. Whenever I would go out (which was rare in the first couple weeks, due to my somewhat insane work schedule), I would literally exit (and enter) through the gift shop. During the day this is quaint, delightful. There's a gift shop in the place where you live! How odd! At night, though... well, it's a little creepy. You feel like you've accidentally broken into a museum (which you sort of have, except they gave you the keys) or someone's house (and you're sort of doing that too, except they know you're there and occasionally offer you cookies).

Outside the house, there are various Thurber statues of dogs at play or reading. Everything was green with spring when I was there, and the dogs were kind enough to let me get some shots of them.

Cabinets and Curiosties: Mark Dion

While at dinner with a group from the Columbus fine art and comics world (during my recent residency there), I mentioned a project I'm working on and explained a bit about it. Durng the subsequent discussion of other works in that vein, David Filipi (of The Wexner Center) was kind enough to recommend the work of Mark Dion. Sadly, I'd never seen Mark's work before, but I'm glad to be more familiar with it now. It's as gorgeous and thoroughly designed as it is thought-provoking. Thanks for the recommendation, David.

Blown Covers, Burns Edition

On the immensely followable Blown Covers site, Françoise Mouly and Nadja Spiegelman are posting amazing artwork, including some (above) pre-Photoshop separation work of Charles Burns. Take a gander and see how few seconds it takes to be jealous of their collection. (Average: 2.)

These Are The Photos You're Looking For

Many thanks to my wife for pointing out this group of Star Wars photos.

These are some of the best behind-the-scenes shots I've ever seen, not just from those movies, but from any movie. Number 39 (above) was her favorite and is just one more bit of assurance that I married the perfect woman.

Kyle David Platts, Questions

Have I recommended Kyle David Platts' work before? No. Is that a mistake? Yes. Because it's amazing? Also yes. But to give myself a pass: did I only just stumble into it through his twitter account? Triple yes. Should I stop asking myself questions? Maybe?

Rubber Chicken in Space

Via Laughing Squid: Students in Bishop, CA sent a rubber chicken toward outer-space in the name of science. This is an excellent use of both science and rubber chickens. I applaud their effort wholeheartedly.

Be sure to watch the video of their adorable countdown. Undoubtedly this will be one of those school memories they'll recall for the rest of their lives.

Comedy Bark Bark

Another little peek at Comedy Bang! Bang!, which starts June 8th on IFC. Next month, I'll post some things about the art I produced for the show. Stay tuned.

Around The Other Town

I'm slowly getting back to a normal schedule after being out of town for three weeks. And part of getting things back in order has been pulling images from my camera and going through them.

Sometime over the next few days, I'll post a pseudo photojournal of my time in Columbus... though it's not much of a journal of a specific place, as I tend to be drawn toward photographs like the above. Oh well. My apologies, Columbus.