New Features Over On Spot The Cartoonist

I've added some exciting new links to Spot The Cartoonist. Now, in addition to being your source for cartoonist public appearances, STC offers links to interesting cartoonist sightings on the internet.

First we have a link to the fabulous cartoonist interviewer extraordinaire Tom Racine and his Tall Tale Radio podcast.

Then there is the link to meeting cartoonists vicariously through Tom Gammill with his "Learn To Draw Video" series.

And lastly, I have put together a Spot The Cartoonist Youtube channel where you can watch cartoonists at their drawing boards. (Or ipads, or wacom tablets)

So head on over to Spot The Cartoonist and connect (one way or another) with your favorite cartoonists today!

Official Roth Video

Tom Gammill has posted his "official" (as in , not my bootlegged) version of the hilarious Arnie and Caroline Roth video. You can view it by clicking here.

Upgrade To John's "Lab Notes" Blog

We have been trying to upgrade John's blog (you may notice he hardly ever posts anything there anymore) so that it will be more interactive. This has involved a steep learning curve on our end. His current blog is in an old version of wordpress and is all set up in code so trying to make changes to it has been difficult for us. I currently know how to use Typepad (Spot The Cartoonist and Overbooked and Underpaid) and Blogger (this blog) but have had some difficulty learning the version of Wordpress that John is currently using but we are working our way through stuff and you should notice changes starting to happen at a (hopefully) rapid pace.

One significant change already in place is the addition of  a "Categories" link in the sidebar. No longer will you have to go wandering willy nilly through the monthly archives to find the posts about John's Journey To Syndication or similar posts. (Although the posts still come up in reverse order so you'll have to scroll back to the beginning.)

Hopefully this simple change will make the blog more user friendly to you, our loyal readers.

(And hopefully, it will make it more likely that John will get back to blogging :-) )

Hogan's Alley Reuben Pics

Here is a link to more Reuben Pics over at Hogan's Alley.

News Flash! Tom Gammill Film "Ken Burns" Documentary About Cartoonists

This is another of the films by Tom Gammill that had us rolling at the Reuben awards. I couldn't post it earlier because A) my handheld camera didn't do it justice and B) Tom had asked me to wait until he had gotten all the proper attributions.

Enjoy!

And while you're at it, be sure to check out all Tom's other videos here.

Reubens in Boston: Our Trip

(Photo courtesy of the Cedar Point Weather Cam May 25)

Those of you who follow me on twitter will know that we not only drove out to Boston for the Reubens this year but we had a series of adventures on the road. As Tom Racine said, "It's not the Reubens, it's The Amazing Race!" And I have to admit it felt like a road trip movie at times.

Why did we drive? Well, largely because we decided to take our three kids with us.

Which meant that flying would be waaaaaaaay too expensive. (Plus, Richard Thompson was hoping I would take some of my homemade chocolate truffles - try explaining those to airport security).

Another wrinkle was that the Fairmont Copley Plaza, nice though it is, does not have a swimming pool. And we have a daughter that is still young enough to be interested in swimming and considers any hotel without a pool to be unworthy of consideration. Since we couldn't provide said pool at the Fairmont, it became important to find pool containing hotels to stay at on the way there.

To further the "fun family road trip" vibe we decided to spend one of our travel days whooping it up at Cedar Point.

An ordinary trip, right?

Not in the insanity that is our current weather.

Everything started out fine as we headed over to spend the first night with family in Indiana. We had watched the weather reports for Ohio (location of Cedar Point) for a couple of days and knew that thunderstorms were a possibility. But I was thinking, oh you know, thunderstorms.

Not THUNDERSTORMS.


As we left Indiana Wednesday morning, May 25, the sky was clear. In fact, pretty much all the way over to Sandusky things looked pretty decent. We got into the park at opening time and divided up into smaller groups (the better to be sure of roller coaster bravery compatibility levels). I do remember saying to everyone - "Be sure to ride your favorites early before the bad weather moves in".

It was great. No storms, lots of fun roaming the park. We breathed a sigh of relief that the weather folks had been wrong and we had dodged a bullet.

Somewhere after lunchtime, things clouded over and got ugly but the rain stopped and within 30 minutes everything was up and running again.

Until about 5:00 pm.

I don't remember what it was that caught my attention - maybe it was the wind picking up - but I looked to the East and saw the biggest, blackest, fastest moving cloudbank I've ever seen in my life. We all managed to find each other (the up side to each family member having a cell phone) and began looking for a place to take shelter. Which is when I realized something I hadn't thought about before.

Amusement parks don't have basements.

So we settled for the next best thing. The oldest building we could find - my reasoning being, if it has weathered horrible storms before, it can again.

We crowded into the arcade with hundreds of other park visitors and hunkered down. And it was a good thing because this was one of those storms where the rain goes sideways. Worse, every time I peeped out at the sky the clouds were going in a different direction. At one point the clouds overhead were actually swirling in a circle.

I was pretty sure that was bad. We stayed put.

But we couldn't stay there forever. Eventually we took advantage of short breaks between rain and worked our way from shelter to shelter toward the front of the park.

Which is how we wound up trapped in the gift shop below the cable cars. Turns out there was enough rain to cause serious flooding and the water was coming in under the doors on both sides of the shop. The employees were valiantly trying to push the water back with giant squeegees but I know enough about gravity to realize (although they didn't seem to) that this was a battle they were not going to win.

So we sloshed our way out through shin deep waters and made a break for the parking lot. This was a trip of about a quarter mile. I started by running as fast as I could - hoping that somehow less time underwater would magically make my Reebocks less saturated - but eventually I gave up and just plodded the rest of the way.

Once we made it to the van we still had to get out of the flooded parking lot without stalling and then over the causeway to the mainland (Cedar Point is on a peninsula - hence the word "point" in the name).

After about 10 harrowing minutes driving through water of undeterminable depths, we safely got to the highway and proceeded to Cleveland and our warm, dry hotel.

Except it wasn't.

The hotel entrance was flooded, half the parking lot was flooded, and there were actually puddles in the hotel hallways. I will decline to mention the name of the establishment (I plan on filling out one of those "rate your stay" emails, though) but I was shocked at the level of disrepair in a hotel of this price and stature. One of the elevators was out of order, the pool area was a disaster of cracked tiles, peeling paint, and peeling floor, and water seemed to be leaking into every area. The bar, the hallways, the rooms. By morning a leak had appeared in our room right where my daughter's bed would have been had she opened the sofa bed. As it was she chose to sleep on the sofa as a sofa and remained dry. While I realize this was a storm of above average rainfall, it was clear from the damage to the ceiling, walls, and carpet that this hotel has had water issues for a loooong time.

Watching the weather channel we could see that everywhere we had to drive for the next two days would be in the path of one storm or another. Ugh!

Thursday we headed to Albany with fingers crossed and a van full of wet, smelly shoes, dodging the corners of the storms. Finally, at about 3:30 our luck ran out and we were caught in a doozy with quarter to half dollar sized hail.

I'd like to take a moment to thank all the folks on the radio who said we should take shelter.

Where?

We're on a highway we've never traveled before in between cities and towns we know nothing about. Are we supposed to just pull into the first driveway we find and ask strangers to take us in?

So we just kept driving. Until the hail came and it got so bad we had to at least pull over to the side of the road, put on our flashers, and cross fingers that no one would run into us.

The hotel in albany was actually warm and dry so we finally got some rest and recuperation while the storms kept up outside our window. (Still couldn't get those shoes dry, though, and they smelled worse every day).

Friday we made it to Boston and 3 days of beautiful storm free weather. Two days after we drove back west, tornadoes touched down in three towns we had passed.

And now that we are back in Wisconsin, they have found us again - last night we had storms with winds of 100 mph.

I wonder if someone is trying to tell us something........

Next post: Boston and the fabulous Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel!

Arnold and Caroline Roth meet Tom Gammill

This year, as last year, Tom Gammill was the master of ceremonies for the Reuben Award Banquet. Along with presiding over the evening in general, he produced a series of short videos that were nothing short of hilarious. I'll be doing a long post about the Reuben weekend in general next week but, in the meantime  Tom, Arnie and Caroline have graciously given me permission to post this particular video. It will eventually be available on youtube as part of Tom Gammill's "Learn To Draw" series as will, (hopefully) several of the others. (There was a parody of a Ken Burns documentary - complete with violin music - that was sheer genius!)

Enjoy!!

 (BTW I apologize in advance for some sloppy camera holding on my part and a couple people walking in front of me but one of the reasons I've posted this version is so that you can hear the crowd reaction.)

Reuben Weekend Boston Pics Round One...

So we're back and, awesome as the weekend was, the drive home (18 hours) has left me too exhausted to write much. So here are some pics to get things rolling....... (Don't forget you can enlarge them by clicking on them)

Arnold Roth and John at Sunday's "costume" dinner

This year John not only remembered to take a sketchbook, he remembered to ask folks to draw in it :-)

Martha and George. Wait..... is that "THE Jeffy?"

Accosting Reuben award winner Richard Thompson while he tries to eat...

OK, so he's not mad :-)

In the Venetian room there was this huge shell thing - that's Ed Steckley and his wife Heather.

Here we are in front of the darned thing but we have the good sense to be drinking. Venus di Vino?

How to make Anna Richmond happy....(I drove those truffles across 7 states)

Rick Kirkman, Richard Thompson, John, Jen Sorensen, Brendan Burford (apologies to Jen - I didn't get this pic with her eyes open)

Although John managed to....

Rick Stromoski and Tom Richmond (Tom can really rock that batsuit!)

Wouldn't be the Reubens without Karaoke - although I doubt it's been held in a room this sumptuous before...

John with Mark Parisi, Rick Stromoski, Dan Thompson, and I did not catch the other name - help someone?

Tux time!

Our son Kristopher in the lobby - elegant surroundings, elegant attire....

Kris got to meet Brad Anderson....

And Richard Thompson....

Our madcap son Alexander with the even more MADcap Sam Viviano...

John with Brad Anderson.

One more...... (BTW Brad's wife and I our knitting buddies, this is our 3rd Reubens talking all things knit and she's sending me a pattern....)

Sam Viviano,  John Read (the genius behind One Fine Sunday and Stay Tooned) and John

John with Norm Feuti and Ray Billingsley (Apologies to Ray for the half closed eyes but the other two pics they are all the way closed :-) )

More pics and some blogging tomorrow but now to bed. I'm toast!

At The Reubens in Boston

Due to a lack of a working laptop (somethng I have to save up my pennies to remedy) I am not able to do quality blogging on the road. I have lots of great photos from the Reuben Award Weekend this year but, since they were taken on regular cameras and not some sort of "smart" "instantly interface with the internet" device, I won't be able to upload anything until I return on Wednesday. (We drove - it's going to take a while to get back. Yes, I know we're crazy.)

And the ipad, while great for a lot of things, is no substitute for a laptop when it comes to blog posting. Most of the customizations I usually add to my posts do not register when using blogger or typepad. I am thinking about checking out wordpress and seeing if that is better.

Anyway, in lieu of blogging I have been tweeting. So, if you want the scoop on our last five days, go follow me on twitter. If you just click on my tweets you'll get a pretty good picture of what has been going on.

Congratulations to all the award winners - especially to Richard Thompson for winning the big Reuben Award. Muchly, muchly deserved.

Team Cul de Sac

Here is the piece that John did for Team Cul de Sac, a fundraising project for Parkinsons Disease that you can read about here.

Cartoonist Studio Contest Clarification

The Cartoonist Studio, of which John is a member, is running a contest for amateur cartoonists. The prize is a development deal with Creators Syndicate.

The judging is handled by Creators Syndicate with voting from the public. Studio artists are not judging this contest. If your strip has been eliminated, please do not assume that John or any of the other member artists were involved in its elimination.

You can read more about the contest here and here.

Best of luck to all the contestants!

When John Colors....

John colored this week's Sunday strip. I love this panel in particular. He has a much better sense of following a light source than I do :-)

Click here to see the whole strip.

Call For Entries - "Seriously Funny"

I just got an email from Ruby Thorkelson about a cartoon and comics show coming up. "Seriously Funny" will take place this Summer with jurying by cartoonist Isabella Bannerman. The deadline for submissions is May 11th. Below are the submission guidelines, which are also available through this link: http://www.womanmade.org/entryform.html They are open to both original work and reproductions. 

CALL FOR ARTWORK: "Seriously Funny"

Exhibition Dates: July 8 - August 18, 2011
Open to women artists from the international community whose work is expressed in cartoon-style format. Open to all themes. Please include an artist statement and a $30 entry fee. 


For Online Entries: Submit jpgs of three of your works on our website.


Mailed Entries: Mail slides or cd with images of up to three of your works, completed entry form, and a $30 entry fee to Woman Made Gallery, 685 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60642.

Juror: Isabella Bannerman
Isabella Bannerman has been a cartoonist since 1987, when she won first prize in The San Francisco Bay Guardian Cartoon Contest. Her work has appeared in many publications, including Good Housekeeping,Glamour, The Funny Times, Mamapalooza, and World War 3 Illustrated. A collection of her work, Pacifists in Bomber Jackets, was published in 1999 by Laugh Lines Press. Isabella has also worked as an animator, contributing to MTV; Pee Wee’s Playhouse; and the children’s TV show, Doug. For more information, visit the The Six Chix Blog.

Entry Deadline: May 11, 2011

Notifications: May 27, 2011

Tall Tale Radio With Rina Piccolo

Tom Racine has posted a terrific interview with Rina Piccolo. Go check it out!

John's Studio

A Peek Inside The Cartooning Space of John Hambrock

One of the nicest things about the studio is the beautiful second story view of Lake Michigan. Yesterday, a boat went by the windows with a man sitting up on the top like the beginning of Pirates of the Caribbean. (The boat was on a trailer and headed for the marina)

Click here to get back to the main site.

Are You Reading Ollie & Quentin?

Are you reading Ollie & Quentin? If you're not, you certainly should be!! It is a gem of a strip that never fails to make me chuckle.

Piers Baker, the creative force behind the Laurel and Hardy styled antics of Ollie (a seagull) and Quentin ( a lugworm) has put up a very important post here about the future of his strip. Go read it and then make some noise about it!!!

When MyCage was cancelled there was a lot of moaning and groaning and gnashing of teeth directed at King Features for canceling it. That strip had a lot of fans but newspaper editors were not picking it up. If you like a strip, you - the fan - have a big obligation these days to make your voice heard. And if you cannot get your local newspaper editor to listen, you can at least make - yes, I said MAKE, the time to subscribe to your favorite strips on dailyink.

If you are a fan who loves a strip like Ollie & Quentin - don't run around reading it on the internet for free. PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS, MAN UP, AND PAY THE #@$%ING $19.99 A YEAR TO SUBSCRIBE TO IT!!!!

I'll give you a little taste of O & Q and then you should toddle over to the dailyink site and get the strip sent to your email every day or else sign up for the iphone app.

(And subscribe to Edison, too while you're at it..........)

What's Really Going On....

It seems that NASA is having trouble communicating with the mars rover Spirit. Could the above strips have pegged the real problem?

Me and My Big Mouth

I'm probably putting my foot in it today over on the Daily Cartoonist by addressing the Scott Adams post. And I really shouldn't rise to the bait.

I cant seem to help myself.

Maybe therapy........

Or maybe, as Nicole Hollander said I just need to bang a pickle jar against a kitchen counter.....

I Loved Coloring This

As a rabid Chuck Jones fan, I really enjoyed coloring this one. I kind of wished we could have had a whole storyline play out from this point so I could color Marvin again :-)

Sometimes They Let Me Out Of My Cage

For an adventure in shopping, click here.