Gag Me With a Spoon

October 7th, 2010 | by Dakota
Posted In: Blog, Center for Cartoon Studies

We covered gags cartoons in Cartooning Studio a couple of weeks ago, and the homework assignment asked for three different kinds of gags:

1) Gags about White River Junction – I found these to be the most difficult. WRJ is a funny town, but to convey everything in a single panel in a way that will make sense to someone who has never been here, and still be funny, is damn near impossible (for me anyway). Unfortunately, these cartoons ended up being more like in-jokes, and so they are explained below.

There is a group of moderately creepy people in WRJ that convene in various public places. Most CCSers refer to them as The Lawnchair Brigade.

↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Crash Cover Design

October 6th, 2010 | by Dakota
Posted In: Uncategorized

One of Steve Bissette’s recent drawing classes covered the basic process of brainstorming. Our in-class assignment had us break into groups and create a Weekly World News covers in a short period of time.

The marvelous fruits of our labour can be viewed below. I’m happy to say that the phrase ’saintly cephalopod’ is mine.

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CCS Diary Comic #2

October 5th, 2010 | by Dakota
Posted In: Blog, Center for Cartoon Studies

This week: a terrible discovery about my favourite drawing material …

Incidentally, I contacted Speedball. They told me that while their ink does contain shellac, it does not contain any other animal products. The black is oil based … which, if it’s petroleum, is probably causing just as much suffering somewhere in the world. Still, it helps to contact companies when you have vegan-related queries because then the issue is on their radar. Good companies want happy customers!

If anyone knows of a totally vegan india ink, let me know!

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Emotion, Animal, Occupation

September 30th, 2010 | by Dakota
Posted In: Blog, Center for Cartoon Studies

During my undergrad I tried to enjoy every class, but sometimes it was hard to wake up and go to Boring Abstract Formulas Lacking Any Discernible Application to Anything 100.

At CCS, there are no dead-weight classes. That said, I think Cartooning Studio taught by Jason Lutes is quickly becoming my favourite class. This is simply due to the fact that Jason has a diabolical mind that concocts only the maddest of class projects … like, say, that time on the first day of classes when we had to make 45-second drawings that clearly communicate an assigned scenario.

For our first homework assignment, we were provided with an emotion, an animal, and an occupation. We then had to design a character that clearly communicates all three elements without words or backgrounds. This was infinitely more difficult than I expected it to be.

Guesses?

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CCS Diary Comic #1

September 23rd, 2010 | by Dakota
Posted In: Blog, Center for Cartoon Studies

It’s been about three weeks since I started classes at the Center for Cartoon Studies, and it’s been fantastic so far! The assignments have been fun and challenging, and the student work has been inspiring. It’s so weird to be in a room with so many great cartoonists at the same time.

One of the first assignments we were given in Steve Bissette’s Drawing Studio class is a weekly diary comic. The comic must be at least one page in length, and occasionally has other requirements.

For the first diary comic, Steve split everyone into groups of two or three and told us to go eat lunch together. We then had to draw our comics based on some aspect of that conversation.

I had lunch with Katie Moody and Bailey Sharp, and this is how it went:

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CCS Class of 2012

September 17th, 2010 | by Dakota
Posted In: Blog, Center for Cartoon Studies

We tried to get a good picture, but then like, this HUGE DINOSAUR TOTALLY APPEARED you guys.

Needless to say, it’s been great so far. I really can’t believe how fortunate I am to be here. I’ll be posting some stuff from my first couple of weeks soon. Keep an eye out on Thursdays for sketches, drawings, and comics made in class!

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Old Office Sketches

September 16th, 2010 | by Dakota
Posted In: Blog, sketches

Until very recently, I worked in an office. A doodle friendly office.

I think I liked meetings more than anything else. It took me back to the heady days of third grade, where one was allowed to draw while the teacher talked as long as one was listening.

These are the last six sketches I found as I was packing up my things on my last day of work:

Click to make them bigger. Like you do on the internet.

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Evil Eye

September 9th, 2010 | by Dakota
Posted In: Blog, comics

Here’s another couple of sketchbook pages filled with tiny panels and nonsensical ramblings.

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Canmore, Draw More

September 2nd, 2010 | by Dakota
Posted In: Blog, sketches

A couple of months ago, my wife and I visited Canmore with a friend.

I sketched the mountains during this time, but worked on the comics during coffee breaks the week after we returned to Regina. The dog poop story is true, and the bunny love comic is probably true, knowing bunnies and their penchant for intercourse.

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Postage Stamp Strips

August 26th, 2010 | by Dakota
Posted In: Blog, sketches

Here is a collection of tiny paneled strips from my sketchbook:

In case it isn’t obvious the second last panel of Facial Profile Adventures is a guy offering drugs under a trench coat. Law enforcement officers will never think to look there!

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