Sunday, July 31, 2011

08/6-07 11th Annual Portland Zine Symposium!


The Portland Zine Symposium aims to promote greater community between diverse creators of independent publications and art. This fun and free event helps people share their work while exchanging their skills and information related to zine culture. Through workshops, panels and discussions, Portland Zine Symposium explores the role and effect of all types of zines.
 
Refuge
116 SE Yamhill St.
Saturday, August 6 at 10:00am - August 7 at 5:00pm


Events Leading up to it:


First day of the 2011 Portland Zine Symposium
Saturday, August 6th
10:00am-5:00pm
The Refuge
116 Southeast Yamhill Street
Free admission, free workshops, and more zines than you can shake a stick at!


Zinester Feud!
Saturday, August 6th
7:00-9:00pm
Floating World Comics
20 NW 5th Ave
Survey says! Join the PZS for our Family Feud style game show with a zine theme! Form your teams and compete for prizes by answering questions about zines.

Zinester Karaoke!
August 7
9:00pm-12:00am
Floating World Comics
20 NW 5th Ave
What better way to celebrate the 11th Portland Zine Symposium than singing songs with friends! Join us at Floating World after Zinester Feud for songs and mayhem.

Second day of the 2011 Portland Zine Symposium
Sunday, August 7th
10:00am-4:00pm
The Refuge
116 Southeast Yamhill Street
Free admission, free workshops, and more zines than you can shake a stick at!
 
PZS 21+ After Party 8:00pm-?
The Alibi, 4024 N Interstate
Take a sigh of relief after the weekend’s festivities at a tiki bar with fruity umbrella drinks and Karaoke. 

Saturday, July 30, 2011

DC New U Experiment

The DCu coming with new books that are supposed to be more accessible and readable for new readers.    I have a new reader, Gannon (Age 8).    He is interested in the books.    So I picked out  selection of comics.      Recently a preview book came out, so I let him pick out a few more from that.     I will read them and see if they are indeed appropriate, and then we can get his feedback.

From the preview book he was most interested in:
Firestorm
Frankenstein
 
He also selected:
Justice League
Aquaman
All Star Western
Grifter
Swampthing
Blackhawks  (He wanted to read the war comics)
And Deathstroke   (I think because he just read the Ravager GN)

09/17 Hello Etsy PDX

Hello Etsy PDX

A One-Day Conference on Small Business and Sustainability

I Heart Art: Portland and Etsy are proud to announce that we are teaming up to bring you the Hello Etsy PDX conference on September 17, 2011. In one loaded day, we will rock your businesses world with a conference on Small Business and Sustainability.

The conference will mimic the parent summit in Berlin, with topics falling under the umbrella of four categories: The Big Picture, The Product, The Business, and The Market.

The keynote address will be a lively conversation between Duane Sorenson of Stumptown Coffee and Rebecca Pearcy of Queen Bee Creations, moderated by the wonderful Diane Gilleland. The conversation will focus on the importance of finding a growth model that fits your business scale and your future plans.

The rest of the conference sessions will give attendees the choice between three types of workshops: Making, Learning and Discussion. Topics may include staying afloat in a fledgling economy, how to write a business manifesto, how to keep your business sustainable and much, much more.

Due to generous support from Etsy and their sponsors, tickets for this jam-packed day are only $20 (free for PNCA students and alumni and discounted for Museum of Contemporary Craft members), guaranteeing that you’ll have the most bang for your small business buck. Tickets are available through Eventbrite and are on sale now. Session details and presenters are still being determined. Please visit our dedicated Hello Etsy PDX webpage for the most up-to-date information about the conference.

Interested in leading a session? See the Bottom Right Corner (below) for details.

Buy your ticket now >
Learn more about Hello Etsy PDX >

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

08/05 - Midnight Movie - Indiana Jones

Time:   Friday, August 5 at 10:00pm - August 6 at 1:00am
Location:  
McMenamins Bagdad Theater
3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Portland, Oregon
Created By         
     
"If Adventure has a name...
 Sunday, January 8th, 2006: The monthly Portland late-night staple, The Cort and Fatboy Midnight Movie, got its accidental start as a charity screening for about 20 people at McMenamin's Kennedy School. A DVD of Raiders of The Lost Ark was shown promptly at midnight, and maybe the resolution was a little low, maybe the colors were a little flat, but the movie did what it always does - completely enthralled the audience sitting in front of it. It's only the finest action movie ever made, after all. Not even the Ark itself could likely hold the pure magic Spielberg, Lucas, Kasdan and Ford managed to harness for that film.

Friday, August 5th, 2011: Cort and Fatboy continue to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Midnight Movies inexplicably surviving as long as they have by going back to the film that started it all. And maybe the 35mm print will be a little faded, a little scratched up, maybe the audio will be a little fuzzy, but Raiders of the Lost Ark is going to do what it always does, because it's only the finest action movie ever made, after all.

Admission is $3.00, you must be 21 or older to attend. The doors open at 10pm, a pre-show reel will precede the movie, and then at 11pm, a blue mountain will appear on the screen, and it will fade into a real mountain, and John Williams' music will slowly, ominously begin rising on the soundtrack, and the next two hours will be, guaranteed, the finest bit of summer blockbusting you'll get a chance to witness this year. It just so happens that the blockbusting you're watching is 30 years old."

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Questions 41: Paul Guinan

Paul Guinan is a Chicago-born multimedia author/illustrator whose projects range in size and content from business cards to wall murals. In 2000, Paul created Boilerplate, and began chronicling the Victorian robot's adventures.   His first freelance gig was inking Tom Sutton on Grimjack, subsequent work includes contributions to Aliens, The Terminator, The Punisher, Justice League, Ghost, DHP, Barb Wire, Andrew Vachss' Hard Looks, and many entries in DC’s The Big Book of... series.  He's drawn spot illustrations for McGraw-Hill and Adidas.   He has done photography and Photoshop graphics for clients such as Oregon Public Broadcasting, the WB TV network, and national magazines.

Paul began his comic book career as a production artist at First Comics, retouching Lone Wolf and Cub art. In 1988 after noticing the absence of women in comics as lead characters, Paul and wife-to-be Anina Bennett began developing comic's first female action hero. Together they hatched the science-fiction series Heartbreakers, which has since proven its appeal to both male and female readers. Long before cloning made mainstream headlines, Heartbreakers explored the social fallout of genetic engineering. The title's latest incarnation is as a series of self-contained Heartbreakers Superdigest volumes in paperback format, with color feature stories, guest artists, and activity pages.

In 1998 Paul co-created Chronos, a monthly title from DC Comics, with writer John Francis Moore. Paul pencilled eleven issues of the series, which was the last launched by the now departed, much-missed Archie Goodwin. In his feistier moments, Paul claims that Chronos retains bragging rights to the most extensively realized background art in an American monthly comic.

In 2002, Paul joined with other DC Comics creators such as David Hahn, Steve Lieber and Terry Dodson to form Mercury Studios which later became Periscope Studios.

Doug Dorr:   What projects are you working on currently?
I’m putting the finishing touches on another collaboration with my wife, Anina Bennett, called Frank Reade: Adventures in the Age of Invention. It’s a follow-up to Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel, using a similar format and premise: a fictitious protagonist taking part in real historical events. Frank Reade also showcases a lost legacy of American science fiction, with restored 19th-century dime novel illustrations and story excerpts. The title character is friends with Archie Campion, so Boilerplate makes a few cameos in the new book.
DD:   What is your artistic process?
It usually starts with a visual idea that I build a story around. Boilerplate developed out of an image I had in my head, of a robot standing with Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders after the Battle of San Juan Heights.

DD:   What Comic/ Trade would you recommend?
Family Man by Dylan Meconis, Underground by Parker and Lieber, and Gingerbread Girl by Tobin and Coover. OK, they’re books by my fellow members of Periscope Studio, but working on Boilerplate and Frank Reade for the last five years meant that I haven’t been able to keep up with many graphic novels. I spent a lot of time doing historical research, reading books like James Bradley’s Imperial Cruise. I can recommend a couple of heavily illustrated biographies that have similar visual sensibilities to Boilerplate. Time-Life did 130-page magazine-sized softcovers about Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin that would definitely appeal to graphic novel readers.

DD:   What Comic/ Trade would you recommend to someone new to comics?
Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics is ground zero. After that, maybe the Hernandez brothers’ Love & Rockets. First I would find out what kind of stories that reader enjoys in other media—prose, movies, etc.—then try to recommend something in line with their sensibilities.

DD:   What skill would you like to learn?
I have yet to learn 3D modeling and rendering.

DD:   What's the most important thing you've learned?
As an artist, the most important goal is to create work that speaks to you personally and springs from a genuine interest in your subject. Don’t try to formulate a piece that you think will be commercially successful if you don’t care about the characters, the story, the themes. Consciously or not, most people will recognize the difference between a mercenary work and one that comes from the heart.

DD:   Do you have a collection? If so, what is one of the items you're most proud of?
I have a room full of action figures and 1/6th-scale figures, along with related vehicles. The collection I’m proudest of, though, would be my Frank Reade dime novels. Frank Reade was America’s first science fiction hero, and Frank Reade Library, published in the 1880s, was the first science fiction series ever. The covers and other engravings from the series are stunningly beautiful. In Frank Reade: Adventures in the Age of Invention, these images are being published for the first time in more than a century—elaborate helicopter airships, electric land vehicles and submarines, and globe-trotting adventures. I’m tremendously proud to help resurrect this lost aspect of science fiction history!

DD:   What is your favorite genre of Comics?
I like a variety of comics. If I had to pick a favorite genre, I guess I’d say adventure fiction, which covers a lot of ground. In particular, I appreciate comics that take advantage of the medium to depict things that would be difficult to achieve in other media, due to budget and logistic constraints. Epic science fiction and historical dramas are my favorite examples.

DD:   Do you have an Ipad? If so what do use it for the most.
Nope. As a cinephile, I don’t like watching movies or TV shows on a small screen, so I think I would mainly use an iPad for web surfing and reading.

DD:   What is your favorite TV show/ movie?
I, Claudius and Deadwood are a couple of favorite TV shows. Seven Samurai, Dr. Strangelove, and Wages of Fear are some favorite movies. It’s a long list—I keep a public version on our web site at www.bigredhair.com/movies.

DD:   How does the Portland comics culture shapes your work?
Portland has a unique comics culture. There are so many comic book creators here now, I’m surprised we haven’t reached critical mass and formed a small planet. Yet the scale of the city is relatively small, which makes for a more tightly knit comics community than in other urban centers with top-level published creators. At any given event or social gathering, you’re likely to run into mainstream superhero talent as well as underground/alternative creators. It’s energizing and keeps everyone on their game. In a way, I was inspired by the local talent pool to push the boundaries of the visual narrative in Boilerplate.

DD:   What was your first comic convention?
It was when I was a little kid back in Chicago: the Chicago Comicon, held at the Playboy Building. Years before it moved to Rosemont, let alone before Wizard took it over.

DD:   What is your favorite part of comic conventions?
Meeting the fans, that’s what it’s all about.

DD:   If you weren’t doing comics what would you do?
Film or television production. I consider myself a storyteller above all. No matter what visual medium I’m working in, from illustration to photography, even my hobby of building dioramas, I always construct some kind of narrative.

DD:   Do you have a favorite restaurant that you would recommend?
Portland has so many good eateries! An old favorite of mine is Il Piatto on SE Ankeny. Rustic, romantic, you can walk in wearing either a tux or motorcycle jacket and still feel appropriately dressed.
DD:   How long have you lived in Portland, what made you choose Portland?
Anina came to PDX to work as an editor at Dark Horse. We moved here from Chicago in 1991, right after getting married, and wound up buying a wonderful house in a great neighborhood. Over the years we fell in love with the place, and this is our home now.

DD:   What is your favorite part of Portland?
Southeast, especially the Hawthorne District. That’s why we bought a home there.

DD:   Where in Portland/ Oregon would you most like to visit?
The beauty of Oregon is its wildly varied terrain. Desert and forest, mountains and plains, a coastline with beaches and cliffs, rivers and hot springs, massive obsidian flows and lava tubes—it’s got practically everything! I can’t choose just one spot, but Anina and I are overdue for a visit to the coast, so maybe a return trip to Astoria. It’s got an excellent maritime museum.

DD:   Would you like to write/Illustrate for another media? or conversely, how would you feel about writing a comic of a character from a different media, for example, Dr. Who, James Bond? What would you explore?
The Boilerplate movie deal with Paramount and J.J. Abrams has given us the opportunity to pitch some of our other projects to Hollywood, which is exciting. As to other properties, only Doctor Who would interest me, since it’s about time travel and I’m such a huge history buff. I’d probably get the Doctor involved in a historical epic, or as epic as the BBC’s budget would allow!

Monday, July 18, 2011

07/29 Anders Nilsen Book signing @ FWC

LISTING INFORMATION:
WHO: Anders Nilsen
WHAT: Book signing and slide show reading
WHEN: Friday, July 29th, 6-9PM
WHERE: Floating World Comics
20 NW 5th Ave #101
Portland, OR 97209
(503)241-0227

Bio info:
Anders Nilsen was born in northern New Hampshire in 1973. He was weaned on a steady diet of comics, stories and art, from Tintin and the X-Men to Raw, Weirdo, punk rock, zines, graffiti and regular trips to art museums. He currently lives with his cat in Chicago, Il.
Anders’ comics have been translated into a number of languages. He has exhibited his drawing and painting internationally and had his work anthologized in Kramer’s Ergot, Mome, The Yale Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Best American Comics and Best American Non-Required Reading, as well as The Believer, the Chicago Reader and elsewhere. Other titles by Nilsen include Dogs And Water, Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow, Monologues for the Coming Plague, Monologues for Calculating the Density of Black Holes, and The End #1.

Anders Nilsen also received Ignatz Nominations for Outstanding Artist for Big Questions #7 & #8, Outstanding Series (Big Questions), and Outstanding Comic (Big Questions #7) at the 2006 Small Press Expo. Dogs and Water won an Ignatz for Outstanding Story in 2005, and his graphic memoir Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow won an Ignatz for Outstanding Graphic Novel in 2007.
http://www.andersbrekhusnilsen.com/
http://themonologuist.blogspot.com/

Tron 2.0 by moebius


Thursday, July 14, 2011

07/21 - Art Spark

 What: 
Another good Art Spark time!
 Featuring:
PDX POP Now!
There will be a PDX POP Now! trivia game for PPN swag! plus a chance to introduce Rocky and the Proms!   There will be a special performance Rocky and the Proms.

Bring a friend or two!
Event free, Food and Beverage - "No host bar"


When:
Thursday, July 21, 2011, 5pm – 7pm
Where:
Backspace115 NW 5th Ave, Portland, OR 97209
And: 
A nice time to make connections, find out about new stuff in the arts community, have fun and chill out.
 

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

08/04 Wuvable Oaf signing/artshow @ Floating World

Join creator Ed Luce for the release of a brand new issue of Wuvable Oaf and an exhibition of art and prints, including paintings, original pages from WO #3 and his new BUNGOOL the WUVABLE OGRE story (to be seen in an upcoming issue of Elf World from Portland publisher Family Style).  Ed will also be debuting a new a Wuvable Ogre print!

THE FIRST 25 ARRIVALS GET A FREE WORLD PAINTED GOTEBLÜD MINI POSTER!!!

LISTING INFORMATION:
WHO: Ed Luce
WHAT: Book signing, art exhibit, and free print giveaway
WHEN: Thursday, Aug. 4th, 6-10PM
WHERE: Floating World Comics
20 NW 5th Ave #101
Portland, OR 97209
(503)241-0227

Bio info:
Ed Luce is the creator of Wuvable Oaf, a comic “fairy” tale chronicling one big, scary looking dude’s search for romance in a city that looks suspiciously like San Francisco.  The character stars in several books, as well as on an ever-expanding line of merchandise, including shirts, mugs, records, prints, posters and stickers.  Whitney Matheson, writing about the Oaf for USA Today’s Pop Candy section, describes the comic as “fast-paced, funny and chock full of pop-culture references”, concluding,  “whether you’re gay/straight/something in between, I think you’ll find yourself rooting for the Oaf and his quest for somebody to wuv.”
Wuvable Oaf has also made appearances in Decibel Magazine, Maximum RocknRoll, Prism’s Guide to Comics 2008-2010 editions, BEAR Magazine, Pride Magazine ’09, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, The Book of Boy Trouble 2, UK’s Gay Times and Instinct magazine.
Ed and Oaf had the very great honor of being named co-recipient of Prism Comics 2010 Queer Press Grant.  They have also been nominated for a 2009 Ignatz Award in the “Promising New Talent” category.
While currently pouring his energy into the comics world, Ed leaves a lengthy trail of art debris behind him, including published features in the UK’s Bearflavoured artists’ catalog and LA gay men’s health magazine Corpus. This past  February, he had the honor of participating in the “Henry & Glenn Forever” group exhibition at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles, (aka WACKO on Hollywood Blvd.) one of his favorite places on earth.
http://www.wuvableoaf.com/
http://bearbait.livejournal.com/

Monday, July 11, 2011

Periscope Studios

Periscope is a collective of cartoonists, illustrators, writers, concept designers, graphic novelists, and storyboard artists.  I was able to stop by Periscope studios and see some of this great set of artists in action.     The studio is snuggled  downtown in the Oregon Trail Building and sits right next to Portland’s legendary food carts.   The first thing I noticed coming in was the camaraderie between the artists.     Although I have met these artists before, it was great to see them working and interacting together in their natural habitat.  
Periscope is an amazing place.   This studio was formed by Ron Randall, Karl Kesel, Terry Dodson, Matthew Clark, Pete Woods, Rebecca Woods, David Hahn, Paul Guinan, and Steve Lieber  in 2002 as Mercury Studios.   It has grown to 25 people from different backgrounds in the comic book industry.     Steve Lieber described it as being similar to how a bullpen was in the old days of comics;   but not what it was really like but what we always thought it would be.

They all use various tools for the artistic tasks.   Personally I wanted to see how the Cintiq, interactive pen displays, were used in actual practice.    The Cintiq allows an artist to use a stylus on a scratch-resistant glass surface that displays what is on the computer.   The stylus acts just like a pencil, you can even turn it around and use the back as an eraser.     I watched Steve Lieber sketch out a couple figures in his composition.    Because this is on the computer, Steve was able to circle one of the figures he sketched and resize it.   He says his process is to first enter in the text for the page, then he sketches the drawings with Cintiq.   He prints the pages with the sketches in blue ink and the letters black.    He then will ink the page by traditional means.

Watch the amazing artists working at Periscope.    Their tumblr art blog is at this link.   The current members are listed below.   You can read many of there interviews on this blog.

Thursday, July 07, 2011

Before a Small Problem becomes a Giant Threat!!! Ben Dewey

periscopestudio:
Ben Dewey offers his take on WW2 Dinosaurs. Little do the thunder-lizards know that the Mammals will be aided in their upward struggle by artillery from space!

Friday, July 01, 2011

Kelly Sue DeConnick's new Castle Book

Check out this interview with  Kelly Sue and MTV geek.