Just thought I´d do an update on me calling into the... Art&Story Alive podcast, hosted by the talented Jerzy Drozd, Marc Rudolph, and Krishna Sadasivam. Art&Story Alive is the live component of Art&Story, where I, the listener, and probably you, the listener, gets to call in and bug the hosts with our ramblings.
(Yes, I just copied and pasted that bit from my last post about this. I´m lazy)...
Anyhow... I´ve called into some more, and tried to tell some bad jokes and good points. Or the other way around. Here´s the list of the ones I´ve been on so far:
067 - Art & Story Alive! (With other guest, the always lovable Ryan Dow of Introspective Comics, discussing bad advice making baby Jesus cry, finding your voice, and making comics that communicate like a grunt to a loved one)
068 - Art & Story Alive! (Discussing coloring and getting cut-off by my stupid Skype)
069 - Art & Story Alive! (With birthday-boy Ryan Dow, discussing making comics for kids, and reinventing the college roomy-genre)
071 - Art & Story Alive! (Discussing why digital distribution of comics is bound to fail until we have better methods of reading them, and how to use panel-borders).
UPDATE: And I did call in last night, for the funniest, fastest, and most intense A&S Alive I´ve been a part of, again including Ryan Dow, about breaking into the local art scene, origin-stories, and something about the problem with modern color-print and motion(And it seems motion will be the topic of next weeks podcast, so stay tuned). Here:
072 - Art & Story Alive!
Monday, 29 June 2009
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Art Week Review 15...
This week has been a bit random, with my WACOMpen being in Scotland and/or my mailbox, and my mood being a bit... shit.
But here goes...
My autobiographical comic of the week, with no proper images and text in Norwegian. Don´t worry, the text is just depressive poo, so you´re not missing anything:
And I did a self-portrait reflecting my mood for my blog:
And even more randomly, a portrait of Ayn Rand. By popular request I´m thinking of changing the text to "Ayn Rand, I´d rape her" with "I´d rape her" written in soft pink letters. I think that´d be sweet. Funnily enough I´ve gotten some weird ultra-capitalist Twitter-followers lately, and I figure that someone might have seen my #aynran tag, but not clicked my link. Hilarious!
And I did this quick one for an article/blogpost I wrote about game-critisism on tokyo.no. The text basically is two word-balloons worth of artsy fancy-talk, and the kid giving the punchline "And a fucking impressive high-score".
And this nice sketch of my garden:
Apart from that I´ve been working on an comic-article about the homo-erotic aspects of Judas Priest, which has been going slower than it should due to the lack of a digital pen. But it´s looking good. Maybe I´ll show some of the sketches next week?
But here goes...
My autobiographical comic of the week, with no proper images and text in Norwegian. Don´t worry, the text is just depressive poo, so you´re not missing anything:
And I did a self-portrait reflecting my mood for my blog:
And even more randomly, a portrait of Ayn Rand. By popular request I´m thinking of changing the text to "Ayn Rand, I´d rape her" with "I´d rape her" written in soft pink letters. I think that´d be sweet. Funnily enough I´ve gotten some weird ultra-capitalist Twitter-followers lately, and I figure that someone might have seen my #aynran tag, but not clicked my link. Hilarious!
And I did this quick one for an article/blogpost I wrote about game-critisism on tokyo.no. The text basically is two word-balloons worth of artsy fancy-talk, and the kid giving the punchline "And a fucking impressive high-score".
And this nice sketch of my garden:
Apart from that I´ve been working on an comic-article about the homo-erotic aspects of Judas Priest, which has been going slower than it should due to the lack of a digital pen. But it´s looking good. Maybe I´ll show some of the sketches next week?
Friday, 26 June 2009
Illegal Review 1: Hung episode 1...
So I originally intended for this blog to have both reviews of free stuff and of things that should be free, but have been far too lazy to do so yet. Until now. Anyhow... firstly... What´s an Illegal Review?
Illegal Reviews are where I review things that are either illegally downloaded, or should be illegally downloaded to boycott those who seek to destroy the free nature of art by imprisoning it with the chains of copyright. Since I´m a weak person I cannot promise that every item review is illegally downloaded, but just because I occasionally buy stuff doesn´t mean you should.
Rejecting is hard for newbie man-whores.
Like for most people with taste, HBO has almost singlehandedly managed to restore my faith in American TV-series. With writing at a level that´s often far above your average Hollywood blockbuster, and great production, shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, and Deadwood are amongst my favorite pieces of newer cinematic art. Even the shows that I personally never got hooked into, like Sex in the City, Rome, and Six Feet Under, are truly admirable and finely crafted undertakings.
Now, debuting sometime soon, Hung is HBOs newest attempt at a quirky comedy-drama, created by Dmitri Lipkin, who also did The Riches, and his wife(?) Colette Burson. Having never seen The Riches, even though I´m a big fan of Eddie Izzard, I didn´t have any special expectations from Hung, and I don´t think expectations would have helped much.
Hungs plot is about a divorced and broke high-school teacher and coach, Ray Drecker, played by Thomas Jane of The Punisher fame, who decides to use his big penis, which remains mysteriously absent from the show, to his economic advantage and become a male prostitute.
The first episode is directed by Alexander Payne, whose biggest claim to fame has to be About Schmidt, and tries to tell the story leading up to Rays decision to become a man-whore. Unfortunately the story is told by loads of half-clever voice-over narration that never manages to amuse or enlighten much, and does a very poor job at making one really believe this regular-Joes reasoning behind jumping into his new career.
Other than that the direction is competent, with some funny quick cuts in time here and there, and generally good dialogue and acting. Few of the characters really stand out yet, but there is potential for them to grow. The poet lover, played by Jane Adams, starts off as noisily annoying as the script dictates, but ended up charming me. Anne Heche is suitably bitchy as the ex-wife, and Eddie Jemison is his usual amusing self as the new husband. The drama between Ray and his kids never really grabbed me, as neither kid seems like very convincing characters as of yet, but I´m willing to give them time.
And all in all that´s my judgement of the whole episode. I´m not convinced by the slightly awkward mix of comedy and drama but I´m willing to give it some time, at least until we get to the actual whoring. We need more shows about male-prostitutes.
So... Hung may yet prove to be well-hung, but I give episode 1 a score of a half-erect penis out of full boner:
Illegal Reviews are where I review things that are either illegally downloaded, or should be illegally downloaded to boycott those who seek to destroy the free nature of art by imprisoning it with the chains of copyright. Since I´m a weak person I cannot promise that every item review is illegally downloaded, but just because I occasionally buy stuff doesn´t mean you should.
Rejecting is hard for newbie man-whores.Like for most people with taste, HBO has almost singlehandedly managed to restore my faith in American TV-series. With writing at a level that´s often far above your average Hollywood blockbuster, and great production, shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, and Deadwood are amongst my favorite pieces of newer cinematic art. Even the shows that I personally never got hooked into, like Sex in the City, Rome, and Six Feet Under, are truly admirable and finely crafted undertakings.
Now, debuting sometime soon, Hung is HBOs newest attempt at a quirky comedy-drama, created by Dmitri Lipkin, who also did The Riches, and his wife(?) Colette Burson. Having never seen The Riches, even though I´m a big fan of Eddie Izzard, I didn´t have any special expectations from Hung, and I don´t think expectations would have helped much.
Hungs plot is about a divorced and broke high-school teacher and coach, Ray Drecker, played by Thomas Jane of The Punisher fame, who decides to use his big penis, which remains mysteriously absent from the show, to his economic advantage and become a male prostitute.
The first episode is directed by Alexander Payne, whose biggest claim to fame has to be About Schmidt, and tries to tell the story leading up to Rays decision to become a man-whore. Unfortunately the story is told by loads of half-clever voice-over narration that never manages to amuse or enlighten much, and does a very poor job at making one really believe this regular-Joes reasoning behind jumping into his new career.
Other than that the direction is competent, with some funny quick cuts in time here and there, and generally good dialogue and acting. Few of the characters really stand out yet, but there is potential for them to grow. The poet lover, played by Jane Adams, starts off as noisily annoying as the script dictates, but ended up charming me. Anne Heche is suitably bitchy as the ex-wife, and Eddie Jemison is his usual amusing self as the new husband. The drama between Ray and his kids never really grabbed me, as neither kid seems like very convincing characters as of yet, but I´m willing to give them time.
And all in all that´s my judgement of the whole episode. I´m not convinced by the slightly awkward mix of comedy and drama but I´m willing to give it some time, at least until we get to the actual whoring. We need more shows about male-prostitutes.
So... Hung may yet prove to be well-hung, but I give episode 1 a score of a half-erect penis out of full boner:
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
My homage to a great lady...
Lately there´s been some talk about Ayn Rand an objectivists. And you know, all the usual stuff comes up, like "How boring is her books???", "Should objectivists be locked up for their own safety?", "Was she really that insane or was she a pre-internet troll?", etc, etc... But there´s always one very important point missing. So I tried to illustrate it in this little sketch:
Someone should make a T-shirt out of this. I´d wear it.
Someone should make a T-shirt out of this. I´d wear it.
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
The Revolution should not be Twitterized...
Something strange is a happening in on Twitter. Things are turning green all over.
No, not the nice enviroment enviroment-friendly green, nor the green of money. It´s not a fit of jealousy making it green either, and it´s not even the Hulk.
It´s the green of the Iranian Revolution. Yup, that old revolution. But strangely, it´s use on Twitter is not in support of revolutionary hero Ayatollah Khomenei or his successor Khamenei. It´s to support "Democracy in Iran".
And all over Twitter people are tweeting about the election and the demonstrations, upset about the fraudulent result and the brutal state-violence, following the hundreds, if not thousands, or Iranian twitterers that have popped up all of a sudden bringing up to date news, and warning people about the Twitter-puppets of the government who try to infiltrate and ruin the freedom to tweet.
Now... I admit that I turned my avatar green for a little while, but it´s back to it´s normal self now. Because... I´ve been thinking.
A few weeks back the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, had it´s first year of massive Twitter-following. Now, in the world of video-games, E3 is kind of like Christmas and Birthday rolled into one, but in the world at large... E3 is not really that important. Still, Twitter, awash with false stories, manufactured hype, and general nonsense, was by large deemed to have been a non-satisfactory tool for reporting on E3, with some gamers even declaring that "Twitter ruined E3!".
So.... Not good enough for E3, but good enough for a revolution? Something seems strange here.
And, as often was the problem during E3, do we really know that the tweeters are who they say they are. There are countless of people now tweeting live from "inside Iran", but shouldn´t they perhaps be out revolutionizing instead? And why can´t I find any Iranian tweeter that has a history of tweeting before the elections? Who in Iran even has internet access? Certainly not the majority(Which are the ones that should win elections in a democracy, I guess).
And it´s not like there´s no other interested parties. Not to sound to conspiratorial, but USA has actually on multiple occassions expressed the intent to fund a new Iranian revolution, and their intelligence services has the goal of dominating the internet. It wouldn´t exactly be hard for someone to... say... manufacture some revolution-hype? I mean, companies at E3 managed pretty well.
Not to mention... What do people know of the elections in Iran? Do they know that all the candidates are sanctioned by the same supreme leader, for instance? Or anything about Irans eclectic demography, and how it reflects in the electorate?
And do they remember the support and celebrations that the last Iranian Revolution got all over the western world before the dust settled and people realized that maybe it wasn´t such a great idea to let religious fundamentalists rule one of the biggest countries of the world?
I don´t know much about Iran, personally. But I probably know at least a bit more than many of the green-avatared horde infesting Twitter. At least I know enough to admit I don´t know enough.
And quite frankly, that makes it irresponsible to join Twitters Iranimania, doesn´t it?
I don´t know. I just think it´s all a bit fishy, and it sounds like the kind of thing that comes back to bite you in the ass.
Because revolutions are serious business. They should not be Twitterized.
But I may be wrong.
No, not the nice enviroment enviroment-friendly green, nor the green of money. It´s not a fit of jealousy making it green either, and it´s not even the Hulk.
It´s the green of the Iranian Revolution. Yup, that old revolution. But strangely, it´s use on Twitter is not in support of revolutionary hero Ayatollah Khomenei or his successor Khamenei. It´s to support "Democracy in Iran".
And all over Twitter people are tweeting about the election and the demonstrations, upset about the fraudulent result and the brutal state-violence, following the hundreds, if not thousands, or Iranian twitterers that have popped up all of a sudden bringing up to date news, and warning people about the Twitter-puppets of the government who try to infiltrate and ruin the freedom to tweet.
Now... I admit that I turned my avatar green for a little while, but it´s back to it´s normal self now. Because... I´ve been thinking.
A few weeks back the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, had it´s first year of massive Twitter-following. Now, in the world of video-games, E3 is kind of like Christmas and Birthday rolled into one, but in the world at large... E3 is not really that important. Still, Twitter, awash with false stories, manufactured hype, and general nonsense, was by large deemed to have been a non-satisfactory tool for reporting on E3, with some gamers even declaring that "Twitter ruined E3!".
So.... Not good enough for E3, but good enough for a revolution? Something seems strange here.
And, as often was the problem during E3, do we really know that the tweeters are who they say they are. There are countless of people now tweeting live from "inside Iran", but shouldn´t they perhaps be out revolutionizing instead? And why can´t I find any Iranian tweeter that has a history of tweeting before the elections? Who in Iran even has internet access? Certainly not the majority(Which are the ones that should win elections in a democracy, I guess).
And it´s not like there´s no other interested parties. Not to sound to conspiratorial, but USA has actually on multiple occassions expressed the intent to fund a new Iranian revolution, and their intelligence services has the goal of dominating the internet. It wouldn´t exactly be hard for someone to... say... manufacture some revolution-hype? I mean, companies at E3 managed pretty well.
Not to mention... What do people know of the elections in Iran? Do they know that all the candidates are sanctioned by the same supreme leader, for instance? Or anything about Irans eclectic demography, and how it reflects in the electorate?
And do they remember the support and celebrations that the last Iranian Revolution got all over the western world before the dust settled and people realized that maybe it wasn´t such a great idea to let religious fundamentalists rule one of the biggest countries of the world?
I don´t know much about Iran, personally. But I probably know at least a bit more than many of the green-avatared horde infesting Twitter. At least I know enough to admit I don´t know enough.
And quite frankly, that makes it irresponsible to join Twitters Iranimania, doesn´t it?
I don´t know. I just think it´s all a bit fishy, and it sounds like the kind of thing that comes back to bite you in the ass.
Because revolutions are serious business. They should not be Twitterized.
But I may be wrong.
Sunday, 21 June 2009
Art Week Review 14...
Much sketching, not much drawing this week. Scotland was... insane. As reflected in this weeks autobiographical lie:
Bagpipes at the Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond.
Then some of the sketches from the few times I was sober enouigh to hold a brush(Or pencil) straight:
Gourock, waiting to take the ferry to Dunoon and on to Ardentinny to go to someones birthday with open-air concerts and lot´s of midgies and a nice waterfall to bath in and hungover canooing on Loch Eck in the morning...
NED in water at the bonnie bansk of Loch Lomond. A NED is apperantly a "None Educated Delinquent". They were throwing rocks at eachother. In the background are resident Austrians Laura and Kate swimming.
Around the campfire at Loch Lomond. In-between bagpipes and flutes and country-music, flute-player Cameron tries to translate a Scottish song to Solveig. Other people in the picture are American bicyclist Rob Roy McGregor(Yes, real name), his cousin Mike, and bagpipe-player Donald(Who never took me fishing).
Solveig playing the fiddle.
Laura dancing to the jamming bagpipes, flute, and fiddle.
A swan came to listen to the music, and that Solveig charmed with her magic powers. Later, as it was dawning, it came back, and I serenaded it with the last song of the evening. A true swansong(Townes Van Zandts "To live is To Fly" with the word "Swan" put in as often as possible).
And this was just the insanity that I was sober enough to record. Crazy gawd-damned week...
Anyhow... I like how loose the last ones turned out. Have to do more like that.
I also filled a few pages of a sketchbook on my long and arduos journey home, but I managed to forget it on the plane. Bugger.
Thanks to all the countless great people I met on the trip.
Now I really have to get to work on some serious shit again...
Bagpipes at the Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond.Then some of the sketches from the few times I was sober enouigh to hold a brush(Or pencil) straight:
Gourock, waiting to take the ferry to Dunoon and on to Ardentinny to go to someones birthday with open-air concerts and lot´s of midgies and a nice waterfall to bath in and hungover canooing on Loch Eck in the morning...
NED in water at the bonnie bansk of Loch Lomond. A NED is apperantly a "None Educated Delinquent". They were throwing rocks at eachother. In the background are resident Austrians Laura and Kate swimming.
Around the campfire at Loch Lomond. In-between bagpipes and flutes and country-music, flute-player Cameron tries to translate a Scottish song to Solveig. Other people in the picture are American bicyclist Rob Roy McGregor(Yes, real name), his cousin Mike, and bagpipe-player Donald(Who never took me fishing).
Solveig playing the fiddle.
Laura dancing to the jamming bagpipes, flute, and fiddle.
A swan came to listen to the music, and that Solveig charmed with her magic powers. Later, as it was dawning, it came back, and I serenaded it with the last song of the evening. A true swansong(Townes Van Zandts "To live is To Fly" with the word "Swan" put in as often as possible).And this was just the insanity that I was sober enough to record. Crazy gawd-damned week...
Anyhow... I like how loose the last ones turned out. Have to do more like that.
I also filled a few pages of a sketchbook on my long and arduos journey home, but I managed to forget it on the plane. Bugger.
Thanks to all the countless great people I met on the trip.
Now I really have to get to work on some serious shit again...
Sunday, 14 June 2009
Sunday Art-Week Review 13...
Reporting in from Glasgow on this unlucky 13th art-week.
Had a hell of a journey where everything that could go wrong did go wrong at some point, but met a lot of nice British people, even drew a portrait for the price of 1 beer, and was as if by magic able to do a sketched script for a whole 32 page childrens-book from concept to first-draft on the trip. Yay for me!(Though I won't get it up to a presentable version to shop around before the summers over).
So... first... some sketches of British charter tourists(Showing why I dislike drawing with pens):
Then the sketch where I got the concept to the childrens-book(With censored synopsis. Art not representative of anything yet):
Then the weekly autobiographical lie, called "Burdened under my own expectations"(Which I no longer am, having survived the journey):
And an updated Wesnoth piece:
So... Glasgow is quite nice, isn't it? I should really try to draw some... yup.
That's all folks!
Had a hell of a journey where everything that could go wrong did go wrong at some point, but met a lot of nice British people, even drew a portrait for the price of 1 beer, and was as if by magic able to do a sketched script for a whole 32 page childrens-book from concept to first-draft on the trip. Yay for me!(Though I won't get it up to a presentable version to shop around before the summers over).
So... first... some sketches of British charter tourists(Showing why I dislike drawing with pens):
Then the sketch where I got the concept to the childrens-book(With censored synopsis. Art not representative of anything yet):
Then the weekly autobiographical lie, called "Burdened under my own expectations"(Which I no longer am, having survived the journey):
And an updated Wesnoth piece:
So... Glasgow is quite nice, isn't it? I should really try to draw some... yup.
That's all folks!
Sunday, 7 June 2009
Sunday Art-Week Review 12...
So... Been reading and writing a lot lately.
I did a drawn article about H.P. Lovecraft a few months ago. Basically the most work I´ve ever done per page. But it came out nice.
Now I´m tight for money, so I came up with a few more ideas for articles, even though the pay-per hour will end up... not too great. They did actually pay me a lot more than usual for the Lovecraft article, but that won´t happen for the new articles.
I´ve gotten one about Judas Priest and their more homo-erotic lyrics accepted, and working on suggestions for articles about Emma Goldman, the more esoteric and political sides of Alan Moore, and finally the mythmaking of Norwegian Black Metal. Pretty diverse shit to research. But I´m getting my head around it.
I really need to get the Lovecraft article translated and published somewhere else, because... multiple publishers is the only way I can make these articles profitable enough. And they´re fun to do...
I did a drawn article about H.P. Lovecraft a few months ago. Basically the most work I´ve ever done per page. But it came out nice.
Now I´m tight for money, so I came up with a few more ideas for articles, even though the pay-per hour will end up... not too great. They did actually pay me a lot more than usual for the Lovecraft article, but that won´t happen for the new articles.
I´ve gotten one about Judas Priest and their more homo-erotic lyrics accepted, and working on suggestions for articles about Emma Goldman, the more esoteric and political sides of Alan Moore, and finally the mythmaking of Norwegian Black Metal. Pretty diverse shit to research. But I´m getting my head around it.
I really need to get the Lovecraft article translated and published somewhere else, because... multiple publishers is the only way I can make these articles profitable enough. And they´re fun to do...
Anyhow... Just uploaded the article to my comicspace-page:
Click the image, silly...
Click the image, silly...So.... Art... This week... Yes....
Of course my weekly autobiographical... This ones called The Discussion.... and is as (non-)readable for silly-speaking people as for Norwegian-speaking people:
And I did another quick poster for free. I originally did it in B&W, but I got the urge to color it. Still came in slightly under the 2 hour mark, so I´m following my own guidelines for these well:
And finally, these two Wesnoth-portraits may be ready to committ. Still waiting for final word:
Oh, and I´m going to Glasgow on Tuesday. Never been in the UK before. Very much looking forward to it. Hopefully I´ll still have something to show next sunday. Have to get the weekly autobiographical lie finished before I leave, at least.
Skål!
(Edit: Updated the Ratheln portrait)
Of course my weekly autobiographical... This ones called The Discussion.... and is as (non-)readable for silly-speaking people as for Norwegian-speaking people:
And I did another quick poster for free. I originally did it in B&W, but I got the urge to color it. Still came in slightly under the 2 hour mark, so I´m following my own guidelines for these well:
And finally, these two Wesnoth-portraits may be ready to committ. Still waiting for final word:
Oh, and I´m going to Glasgow on Tuesday. Never been in the UK before. Very much looking forward to it. Hopefully I´ll still have something to show next sunday. Have to get the weekly autobiographical lie finished before I leave, at least.
Skål!
(Edit: Updated the Ratheln portrait)
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