The Cartoonist Alliance

March 2nd - Noodles & Noodles / X-Rated Night

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 01:07:00 +0000

Get ready, Allies, for....

NOODLES & NOODLES

X-RATED NIGHT

This Friday, 3/2

6:30 - Room 703G

Prepare yourselves for an X-rated night dedicated to watching raunchy anime while slurpin' instant noodles!

Check under the cut for specifics, coming events, and other business, including information regarding the CA Zine.

We'll be raising the temperature two notches to five, starting with crude comedy Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt before showcasing full-on animated erotica. Yeah, that's right.

Grab a FREE cup of ramen, laugh it up, feel completely and utterly disturbed and morally violated while pretending to laugh it up, and learn about good consent at our most explicit meeting yet!

WARNING: Viewing selection may feature animated depictions of sexual abuse and violence. Cartoon Allies is a safe space where fantasy and pretend are recognized as fun and natural aspects of human sexuality. Between real people, consent is essential. Grab a condom and a free "Learning Good Consent" zine after the screen.

Noodles and hot water will all be provided by us. Bringing your own hot sauce is optional. If any hot sauce lands anywhere other than your noodles please take responsibility and use a napkin.

RSVP on Facebook

If you haven't already, please sign up for our mailing list and like us on Facebook.

Coming events:

Saturday, 3/3

INK invites you and all your cartooning pals to star as comic-drawing hand models in a promotional video. Free stuff for your time and talent. 8 PM, in the bar set (6th floor of the main building). Be there, or be square.

Monday, 3/5 to Friday, 3/9

Spring Break

Continuous

Hero, Villain, Yeti Exhibition @ Rubin Museum of Art (running till 6/11)
Infinite Jest: Caricature and Satire from Leonardo to Levine @ Metropolitan Museum of Art (running till 3/4)

Other business:

If you found a Pentel Brushpen at the Draw-Off, please return it to Eric at our next meeting or leave it in the reviews box in the senior studio.
Want to see your work distributed in print? CA is developing a new print magazine! Head over to its new webpage for submission info!
Keep your eyes on the CA Blog! This week we'll be continuing our look at student-run ways to promote your work, along with more student comic reviews.
Do you want publicity for your minicomics? Enter the Mini Reviews Box. Bring your minicomics to our meetings or the Senior Studio to submit them for review on the Cartoon Allies blog. Each week, bloggers Eric and Hayley will randomly select a student's mini from the box and offer readers a preview of the comic and their thoughts. We hope to improve student promotion and give members a space to show their work to a greater audience.
If you would like to be listed on our Members page, email your name, year, website url, and 50x50px icon to cartoonallies@gmail.com with the subject line "Active Member [Name]". As we collect a nice group of links, we'll update our long out-of-date Active Members list.
If you're interested in helping us distribute Cartoon Allies event posters, let us know by email or at the next meeting.
The SVA Library now has access to a new Underground Comix Database. Check it out!

Stay strong, Allies!

on Twitter

on Facebook

February 24th - Met Field Trip & Homework Party

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:30:00 +0000

Hey, Allies!

Turn-out for last week's Draw-Off was fantastic! We hope many of the newcomers return to join us for future meetings. If you haven't already, please sign up for our mailing list and like us on Facebook.

MET FIELD TRIP &

HOMEWORK PARTY

This Friday, 2/24

6:30 - Room 703G

Interested in caricature and satire through the ages or want to work alongside your peers?

CA will be traveling to the Metropolitan Museum of Art this week, and for those with burgeoning workloads, we'll also be hosting a homework party! Check under the cut for specifics, coming events, and other business, including information regarding the CA Zine.

We'll be heading to the Met to check out the exhibition Infinite Jest: Caricature and Satire from Leonardo to Levine. We will be meeting in our usual room for announcements, and then we will leave for the museum. Remember to have money on your MetroCard and a donation, however small, for the Met!

If you're too busy to spend a night away from the drafting table, we encourage you to join some of our members to stay in room 703G for a Homework Party! Work with the encouragement of your peers, share your art, seek advice, and make new friends while working on comics or other art.

The Met also has other great comics-related exhibitions that we'll try to check out, including Storytelling in Japanese Art! Anyone interested in Tibetan art and culture thanks to our Rubin trip, or interested in martial artifacts, should also make their way to Tibetan Arms and Armor.

RSVP on Facebook

Next week, Cartoon Allies gets X-rated when we dedicate a night to watching raunchy anime! We'll be raising the temperature, starting with crude comedy Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt before showcasing full-on erotica. Grab a FREE cup of ramen, laugh it up, be disturbed, and learn about consent at our most explicit meeting yet!

Coming events:

Thursday, 2/23

Alison Bechdel Lecture @ LIU Brooklyn (6:30 PM)

Friday, 2/24

CA Meeting - Metropolitan Museum of Art Field Trip
Desert Island 4th Anniversary Party (7 PM)

Friday, 3/2

CA Meeting - X-Rated

Monday, 3/5 to Friday, 3/9

Spring Break

Continuous

Hero, Villain, Yeti Exhibition @ Rubin Museum of Art (running till 6/11)
Infinite Jest: Caricature and Satire from Leonardo to Levine @ Metropolitan Museum of Art (running till 3/4)

Other business:

If you found a Pentel Brushpen at the Draw-Off, please return it to Eric at our next meeting or leave it in the reviews box in the senior studio.
Want to see your work distributed in print? CA is developing a new print magazine! Head over to its new webpage for submission info!
Keep your eyes on the CA Blog! This week we'll be continuing our look at student-run ways to promote your work, along with more student comic reviews.
Do you want publicity for your minicomics? Enter the Mini Reviews Box. Bring your minicomics to our meetings or the Senior Studio to submit them for review on the Cartoon Allies blog. Each week, bloggers Eric and Hayley will randomly select a student's mini from the box and offer readers a preview of the comic and their thoughts. We hope to improve student promotion and give members a space to show their work to a greater audience.
If you would like to be listed on our Members page, email your name, year, website url, and 50x50px icon to cartoonallies@gmail.com with the subject line "Active Member [Name]". As we collect a nice group of links, we'll update our long out-of-date Active Members list.
If you're interested in helping us distribute Cartoon Allies event posters, let us know by email or at the next meeting. We need posters for the Fresh Meat festival!
The SVA Library now has access to a new Underground Comix Database. Check it out!

Stay strong, Allies!

on Twitter

on Facebook

February 17th - Draw-Off & Pizza

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 01:49:00 +0000

Salutations, Allies!

Cartoon Allies strives to be both a professional and social resource for our comics community. We hope to cultivate an environment that encourages collaboration, networking, and making life-long friendships. While we've been introducing more technique-focused events, CA should still be a place for meeting new friends and bridging gaps between classes, years, and departments. We hope that you come for the events, but stay for your friends. This week, we invite you to join us for a special drawing and pizza-filled event!

DRAW-OFF

This Friday, 2/17

6:30 - Room 703G

Calling all artists, performers, and those in the mood for a good laugh and FREE PIZZA!

CA will be debuting a new event, mimicking similar games held at major comics conventions. Check under the cut for specifics, coming events, and other business, including information regarding the CA Zine and the Fresh Meat Poster Search.

Emily Kay Jay, Seargeant-at-Arms, will be refereeing this speedy improv game, drawing a phrase from a hat (filled with submissions from event attendees). She'll announce it to three rotating cartoonists to draw on a large drawing pad, with each competitor quickly depicting their interpretation of the prompted scene.

Show off your mad speed-drawing skills or how wildly you can depict a subject compared to the other competitors! Participants will rotate to involve as many volunteers as we can, and performance will be rated by our patented Applause-O-Meter.

RSVP on Facebook so we can gauge how many attendees we'll have. This'll guarantee that we'll have enough pizza for everyone! Please be sure to invite pals who don't frequent Cartoon Allies, take minicomics to share (and submit), and bring refreshments!

Coming events:

Friday, 2/17

CA Meeting - Draw-Off

Friday, 2/24

CA Meeting - Metropolitan Museum of Art Field Trip

Continuous

Hero, Villain, Yeti Exhibition @ Rubin Museum of Art (running till 6/11)

Other business:

We need you to make the poster for Fresh Meat 2012! Jump over to our submissions page to find out how you can help advertise for our department's biggest annual event!
Want to see your work distributed in print? CA is developing a new print magazine! Head over to its new webpage for submission info!
Keep your eyes on the CA Blog! This week we'll be continuing our look at student-run ways to promote your work, along with more student comic reviews.
Do you want publicity for your minicomics? Enter the Mini Reviews Box. Bring your minicomics to our meetings or the Senior Studio to submit them for review on the Cartoon Allies blog. Each week, bloggers Eric and Hayley will randomly select a student's mini from the box and offer readers a preview of the comic and their thoughts. We hope to improve student promotion and give members a space to show their work to a greater audience.
If you would like to be listed on our Members page, email your name, year, website url, and 50x50px icon to cartoonallies@gmail.com with the subject line "Active Member [Name]". As we collect a nice group of links, we'll update our long out-of-date Active Members list.
If you're interested in helping us distribute Cartoon Allies event posters, let us know by email or at the next meeting. We need posters for the Fresh Meat festival!
The SVA Library now has access to a new Underground Comix Database. Check it out!

Stay strong, Allies!

on Twitter

on Facebook

February 10th - Perspective Tutorial

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:00:00 +0000

Salutations, Allies!

PERSPECTIVE TUTORIAL

This Friday, 2/10

6:30 - Room 703G

An introduction or refresher to creating solid backgrounds!

Major Arroyo will cover the basics of one-, two-, and three-point perspective, along with extra tips and tricks. Check under the cut for specifics, coming events, and other business, including information regarding the CA Zine and the Fresh Meat Poster Search.

Do you always leave your backgrounds for last? Did you chuck everything you learned about perspective sophomore year out of your brain so you could follow the plot of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy? Do you think a "vanishing point" is the temperature at which a ninja goes invisible? Bring a few colored pencils, a C-Thru ruler, and a drawing pad to this week's meeting as the Major gives us a perspective rundown!

Not only will we be covering the basics, but we'll also discuss such topics as working out perspective on a deadline, when to use it, and conventional and unconventional resources for learning more about perspective and finding inspiration.

And next week, we'll be holding our first Draw-Off! A rotating referee will announce a subject for three cartoonists to draw on a large drawing pad. Show off your mad speed-drawing skills or how wildly you can depict a subject compared to the other competitors! Participants will rotate to involve as many volunteers as we can. RSVP on Facebook so we can gauge how many attendees we'll have. If we get enough, we might order some pizza!

Coming events:

Wednesday, 2/8

Becky Cloonan & Brian Wood, Conan Signing @ Midtown Comics Downtown (6-7PM)

Friday, 2/10

CA Meeting - Perspective Tutorial

Friday, 2/17

CA Meeting - Draw-Off

Continuous

Hero, Villain, Yeti Exhibit @ Rubin Museum of Art (running till 6/11)

Other business:

We need you to make the poster for Fresh Meat 2012! Jump over to our submissions page to find out how you can help advertise for our department's biggest annual event!
Want to see your work distributed in print? CA is developing a new print magazine! Head over to its new webpage for submission info!
Keep your eyes on the CA Blog! This week we'll be continuing our look at student-run ways to promote your work, along with more student comic reviews.
Do you want publicity for your minicomics? Enter the Mini Reviews Box. Bring your minicomics to our meetings or the Senior Studio to submit them for review on the Cartoon Allies blog. Each week, bloggers Eric and Hayley will randomly select a student's mini from the box and offer readers a preview of the comic and their thoughts. We hope to improve student promotion and give members a space to show their work to a greater audience.
If you would like to be listed on our Members page, email your name, year, website url, and 50x50px icon to cartoonallies@gmail.com with the subject line "Active Member [Name]". As we collect a nice group of links, we'll update our long out-of-date Active Members list.
If you're interested in helping us distribute Cartoon Allies event posters, let us know by email or at the next meeting. We need posters for the Fresh Meat festival!
The SVA Library now has access to a new Underground Comix Database. Check it out!

Stay strong, Allies!

on Twitter

on Facebook

Student Comic Review: How to Submit Your Mini

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:31:00 +0000

Each week, Eric and Hayley dig into a box of minicomics by SVA students and pull one out to share with the world. Our box is empty, though, so this week Eric will give you a review of...

How to Submit Your Mini to the Cartoon Allies Blog

We established student comic reviews last semester to improve student promotion and give members a space to show their work to a greater audience. However, only a few of you have taken the bait, so we've put together this quick visual guide to help you get your comics to us and to the world.

Our journey begins at the senior cartooning studio on the 7th floor of the E. 22nd St. Building (the same floor we hold Cartoon Allies meetings on)!

Be sure to be courteous to our hard-working seniors and knock on the door to request entry. Flashing your minicomic or a sign reading "Submitting my minicomic!" in desperation should earn their trust.

Quietly make your way into the lair, where you'll find a hard-to-miss light table. Beneath it, you may recognize...

...a bizarre facsimile of our mascot, Richard Eel, emblazoning a box. Open this magical box to find...

...submission forms!

Fill one of those bad boys out with all of the relevant info for your minicomic. If you have multiple comics, fill one out for each.

Neatly place your filled-out form and accompanying comic on the left side and return the box to where you found it beneath the light table. When you leave the studio, make sure the door locks behind you without it slamming.

We hope to read and discuss your minicomics soon!

Student Comics Anthologies: INK

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:00:00 +0000

The School of Visual Arts has had a long history of student-run comics magazines, chronicling the start of the careers of many great SVA alumni. We'll be taking this week at the CA Blog to look out our department's current magazine projects and what students can do to promote their work in them.

When Cartoon Allies found itself overburdened to run both a club and SVA's long-running anthology Inkstains, Amedeo Turturro and Trent Thompson responded to the call and put forward their vision of an anthology comic. By MoCCA Fest 2011, they had presented their primer of INK, and in the Fall they unveiled their first issue. They've foregone traditional print runs for a digital-only release platform, hosting each issue on their website while distributing comics straight to Apple devices with their iPad app. So how is the digital revolution holding up?

INK is certainly our department's flashiest magazine to date. One of Amedeo and Trent's major goals on this project was to create a very polished magazine, something to compete with professional mainstream releases. Tightly designed with full-color comics and magazine-style articles and interviews, their first issue proves that they're well on their way toward that goal. The project's professionalism extends beyond the magazine's actual pages; the INK team has dedicated time to interacting with press outside of the school, appearing on major comics news sites like The Beat and Comics Alliance.

By Pierce Hargan

INK's submissions process also functions like a more mainstream magazine; instead of featuring open submissions policy, INK prefers to hire on interested contributors before they even draw their stories. The editors work with contributors to flesh out the contributors' pitches and establish deadlines (usually a page a month), avoiding the shifts in quality one may receive from multiple cartoonists rushing to get a multi-page story done before an open-submission deadline. This commission-based structure shows a great degree of organization within the project, but also makes the magazine a bit inflexible and bound to form.

By Jose Feliciano

INK's certainly got the flash, but does it have the substance to back it up? The magazine's editors picked a notable group of students to pool work from; all of the contributors in the Fall 2011 issue presented great-looking and well-told stories, and their distinct styles cater to a broad audience as a whole. Unfortunately, most of the scenes presented are fragments; you get ejected from their worlds as soon as you get pulled into them. While I understand that this issue was originally meant for print, putting a hard-limit on the page limit, I'd like to see the digital platform taken advantage of to put out a bigger book with longer, more self-contained stories. (As a contributor, I regret not drawing a self-contained piece myself.) Also, the colors in some of the comics are rather muddy, with the page 6 story suffering from overdone effects which obscure the original lineart.

By Kat Fajardo

For all of its effort to break out of our school's walls, INK is rather reserved when it comes to releasing information. The INK website is bare of any tangible information about the magazine aside from links to the comics and accompanying iPad application. It resemble a full-page advertisement more than an informative webpage. A third of the Fall 2011 issue's credits page is made up of the magazine's logo, while no distinction is made between comic and article contributors. The artists of the included comics aren't even properly connected to their own work; there's no way to concretely confirm an artist's contribution without contacted INK directly. This poses a tremendous problem for a magazine with the original goal of student promotion, especially in an industry with a long history of mistreating creators. This, along with the added emphasis on professor interviews, makes the magazine seem more like a promotion for the school than its students. Even if proper credits within the magazine go against its aesthetic sensibilities, the sparse website could be used to list contributors, cite their contributions, and maybe even include contact information.

INK is our department's most ambitious anthology in recent years and has great potential. The magazine's leadership flaunts an ideal of control, which has been used to craft a very professional and efficient organization that publishes a nicely-polished magazine. However, Uncle Ben warned us of the great responsibility that comes with great power, and this model could make INK resemble those two corporations which ignore such catchphrases to repackage them and make a buck. Still, I trust the dedicated crew behind INK to continue pumping out a magazine which represents some of the shining aspects of our department, and I'm sure that as long as they're open to the concerns and dreams of our student body and faculty, INK will grow to meet its goals and more. I'm proud to be a part of its journey and look forward to see their future publications.

Check out INK's website to find current and future issues of the magazine. If you're interested in contributing to or participating in INK, contact them at INK (at) sva (dot) edu

Eric Alexander Arroyo is a hot-blooded junior who wears a fedora, digs giant robots, and obsesses over flowing scarves. He's spent his life wandering Florida and Las Vegas, and hopes to find an apartment in the bowels of a volcano. Although he's training to be a cartoonist, he'd rather be a crime-fighting cyborg when he grows up.

February 3rd - Movie Night

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 04:35:00 +0000

Hallo, Allies!

Last week's critique was a great way for us to improve and get to know each other's work. This week, we will be doing something more relaxing with a...

MOVIE NIGHT

American Splendor

This Friday, 2/3

6:30 - Room 703G

We will be watching the movie American Splendor, about Harvey Pekar, this week. A trailer of it can be watched here!

Coming events:

Wednesday, 2/8

Becky Cloonan & Brian Wood, Conan Signing @ Midtown Comics Downtown (6-7PM)

Friday, 2/10

CA Meeting - Perspective Tutorial

Friday, 2/17

CA Meeting - Draw Off

Continuous

Hero, Villain, Yeti Exhibit @ Rubin Museum of Art (running till 6/11)

Other business:

We need you to make the poster for Fresh Meat 2012! Jump over to our submissions page to find out how you can help advertise for our department's biggest annual event!
Want to see your work distributed in print? CA is developing a new print magazine! The new CA Zine is looking for submissions of 1 to 6-page self-contained comic stories for its first issue, aiming to be printed by MoCCA Fest '12. Submit photocopies of your comic to the senior cartooning studios or as 72 dpi files to blisterfish (at) gmail (dot) com by mid-March. More information can be found at the zine web page!
The CA Blog returns! Check us out Tuesday, January 24th for new series, helpful tutorials, and more reviews!
Do you want publicity for your minicomics? Enter the Mini Reviews Box. Bring your minicomics to our meetings or the Senior Studio to submit them for review on the Cartoon Allies blog. Each week, bloggers Eric and Hayley will randomly select a student's mini from the box and offer readers a preview of the comic and their thoughts. We hope to improve student promotion and give members a space to show their work to a greater audience.
If you would like to be listed on our Members page, email your name, year, website url, and 50x50px icon to cartoonallies@gmail.com with the subject line "Active Member [Name]". As we collect a nice group of links, we'll update our long out-of-date Active Members list.
If you're interested in helping us distribute Cartoon Allies event posters, let us know by email or at the next meeting. We need posters for the Fresh Meat festival!
The SVA Library now has access to a new Underground Comix Database. Check it out!

Stay strong, Allies!

on Twitter

on Facebook

Matt's Good Reads: Tenjō Tenge

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Need some black-and-white stimulation? Join Matt Clark for Matt's Good Reads, where he'll share a bite-sized overview of what he's been reading (and what you should too) on his breaks from the drafting table. This week he recommends...

Tenjō Tenge

by Oh! great

1998-2010 in Japan

22 volumes, published by VIZ in the US

Tenjō Tenge is a 22-volume battle manga by Oh! great (pen name of cartoonist Ōgure Ito), also known for the still ongoing comic Air Gear. The story focuses on the members of the Junken Club in a high school with a curriculum based around the martial arts. This comic's use of elaborate flashbacks in its drawn out story arcs made the plot hard to follow at times, but Ōgure's beautiful illustrations and the varied and interesting cast make up for that. Tenjō Tenge is also heavy on fanservice, featuring plenty of sex and nudity.

The series' vast assortment of unique characters kept me flipping through its pages. One character who still sticks out to me, despite being one of the more obscure characters until the end of the series, was Hirohiko Myouun Kabane. He was a blind fighter who used scented acupuncture needles enfused with his ki to make thousands of swords to fight with. His motivation was to end the work of his ancestor to free himself from his familial obligations and be with his love interest. The series is perky, but I still find it to be a good read.

Matt Clark is a sophomore cartooning major. He is a golden retriever, woof, woof (though he would rather not be), and has weird obsessions.

Library Recommendations: Wandering Son

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0000

The School of Visual Arts Library is a sanctuary for students and comics lovers. While it's easy to get caught up in our work, it's important that we take advantage of this great resource to find inspiration, get a new perspective on our work, and to take a break and remember why we're working so hard. Join us as the Cartoon Allies recommend stories in our library that captivate and inspire us in these semi-regular Library Recommendations.

Wandering Son by Shimura Takako (published in the U.S. by Fantagraphics) is one of my favoriteJapanese comics, and I can safely say it has contributed in changing mylife. The sensitive, well-paced, and down-to-earth storytelling coupled with Shimura's simple yet effective art only touch the surface of the reasons why you should pick up Wandering Son for an afternoon browse.

Before I explore how much I love the art style and thecharacters in this series, I’d like to take a moment to mention how much Iappreciate the effort Fantagraphics has put into publishing Wandering Son. The story is well-deservedly published with a beautiful spot-glossed hardcover in an oversized format; its larger than average printing helps the artwork's subtleties shine, while Fantagraphics treats the release with the same sophistication it does its Western comics. The book's editing offers many translation and cultural notes which target an audience new to reading manga, without assuming a patronizing tone that could shun other readers. My only complaint with this localization regard a few typos I encountered in the dialogue. The importance of Wandering Son matches the attention givento its presentation.

The book opens up to gorgeous colors from the characterintroduction, contents, and opening pages, Shimura’s gentle gradientwatercolors bringing the reader into Wandering Son’s atmosphere right from thestart.

Wandering Son follows Nitori Shuichi, a boy who wants to bea girl, and Takatsuki Yoshino, a girl who wants to be a boy. They are drawn to each other and form afriendship that helps guide them through finding their own identities andconfirming who they want to be.

The storyline is relatively low-drama, but by no meansboring. The reader is sometimes ledinto the mind of Shuichi and his thoughts and daydreams as he interacts with his fellowclassmates as well as a couple other special people he meets outside of school. All of the charactershave distinct and realistic personalities, and as you read through and get tomeet each and every one of them, you’ll probably be reminded of a similar personyou’ve met in school before, too. The story starts when they’re in fifth grade, a time where childhoodinnocence begins to end and complex thoughts begin. In my eyes, the flaws and insecurities of the kids inWandering Son are very pure. Despite the chronological daily life style of storytelling, it’s definitely apage-turner.

Anybody could benefit from reading Wandering Son; whetheryou relate to the characters personally or not, the story shows a fair andaccurate depiction of the train of thought these kids go through and the actions they take. It focuses alot more on their interactions rather than the drama that is most oftenattached to this genre. Bullying is present, but it's not the main focus. What's made important is the self-exploration of Shuichi and Yoshino (and of course, other characters do a bit of growing up, too).

The first volume is available in the library for those who wish tocheck it out. If you enjoy it, please consider purchasing a copy to support the series and help guarantee the printing of further volumes! The second volume isnot yet in the library, but it is available for purchase now, and the thirdvolume is set to release in May. Theoriginal series is still on-going in Japan, but hopefully it will be fullytranslated when it’s finished.

Kou Chen is a sophomore cartooning major who comes from Taiwan. He enjoys movies like The Fall, books like The Book Thief, and comics like Black Jack. His life goal is to overhear someone talking about something he created, because "by all means if my stories are interesting enough to share, I've done my job." He loves tea and fluffy things... like alpacas.

January 27th - Group Critique #4

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:00:00 +0000

Hallo, Allies!

After our romp to the Rubin, it's time to return to the classroom and put the focus on our own creations. This week, we're returning to regular group critique sessions! Join us in Room 703G with whatever you're working on in class or for the CA Zine, whether you've got a plot outline to discuss, thumbnails to sharpen, or pencils to ponder.

GROUP CRITIQUE

This Friday, 1/27

6:30 - Room 703G

Bring work to share, in-progress or finished!

We'll have three groups: developed comics, story pitches, and sketches/illustrations. Check under the cut for specifics, coming events, and other business, including information regarding the CA Zine and the Fresh Meat Poster Search.

Don't forget to come prepared!

If you're bringing pages to critique, be sure to have something to take down notes on. Sticky notes that you can place on the comic to write and draw on are highly recommended, as are photocopies that your peers can read along from and scribble on.

Be sure to bring drafts of scripts, outlines, thumbnails, or any other prep material for the Story Critique. Try to memorize a concise pitch that will draw your peers into your story!

If you're showing off sketches and illustrations and you're interested in working on our Fresh Meat poster, leave us with a photocopy or two with your work and contact information.

Coming events:

Friday, 1/27

CA Meeting - Group Critique

Friday, 2/3

CA Meeting - Draw-Off

Wednesday, 2/8

Becky Cloonan & Brian Wood, Conan Signing @ Midtown Comics Downtown (6-7PM)

Friday, 2/10

CA Meeting - Perspective Tutorial

Continuous

Hero, Villain, Yeti Exhibit @ Rubin Museum of Art (running till 6/11)

Other business:

We need you to make the poster for Fresh Meat 2012! Jump over to our submissions page to find out how you can help advertise for our department's biggest annual event!
Want to see your work distributed in print? CA is developing a new print magazine! The new CA Zine is looking for submissions of 1 to 6-page self-contained comic stories for its first issue, aiming to be printed by MoCCA Fest '12. Submit photocopies of your comic to the senior cartooning studios or as 72 dpi files to blisterfish (at) gmail (dot) com by mid-March. More information to come!
The CA Blog returns! Check us out Tuesday, January 24th for new series, helpful tutorials, and more reviews!
Do you want publicity for your minicomics? Enter the Mini Reviews Box. Bring your minicomics to our meetings or the Senior Studio to submit them for review on the Cartoon Allies blog. Each week, bloggers Eric and Hayley will randomly select a student's mini from the box and offer readers a preview of the comic and their thoughts. We hope to improve student promotion and give members a space to show their work to a greater audience.
If you would like to be listed on our Members page, email your name, year, website url, and 50x50px icon to cartoonallies@gmail.com with the subject line "Active Member [Name]". As we collect a nice group of links, we'll update our long out-of-date Active Members list.
If you're interested in helping us distribute Cartoon Allies event posters, let us know by email or at the next meeting. We need posters for the Fresh Meat festival!
The SVA Library now has access to a new Underground Comix Database. Check it out!

Stay strong, Allies!

on Twitter

on Facebook

The Road to Fresh Meat: The Poster

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 06:01:00 +0000

One night a year at the end of April, cartooning students at SVA transform the school's dingy basement lounge into a buzzing marketplace. The public is invited to browse, buy and barter for self-published comics by SVA's cartoonists. This is...

Fresh Meat is our annual tradition promoting the work and talent of our student body, and it needs your help! Like any convention, our comics fair is only as good as our attendance, through which students share their work with industry figures and get attention from the comics press. Long before the warmth of spring reaches our fair city, SVA's halls need to be decorated with posters heralding this culmination of a school year's work, while local magazines require early submissions for the ads they'll be running to promote our event to the public. This is where you come in:

We're calling for art submissions for Fresh Meat 2012's ad campaign!

Check under the cut for submission requirements and examples of previous ads.

Got a snazzy idea for a poster or magazine ad? Follow these requirements and it might make the cut!

Feature a prominent and legible "Fresh Meat" logo
Clearly represent the idea of a self-published comics fair or play with the event name (we love visual puns)
Leave space to include info about the event (to be added later)
Poster dimensions: Art should fit Letter or Tabloid-sized paper
Magazine ad dimensions: Magazines have been slow to give us specific dimensions, so you should leave your ad square-shaped and give room for potential cropping
Avoid excessively obscene imagery
Submit your ad as a 300 dpi TIFF file to cartoonallies (at) gmail (dot) com

What'll you get for submitting? Well, you'll be helping draw in a huge crowd for our department's biggest event of the year, potentially giving a jump-start to your career and your peers'. If your art is chosen for Fresh Meat's magazine ad, you'll be properly credited on the advertisement and your art will appear in a major publication such as the Village Voice!

And if you don't have time to put a poster together or you don't feel like you have the talent, we're going to need a dedicated street team to spread the posters far and wide once printed. If you're interested, send us an email!

If you've never been to Fresh Meat or need some ideas, check below for coverage from last year's event, as well as a few of our previous advertisements.

By Megan Brennan


By Michelle Nunnelly

By Hanh Nguyen

January 13th - Jam Comic Jam

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 06:17:00 +0000

Welcome back, Allies!

We hope you had a splendid break, whether you spent it on a foreign operation or hunkered down in the trenches. Prepare to get your fingers covered in ink (and if your hands are already dirty, get a pair of gloves), 'cause classes are in session and the Cartoon Allies are back in full swing. This semester will be packed with more field trips, more tutorials, and appearances from professional cartoonists, along with returning events such as group critiques and another Live Comics Reading. The semester will culminate with MoCCA Fest and our annual Fresh Meat art show, where our department transforms the Monkey Bar Lounge into a public comic festival to showcase our work.

We're kicking off this semester with a...

JAM COMIC JAM

This Friday, 1/13

6:30 - Room 703G

Collaborate and create (or destroy) in multiple formalist comic games (while listening to JAM Project)!
Check under the cut for specifics, coming events, and other business.

Using a similar format to last semester Demo Jam, we'll have multiple tables set up with a jam comic at each. Instead of different media, each table will feature a different form of jam comic with different constraints. These will include Matt Madden and Tom Hart's Tic-Tac-Toe Jam, Béleleu's Domino Jam, where three-panel strips continually branch off each other, and more, like the return of the Demo Jam's "whatever's in your pocket" comic. Even if it's eyeliner, ketchup, or a stick of glitter glue, you can draw with it (except for blood) as long as it was in your pocket.

While we jam, always remember the improv rule of "Yes, And...": Accept what's presented in the previous panel and add to it. If you deny the characters and stories established by the other cartoonists, the jam comic will come to a halt and you'll be doing the opposite of collaboration. Have fun and work together!

Next week we'll be traveling to the Rubin Museum of Art to attend the exhibit Hero, Villain, Yeti: Tibet in Comics. Admission is free on Friday nights. Also, we urge you to participate in our ad campaign for this year's Fresh Meat by submitting poster art! Your work could appear in the Village Voice!

Coming events:

Friday, 1/13

CA Meeting - Jam Comics Jam
Johnny Wander Vol. 2 Release Party @ Bergen St. Comics (8 PM)

Friday, 1/20

CA Meeting - Field trip to Rubin Museum of Art for Hero, Villain, Yeti exhibit (running till 6/11)

Other business:

We need you to make the poster for Fresh Meat 2012! Jump over to our submissions page to find out how you can help advertise for our department's biggest annual event!
The CA Blog is still on winter hiatus. Come back Tuesday, January 24th for new series, helpful tutorials, and more reviews!
Do you want publicity for your minicomics? Enter the Mini Reviews Box. Bring your minicomics to our meetings or the Senior Studio to submit them for review on the Cartoon Allies blog. Each week, bloggers Eric and Hayley will randomly select a student's mini from the box and offer readers a preview of the comic and their thoughts. We hope to improve student promotion and give members a space to show their work to a greater audience.
If you would like to be listed on our Members page, email your name, year, website url, and 50x50px icon to cartoonallies@gmail.com with the subject line "Active Member [Name]". As we collect a nice group of links, we'll update our long out-of-date Active Members list.
If you're interested in helping us distribute Cartoon Allies event posters, let us know by email or at the next meeting. We need posters for the Rubin trip and the Fresh Meat festival!
The SVA Library now has access to a new Underground Comix Database. Check it out!

Stay strong, Allies!

on Twitter

on Facebook

Matt's Good Reads: Gamble Fish

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Need some black-and-white stimulation? Join Matt Clark for Matt's Good Reads, where he'll share what he's been reading (and what you should too) on his breaks from the drafting table. This week he recommends...

Gamble Fish

by Aoyama Hiromi and Yamane Kazutoshi

2007-2010 in Japan

19 volumes, unpublished in the US

THE STORY
Last month I wrote about Liar Game, a manga that involved strategy and thinking in each round of unique games. This next series is similar in the concept of fighting through games, but the premise and plot is completely different. The series of Gamble Fish, written by Aoyama Hiromi and drawn by Yamane Kazutoshi, deals with the son of a notorious swindler named Tomu Shirasagi, who has just transferred to a very prestigious boarding school. His plan for the school is to swindle the students out of a total of 1 billion yen, claiming that he has already destroyed two schools previous to this one. Through gambles and games, Tomu makes many enemies and friends at the school as he works his way to achieve his goal.

WHAT'S TO LOVE?
The games above all keep the reader interested, as they take many twists and turns and leave one guessing as to how Tomu pulled off the victory. My only criticism is that it turns into a harem manga after a while and as that may appeal to other crowds, I feel it distracts from the main plot. I did find it funny that one of the main antagonists looks like a Green Goblin knock-off, though. I recommend this manga to anyone who enjoys Liar Game.

Matt Clark is a sophomore cartooning major. He is a golden retriever, woof, woof (though he would rather not be), and has weird obsessions.

Student Comic Review: Edwin Reyes' The Golden Gosling

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Each Wednesday (and this week, Tuesday too!), Eric and Hayley dig into a box of minicomics by SVA students and pull one out to share with the world. If you would like to submit your minis for review, please drop them off in the Reviews box at Cartoon Allies meetings and in the senior studio. This week, we'll be looking at...

Edwin Reyes, The Golden Gosling

The Golden Gosling is based off of a Grimm Brother's fairy tale, and follows a young man called Dummy who goes out to get wood for his family. This leads to him meeting the titular character, which causes him to get into adventures that amuse a beautiful princess. The king has said that whoever could make his daughter laugh can have her hand in marriage, and though Dummy must go through a series of ridiculous tests firsts, he and the princess do end up together and in love. So how well does Edwin translate the story to comics?

This comic is a very joyful, absorbing read. Every character was hilarious and charming in their own way, and Edwin has great sense of visual comedy. This particularly comes through in the page where Dummy first finds the egg, with his exaggerated swing at the tree, followed by his reaction to the egg he finds. I became endeared to the characters quickly through their well-defined personalities, such as Dummy's ditzy action hero persona and the princess' sweet, feisty one.

The art has a shonen manga-esque feel, with its clean, bold lines and exaggerated facial expressions. Character's bodies feel somewhat rubbery, so even when the anatomy isn't perfect it feels right because the poses are comfortable and natural. A good amount of detail is paid to every aspect without being overwhelming, such as the character's costumes and the trees that inhabit the forest where the story takes place. The often over-the-top facial expressions help to make the character's more endearing and unique, each showing emotions in their own way.

The Golden Gosling shows a great grasp of characterization and a fun, exciting style that make this comic an uplifting read!

Edwin's website is ericse517.deviantart.com and he can be contacted at ereyes517 (at) gmail (dot) com.

Hayley Weber is a junior cartooning major who hails from the most boring part of New Jersey. To distract herself from this sad fate, she reads and draws girly comic books, watches weird British TV shows, and stalks her favorite bands.

December 2nd - Minicomics Tutorial Pt. I

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 01:21:00 +0000

Salutations, Allies!

We hope you had a relaxing Thanksgiving! It's the final month of the semester, so the Gauntlet is finally upon us. Join us in these last three meetings for a series of fun and informative tutorials, culminating in our Digital Projection Comix Reading! But let's not get ahead of ourselves, 'cause this week we're hosting our...

MINICOMICS TUTORIAL
Part I: Digital Basics

This Friday, 12/2

6:30 - Room 703G

Learn the basics of self-publishing your own comics with just a computer, a scanner, and a printer!
Check under the cut for specifics, coming events, and other business.

This week, our officers will lead a field trip to the Digital Imaging Center, where they will give a step-by-step tutorial on scanning comic pages, laying them out in InDesign and Photoshop, and printing out a complete minicomic. This is a must-see demonstration if you've never made a mini (especially if your professors expect you to make one by semester's end) or need a refresher.

This demo will give you the foundation for the next part of our tutorial, in which we'll share advance techniques for creating cool covers and making color minis with the copier.

Also, if you don't know how to prepare you files for submission to our Digital Projection Comix Reading, we will also be hosting a short tutorial to get you prepared.

We will meet in Room 703G as usual and migrate to the DIC as a group after covering other business.

Coming events:

Saturday, 12/3:

Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival (12PM to 9PM)

Friday, 12/9

CA Meeting - Minicomics Tutorial Part II: Advanced Techniques / Digital Projection Comix Reading Tutorial

Friday, 12/16

CA Meeting - Digital Projection Comix Reading [see instructions under "Other business"]

Other business:

If you would like to perform at this semester's Digital Projection Comix Reading, please submit your files in a zipped folder emailed to cartoonallies@gmail.com (with the subject line "Winter 2011 DPCR: [Name]") or bring them to a CA meeting on a flash drive before Monday, December 12th. Files must be JPGs, GIFs, or PNGs at 72 dpi, should be no larger than 1024 pixels wide or 768 tall, and named in chronological order (e.g. xxx01.jpg, xxx02.jpg, xxx03.jpg). Panel-by-panel sequences, as opposed to full pages, are strongly advised, and you will have a 5 minute time limit. More information will be given at future CA meetings, and we will host informational tutorials in the coming weeks.
Have you checked out last week's articles on the SVA blog? New articles will be posted every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Do you want publicity for your minicomics? Enter the Mini Reviews Box. Bring your minicomics to our meetings or the Senior Studio to submit them for review on the Cartoon Allies blog. Each week, bloggers Eric and Hayley will randomly select a student's mini from the box and offer readers a preview of the comic and their thoughts. We hope to improve student promotion and give members a space to show their work to a greater audience.
If you would like to be listed on our Members page, email your name, year, website url, and 50x50px icon to cartoonallies@gmail.com with the subject line "Active Member [Name]". As we collect a nice group of links, we'll update our long out-of-date Active Members list.
If you're interested in helping us distribute Cartoon Allies event posters, let us know by email or at the next meeting. We need posters for the Digital Projection Comix Reading and next semester's Fresh Meat festival!
The SVA Library now has access to a new Underground Comix Database. Check it out!

Stay strong, Allies!

on Twitter

on Facebook

November 18th - Comics Swap

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Greetings, Allies!

After a tear-jerking session screening The Iron Giant, we find ourselves steadily approaching Thanksgiving Break and the end of the semester. While we prepare for a gauntlet of special events, we thought it'd be a great opportunity for you to collect new reading material for the plane flights, bus rides, and long nights ahead. So please join us for this week's...

First Ever
COMICS SWAP

This Friday, 11/18

6:30 - Room 703G

Bring in old, well-loved (or harshly despised!) comics to trade with your peers for some new reads!
Check under the cut for rules regarding our first comics market, coming events, and other business.

There will be a few ways to participate:

1. Barter with your fellow Allies!

See a comic you like? Think its owner will dig what you've got? Go for a trade! Even if your books don't fall into someone's usual interests, share what got you to pick up the comic. Don't be afraid to trade for something new, exciting, and beyond your normal palette.

2. Visit the Swap Table!

There will be a table designated for swapping comics at your leisure. If you see any comics on the table that pique your interest, deposit at least a single book of your own and pick one up! While you won't need to leave as many comics as you take, please be courteous to the other participants and pick responsibly. If you just want to get rid of some comics, drop them off here so they can find new homes!

3. Take a seat in the Reading Corner!

If you don't mind the ambient noise of rowdy cartoonists, you can read your new acquisitions at the meeting. Feel free to continue trading with others as you go through your stack.

All printed comics are fair game, from self-published minis to monthly floppies to graphic novels and collections. Our inventory will be based on what we all can bear to part with and how much space we need to make in our apartments!

Coming events:

Friday, 11/25:

NO MEETING - Thanksgiving Break

Friday, 12/2:

CA Meeting - Minicomics Tutorial Part I: The Basics / Digital Projection Comix Reading Tutorial

Saturday, 12/3:

Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival (12PM to 9PM)

Friday, 12/9

CA Meeting - Minicomics Tutorial Part II: Advanced Techniques / Digital Projection Comix Reading Tutorial

Friday, 12/16

CA Meeting - Digital Projection Comix Reading [see instructions under "Other business"]

Other business:

If you would like to perform at this semester's Digital Projection Comix Reading, please submit your files in a zipped folder emailed to cartoonallies@gmail.com (with the subject line "Winter 2011 DPCR: [Name]") or bring them to a CA meeting on a flash drive before Monday, December 12th. Files must be JPGs, GIFs, or PNGs at 72 dpi, should be no larger than 1024 pixels wide or 768 tall, and named in chronological order (e.g. xxx01.jpg, xxx02.jpg, xxx03.jpg). Panel-by-panel sequences, as opposed to full pages, are strongly advised, and you will have a 5 minute time limit. More information will be given at future CA meetings, and we will host informational tutorials in the coming weeks.
Have you checked out last week's articles on the SVA blog? New articles will be posted every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Do you want publicity for your minicomics? Enter the Mini Reviews Box. Bring your minicomics to our meetings or the Senior Studio to submit them for review on the Cartoon Allies blog. Each week, bloggers Eric and Hayley will randomly select a student's mini from the box and offer readers a preview of the comic and their thoughts. We hope to improve student promotion and give members a space to show their work to a greater audience.
If you would like to be listed on our Members page, email your name, year, website url, and 50x50px icon to cartoonallies@gmail.com with the subject line "Active Member [Name]". As we collect a nice group of links, we'll update our long out-of-date Active Members list.
If you're interested in helping us distribute Cartoon Allies event posters, let us know by email or at the next meeting. We need posters for the Digital Projection Comix Reading and next semester's Fresh Meat festival!
The SVA Library now has access to a new Underground Comix Database. Check it out!

Stay strong, Allies!

on Twitter

on Facebook

Series Spotlight: Blue Beetle

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Blue Beetle, art by Ig Guara, Ruy José, and Pete Pantazis (from #2)

While DC Comics’ company-wide revamp has garnered quite a share of controversy, from its problematic-to-rage-inducing depiction of female characters to still thinking that having Rob Liefeld draw comics is a valid idea, some good has come from the New 52. A group of heroes of color have been given a new opportunity to have their own books, including the late Dwayne McDuffie’s black teen hero Static and a fan-favorite Chicano with alien power-armor, Jaime Reyes, the third Blue Beetle.

Jaime originally debuted in 2006, during DC’s Infinite Crisis event. From there he was thrust into his own monthly series, critically-acclaimed for its depiction of a minority teen hero with strong family ties and a well-developed supporting cast (even tying the character to previous incarnations of the Beetle). Unfortunately, the Blue Beetle’s warm reception did not translate into consistent sales, and the series was canceled after thirty-six issues. Despite the loss of his solo comic, our blue hero found himself in the pages of Teen Titans and with a prominent role in the animated series Batman: The Brave and the Bold, turning to the caped crusader for guidance as a new hero. But now Jaime has a new shot at being in the spotlight, graduating once more from secondary character to headliner.

Written by Tony Bedard, penciled by Ig Guarra, and inked by Ruy José (not Ryu José), the first two issues of Blue Beetle retell Jaime Reyes’s chance encounter with the Scarab, the alien artifact that transforms him into a flight-capable champion with more built-in weapons than a suit of Iron Man armor. It is obvious from the beginning that this is a full reboot of Jaime’s short history, offering new readers a chance to jump in without any concerns of continuity. Unlike in his previous series, the origins of the Scarab are not presented as a mystery to both Jaime and the reader. Because the Scarab has already been revealed as a malfunctioning tool of The Reach, a galactic imperial hive-mind, in both the Blue Beetle’s first comic series and the Brave and the Bold television series, the new comic opens with a prologue depicting its horrifying power and how it arrives on Earth. From there, the issues introduce Jaime and his supporting cast in El Paso before he gets caught up in a conflict between two super-powered gangs and ends up attached to the titular Blue Beetle.

It can be frustrating when only twenty-two pages of a comic are published a month and the writer takes his time telling the story; however, in the case of Blue Beetle, I can appreciate Bedard and Guarra’s attention to detail as they slow down to develop Jaime’s interpersonal relationships. While the action is dynamic and has strong impact with Guarra’s art, Jaime’s characterization and family/social life are what keep me interested. As the story is set in El Paso with many Hispanic and mixed-ethnicity characters, Spanglish commonly occurs in the dialogue. This can seem like an overused gimmick after the first few pages, but the tenth page of issue #1 features a conversation between Jaime and his parents that totally sold me on the idea. As a young Cuban-American, reading those first two panels, in which the interjection of Spanish phrases into English sentences felt natural, was the first time I had seen that aspect of my life reflected on the page of a comic.

Ig Guara’s art is tightly drawn without trying to look photorealistic. He carries the action well with a lot of dynamism, coupled with well-composed backgrounds that even at their simplest do a good job of conveying a strong sense of space. While his varied choices of camera angles help make they dialogue-heavy scenes just as visually interesting, sometimes this makes them appear unnecessarily dramatic. Also, the violence in the action scenes is surprisingly graphic for a “Teen” rated comic (although it’s not disturbingly gory). His character designs are cute and expressive, featuring a good variety of body types. The main cast actually looks like a bunch of developing teenagers, which is a quality a lot of mainstream comic artists can neglect. I have no gripes against Ruy José’s inking, though it appears much stronger in the second issue. [Note: This may be because he was replaced by J. P. Mayer partway through the second issue, but the art credits are not clear.] Pete Pantazis’s colors are bright and full of compliments, though I feel he relies on gradients and textures too much for the book’s clean and bold-lined art style. For me, the big artistic disappointment comes in the form of the covers. They’re very generic and hardly reflect the content (or great art) of the interior pages; Jaime doesn’t even look like a teenager! It’ll be very unfortunate if these poor covers will dissuade new readers from picking Blue Beetle off the shelf.

The creative team behind Blue Beetle isn’t afraid to deal with Hispanic characters, ideas, and issues in a clear and sincere way. These aren’t white characters with tan skin living in a redecorated New England suburb passing off for Texas, and neither are they racist caricatures (although Paco and Amparo Cardenas come off as rather archetypical so far). While far more light-hearted than DC’s seminal police procedural Gotham Central, Blue Beetle looks like it will treat Latin American subjects as maturely as Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker did with the character of Renee Montoya (a strong female, Hispanic, and lesbian character whose return to comics I’m eagerly awaiting). I still wish I got a bit more narrative bang for my monthly $2.99 price of admission, but I can’t wait for the 16th to pick up the next issue.

Eric Alexander Arroyo is a hot-blooded junior who wears a fedora, digs giant robots, and obsesses over flowing scarves. He's spent his life wandering Florida and Las Vegas, and hopes to find an apartment in the bowels of a volcano. Although he's training to be a cartoonist, he'd rather be a crime-fighting cyborg when he grows up.

November 11th - Movie Night

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Hello, Allies!

Critique last meeting was very helpful and everyone's participation was great. This week, we will have something a bit more relaxing with a...

MOVIE NIGHT

This Friday, 11/11

6:30 - Room 703G

Find the poll on the our sidebar and vote for the flick you'd like to see screened this week! You can find more info about our options below the cut.

American Splendor
2003, directed by S. S. Berman and R. Pulcini
Adapted from Harvey Pekar's autobio comics of the same name
(James Urbaniak, the voice of Doc Venture on The Venture Bros. plays R. Crumb!)

Crumb
1994, directed by Terry Zwigoff
Documentary on the life of cartoonist R. Crumb

The Iron Giant
1999, directed by Brad Bird

Persepolis
2007, directed by M. Satrapi and V. Paronnaud
Adapted from Marjane Satrapi's autobio comic of the same name

Tekkonkinkreet
2006, directed by Michael Arias
Adapted from the comic by Taiyō Matsumoto

Tokyo Godfathers
2003, directed by Satoshi Kon

Coming events:

Thursday, 11/10:

Kate Beaton, Meredith Gran, and Julia Wertz @ SVA Auditorium (Main building, third floor, 7PM to 10PM)

Saturday, 11/12:

Underwire Release Party @ Bergen St. Comics (8PM to 9PM)

Friday, 11/18

CA Meeting - Comics Swap: Bring any comics you own and don't want anymore so you can trade for something new!

Other business:

Have you checked out last week's articles on the SVA blog? New articles will be posted every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Please check out out last three posts, with Emily on storytelling do's and don'ts, Hayley's look at the new Ultimate Spider-Man, and Matt's review of Liar Game.
Do you want publicity for your minicomics? Enter the Mini Reviews Box. Bring your minicomics to our meetings or the Senior Studio to submit them for review on the Cartoon Allies blog. Each week, bloggers Eric and Hayley will randomly select a student's mini from the box and offer readers a preview of the comic and their thoughts. We hope to improve student promotion and give members a space to show their work to a greater audience.
If you would like to be listed on our Members page, email your name, year, website url, and 50x50px icon to cartoonallies@gmail.com with the subject line "Active Member [Name]". As we collect a nice group of links, we'll update our long out-of-date Active Members list.
If you're interested in helping us distribute Cartoon Allies event posters, let us know by email or at the next meeting.
The SVA Library now has access to a new Underground Comix Database. Check it out!

Stay strong, Allies!

on Twitter

on Facebook

Storytelling Lessons to Learn from Southland Tales

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:00:00 +0000

As cartoonists, we're responsible for creating entire worlds, whole casts of characters, designing everything, and, quite often, writing the plot, narration, and dialogue in a comic as well. That's a lot to do, and there's a long list of very basic do's and don't's to remember.

Now, I'm still only a sophomore, and I don't claim to be an expert in any way. But I do know that a really good way to learn the ropes of storytelling is to watch really bad movies. And for me, few films are better for this purpose than Southland Tales.

Southland Tales was written and directed by Richard Kelley, the creator of Donnie Darko. I'm sure most of you have seen Donnie Darko, or at least heard of it. It's a brilliant movie, and one of the best things about it is that nothing is over-explained. The whole film is ambiguous. I remember being captivated by it because I didn't know if the whole movie was Donnie's dream, or if he was hallucinating, or if it really was real. That was the best part of it.

When I was in middle school, several years after Donnie Darko had been released, my friend Graham and I obsessed over it, reciting our favorite lines and discussing our favorite scenes. Then, one day, he found a website that had the made-up book Philosophy of Time Travel that served as a major plot point in Donnie Darko. Graham was fascinated by it, but I flat-out refused to read it. Whoever wrote that book completely ruined the whole point of the movie. The book explains the whole plot away, assigning even the minor characters roles in the time travel equation, making into one big boring mess instead of the intricate, entrancing work of art it had been before.

And that's the major problem with Southland Tales. Kelley introduces us to a huge cast of bland, two-dimensional characters with ridiculous names, most of which have no real role in the plot to speak of, and a long confusing plot about some post-apocalyptic near-future with political nonsense no one cares about. And to make it all even better, he includes a character who over-explains the plot every time someone else isn't speaking and spouts out-of-context Bible quotes, and even with all that narration, no one knows who wants what and why. That is the entire movie.

This is the fastest way to lose your audience. First of all, make the plot absolutely clear. Don't start putting in side stories until the main goals of the major protagonists and antagonists have been established. Second, if you're going to have a large cast, make them each unique and make sure, make absolutely certain, that they are actually important and that the story wouldn't be the same or wouldn't move forward without them. And third, do not over-explain anything! Give the reader only the information they absolutely need to know. Your reader is not an idiot; give them a little credit. You don't need to say in the narration how a character reacted to a certain event, they should be able to figure out the emotions of the characters by your art. Over-explaining the plot takes out the mystery, the ambiguity, and the fun. If the reader's brain isn't doing any work while they're reading the comic, then the comic doesn't need the reader, and it might as well sit on a shelf and collect dust.

Emily "Skippy" Kay Jolkovski, a sophomore cartooning major from a small DC suburb in Northern Virginia, was born the year Punk broke and became a werewolf shortly afterwards. She enjoys 80's-90's alt rock and grunge, early swing and jazz, Klezmer music, Mexican Indian and Chinese cuisine, Coen Bros films, magical realism, sharks, controlling peoples' minds, and long walks on the beach after driving a stake into a vampire's heart.

November 4th- Group Critique

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 01:01:00 +0000

Greetings, Allies!

You are cordially invited to participate in...

GROUP CRITIQUE #2

This Friday, 11/04

6:30 - Room 703G

Bring work to share... in-progress or finished!
We'll branch off into groups: Comics, Story-Pitch, Illustration and Sketch.Round #1 was a blast. Click here for full coverage.

Coming events:

11/11/11: Movie Night (What movie? We'll take a vote this Friday, 11/4!)

Other business:

Do you want publicity for your minicomics? Enter the Mini Reviews Box. Bring your minicomics to our meetings or the Senior Studio to submit them for review on the Cartoon Allies blog. Each week, bloggers Eric and Hayley will randomly select a student's mini from the box and offer readers a preview of the comic and their thoughts. We hope to improve student promotion and give members a space to show their work to a greater audience.

If you would like to be listed on our Members page, email your name, year, website url, and 50x50px icon to cartoonallies@gmail.com with the subject line "Active Member [Name]". As we collect a nice group of links, we'll update our long out-of-date Active Members list.

If you're interested in helping us distribute Cartoon Allies event posters, let us know by email or at the next meeting.

The SVA Library now has access to a new Underground Comix Database. Check it out!

HappyAll Saints Day, Kiddos!

on Twitter

on Facebook

Series Spotlight: Ultimate Comics - Spider-Man

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man #1

This summer, Peter Parker, a.k.a. Spider-Man, was killed in the Ultimate universe of Marvel Comics. This event did not resonate beyond comics fandom until Peter's replacement would be revealed as Miles Morales, a black Hispanic middle-schooler. Some praised Marvel's bold move, while others dismissed it as "politically correct" nonsense. With all of this controversy, comics fans were anxious to see how the actually series would turn out. Now that the first two comics have been released, we can see if the story lives up to the hype.

First, however, a quick background on Ultimate Spider-Man. The Ultimate universe was created by Marvel in 2000 to draw in those who were not long-term comics fans, particularly those who enjoyed the movies made based off of the X-Men, and soon after Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. It is an entirely separate universe from the main Marvel world, where Peter Parker is still very much alive.

The idea of a black Spider-Man was first thought up by Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Axel Alonso in 2008, inspired by Barack Obama's run for President. The development of this new character was also influenced by a campaign to have black actor Donald Glover play Spider-Man in the up-coming reboot of the film series (obviously, they went for less controversial choice and cast Andrew Garfield), as well as the season two premiere of Community, which showed Glover's character Troy in Spider-Man pajamas. When it was announced that Peter Parker would be killed off in the Ultimate universe, work on this idea went into full-speed and Miles Morales was created.

Miles's story in Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man starts out months before his first appearance in the pages of Marvel comics, where he is waiting with his anxious parents to see if he made it into a charter school. After learning that he will be attending this school, he visits his uncle. We learn that his uncle is a burglar that was shown earlier in the comic, who has stolen a spider from the lab of Norman Osborn (a.k.a. Green Goblin) that is infected with the same chemicals as what turned Peter Parker into Spider-Man. As most can expect, the spider bites him and gives him powers, which sets off a series of complications for our young hero.

The introduction of the character was perfect, showing him not as a superhero but as a normal young man and as a son. This echoes Peter Parker's average-hero characterization, which is what attracts people to his character and will most likely make readers fall for Miles as well. It's also very accessible for someone like me, who has never read an Ultimate comic before in my life, and not much Marvel in general. From what I understand, this is the aim of the Ultimate line, and I applaud Marvel for not just creating stories for new readers to get into easily but also for doing it well with this book. Brian Michael Bendis' writing is full of both exciting scenes of discovery and slower moments full of vulnerability, particularly in the second issue, which is the stronger of the two released so far. My favorite scene was the one with his friend, which mixes nerdy excitement over superpowers with the burden of them, creating a situation that's lovely in its portrayal of how young Miles truly is. I was worried about how a child superhero would work as Spider-Man, as unlike a character such as Robin or one of the many teenage superhero teams, he is on his own with no other superheroes to connect to. However, throughout the comic, and in this scene and the one with his father afterwards, they show that they will keep the childishness of the character true. Not as a gimmick or caricature or as an adult in a smaller body, but as an exploration about how a middle school student would truly deal with the responsibility given to him.

My criticism lays mostly in the art. Sara Pinchelli's animation-like, bold line art is a perfect fit for a comic about a kid, and she wonderfully captures expressions that mix cartoony exaggeration with realistic nuances. However, her panel compositions can become stagnant, particularly when it comes to more dialogue heavy scenes. Sometimes the repetition works, like the page with Miles attempting to show a friend his powers and failing, as it highlights the humor of the situation and the dialogue. Oftentimes, it just makes the comic seem a little flat. For example, an intense conversation between Miles and his father in a park would have been more interesting if instead of a splash page of them sitting on a bench with a lot of world balloons about them, we saw panels that illustrated the text, and provided more emotion and insight. The colors, done by Justin Ponson, also bother me, with their over-reliance on gradients and highlights. When that style is done in a more muted way in the book, it works well, and the bright color palette is a great decision. Often, however, it seems as though the simple, cartoony drawings and the more rendered, shiny coloring are competing, never fully meshing into a coherent image. If this were more toned down, or possibly even switched to a more animation-like cell shaded style, the coloring would serve the art better. Overall, though, I loved the art and my issues are more nitpicks that major concerns.

The decision to make an alternate universe version of Marvel's most popular hero who is black and Hispanic is a very smart one, that allows for more inclusivity in a major way. There are many superheroes out there who are black and/or Hispanic, but to do it with one as iconic as Spider-Man sends a much larger message to young kids. So far, the comic has not really touched on race issues. However, I hope that future comics will, as like it affected him in the real world, in the fictional Ultimate Marvel 'verse it would be realistic for it to be dealt with, even (or maybe particularly) in a subtle manner.

Making the character a child was also an interesting choice, though one that I wasn't initially supportive of, as expanded on earlier in the review. However, after reading the comics, as well as Alonso's comments that he wanted a hero for his son to look up to, I've changed my mind. The most important audience for this comic is children, who will see that race should have nothing to do with being a hero through a character they can truly relate to. Kids may look up to adult heroes, but they see them as untouchable. One of the reasons the Teen Titans cartoon for the 2000's did well was due to showing heroes that also had to deal with typical preteen issues, and I think that if Marvel markets this really well to kids, they could have the same sort of success. There will be an Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon released in the next year; however, planning began before Miles was created and Peter Parker will be the star of it. I bought my copy of issue two from the magazine section of a Barnes & Nobles, where it was with other superhero comics, which is a step in the right direction. Placing it on display in the children's section, possibly near other books about superheroes, would work even better.

It is also interesting to compare the attention this series has gotten with DC's recent controversy over rebooting all of their comics, known as the New 52. DC has been criticized for being too regressive in terms of minority and female characters. In particular, the return of the formerly wheelchair-bound Barbara Gordon to her former title of Batgirl after spending twenty years as information broker Oracle and the recent treatment of Catwoman and Starfire in their first New 52 appearances have riled up anger from some fans. Marvel, on the other hand, has been hammered, not just by comic fans but the mainstream media, for creating a black Hispanic hero. That the larger outrage is at Marvel than DC says a lot about how much progress superhero comic fandom needs to make towards inclusivity.

Miles Morales in Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man is an enjoyable read and is sure to become another hit for Marvel with its great writing and poppy art. Their choice to take a new direction cause a lot of controversy, but in the end it paid off greatly, and I can't wait to pick up issue three!

Hayley Weber is a junior cartooning major who hails from the most boring part of New Jersey. To distract herself from this sad fate, she reads and draws girly comic books, watches weird British TV shows, and stalks her favorite bands.

Matt's Good Reads: Liar Game

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:23:00 +0000

Need some black-and-white stimulation? Join Matt Clark every other week for Matt's Good Reads, where he'll share what he's been reading (and what you should too) on his breaks from the drafting table. This week he recommends...

Liar Game

by Shinobu Kaitani

Ongoing since 2005, currently on hiatus

Unpublished in the US

THE STORY
Liar Game, written and illustrated by Shinobu Kaitani, follows the story of the naively honest college student Nao Kanzaki, who accidentally gets herself involved in the titular game by opening a package containing 100 million yen. As the title suggests, this is a game where you must lie and cheat to steal other opponents' money for your own personal gain. The losers face a debt of 100 million yen to repay.

WHAT'S TO LOVE?
Each round of the Liar Game has many twists and turn that keep the reader guessing at what might happen next, featuring games of strategy that require meticulous attention to detail. The amount of effort put into each round is apparent in the writing, and the ingenuity of the other characters is striking. It can take a while to get used to the amount of text you have to read in order to understand what's going on, but after a thorough reading, the tricks and set-up can become much easier to follow.

Matt Clark is a sophomore cartooning major. He is a golden retriever, woof, woof (though he would rather not be), and has weird obsessions.

Student Comic Review: Li-Or Zaltzman's Collection of Autobio Comics

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 22:14:00 +0000

Each Wednesday, Eric and Hayley dig into a box of minicomics by SVA students and pull one out to share with the world. If you would like to submit your minis for review, please drop them off in the Reviews box at Cartoon Allies meetings and in the senior studio. This week, we'll be looking at...

Li-Or Zaltzman, Collection of Autobio Comics

Collection of Autobio Comics is a collection of many short comics, mostly following Li-Or's life, both when she was a child and now, and stories she hears from those she knows, such as her grandmother. The first story recalls Li-Or, as a child, injuring herself while sitting Shiva for her grandfather, and further tales also go into her day-to-day dealings with the MTA, her living situation, cold sores, friends, and being multilingual. Also included are sketches of museums, feet, and herself, which give the comic a spontaneous and inviting feel. My favorite comics in the book are one about her grandmother's history, which uses food as a way to show the character's personality, and a sweet, simple one-page tale that shows Li-Or observing a young family in the park.

The drawings in the first comic were a bit crude, but as the comic progresses, the art becomes looser and more expressive. Experimentations with different styles of inking are shown, with nibs, brushes, and inkwash all present. The poses of her characters all feel very natural and lively in their purposefully wonky anatomy, and this warm feel continues into her facial expressions. The bold ink lines work particularly well for how she draws, but when she dabbles in pen, it also fits with her expressive, quirky style.

The design of the comic is also gorgeous, and helps introduce the warm, somewhat dreamy world inside the book. The covers consist of a digitally altered drawing of her and some leaves, with a translucent paper with a pink paisley pattern over it. Using the decorative paper makes the comic stand out, as well as making it more inviting.

Collection of Autobio Comics is a candid, lovely look into a very talented artist's head, full of smart observation and expressive artwork.

You can visit Li-Or's website at liorca.net and she can be contacted at liorzed (at) gmail (dot) com.

From the Frontline: Mark Siegel

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:20:00 +0000

The Cartoonist Alliance's campaign in the fight for spectacular comics has been a long and thrilling adventure. In From the Frontline, officers put the spotlight on notable events and meetings our club has organized or been a part of. Be sure to check out our last article, Hayley @ Group Critique Night #1.

Illustration by Aodhan Cummings

Guest Speaker: Mark Siegel

Two weeks ago, Mark Siegel from FirstSecond Books came to Cartoon Allies as a guest speaker and shared valuableadvice from the perspective of both a publisher and an artist.

If you wanted to know what he had to say butweren’t able to be there to experience it all, read on to find out more aboutit! The list isn’t perfect, butwe’ve got some important notes down on what most publishing companies are aboutand good ideas for artists to follow when trying to appeal to editors orpublishers.

Mark Siegel entered publishing ten years ago. Having grown up in France, he was usedto comics being a part of mainstream reading, and the same could be said aboutJapan. In France, if you wanted tobe successful, you’d go into comics, but in America, comics were a tougher, lessprofitable business. It was timeAmerica’s comics got into every household. It was time to make comics that you never throw away.

A lot of people had questions abouteditors. Mark told us that a lotof people think of editors a little differently than what they really are. DC and Marvel’s creation of the idea ofeditors is this icy cold hovering person, treating comics like an assemblyline. But we need to understandwhat an editor is. An editor isessential. When you need help,they ask the tough questions that help the artist find their own way around theproblem. They aren’t the ones whotell you that you forgot a hat or needed to change a panel; that would be in proofreading,something a copy editor does.

In case some people didn’t know what the mindset of publishing companies was like, Mark Siegel gave us a fair warning and amindset of our own to have when going to work with publishers. “Publishing companies are in thebusiness of books, not your art. Go into it wisely,” he told us. To them it’s a source of profit, not a praise of how great your workis. It’s not a good or bad thing,it just is. Some people forgetthat and expect that once companies want them, they can do whatever they want,but that is widely not the case.

Now some tips for the artists!

“Don’t only breathe comics. Accept all kinds of inspiration.”

Go to tables and talk to editors andpublishers at conventions if you want, but don’t show up with a big portfolioand expect them to want to carefully look through it. These people are already tired enough from being at theconvention and dealing with a multitude of other things. Most likely they already had severaloffers to look at work before you, so if you show up with a thick portfolio atthe wrong timing, they may turn you away.

Instead, it’s better to show them a mini comicyou made if you have one and give it tothem. Even if they don’t lookat it on the spot, at least somehow it will probably end up back in the office,and then someone might eventually look at it.

If you’re showing your storytelling, show themyour mini comic and give it to them. If you’re showing your chops as an artist, show them a portfolio buthave your portfolio be consistent in what you want them to know you cando. If you want to show how goodyou are at inking, for example, have the portfolio be filled with inked pagesor illustrations.

Trust your work when talking to editors andpublishers in person. Beconfident. Sell yourself. Your work may not be ripe yet, but ifit’s right, the editors will have an instinct and tell you if they think it’sgetting there. Know that if theywant you to work with them right away, they’ll trade contact information withyou and get to you within the week. If they seem to be interested in your work but perhaps not immediately,it’s okay to send emails to them, but be careful how you go about it.

If there’s a connection and you want to keepin touch with them, you can make little updates with brief samples of your work. Make it count! Keep it warm, and don’t send longpointless emails. Simple shortinteractions over a longer period of time are better than long chunky emailsthat will make the receiver of the email uninterested. There’s no need to elaborate so much onyour work if you trust that your work speaks for itself. Editors will appreciate it and evenenjoy quick, short updates on your work to see how you’re doing, and that willhelp you get your foot in the door if you build a good relationship with them.

When sending a proposal, get the editor hookedinto your story. Be BRIEF. Give a synopsis, samples up to threepages, character designs, etc. to help them get a feel for the story. There’s no need for long extensiveessays on the background of your tale. Again, trust that your work speaks for itself.

Be ambitious!

“Aim to create works that’ll last forever, notjust to satisfy yourself. “

There are many ‘good’ stories that start on agreat premise, but halfway through the story, some of these ideas start fallingapart. That’s how some storiesremain good, and don't go on to become great or sublime.

May you take this advice to heart and keep fighting.

Onwards, Allies!

Series Spotlight: Rocketeer Adventures

noreply@blogger.com (The Cartoonist Alliance) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:13:00 +0000

Rocketeer Adventures #3, cover art by Dave Stevens

Through the 1980s, cartoonist Dave Stevens presented The Rocketeer to the comics world. Influenced by the pulps and film serials of the '30s and '40s, these stories centered around Cliff Secord, a young stunt pilot living in Los Angeles on the cusp of World War II, and his adventures with an experimental jetpack. While only a few issues were published, the character gained notoriety in 1991 when The Rocketeer was adapted into a film from Walt Disney Pictures.

While Stevens' throwback to an era of Nazi-punching and prop-planes was beloved by many, including yours truly, Cliff never flew over Hollywood again before his artist passed away in 2008. However, a fondness for the character and his world still resonates, leading to IDW's recent collection of the original Rocketeer stories and a new limited series, Rocketeer Adventures.

This four-issue anthology comic, edited by Scott Dunbier, gathers talent from across the comicsphere for an exciting and heartfelt tribute to Dave Stevens' work. The issues I've gotten my paws on, #3 and #4, feature contributions from Dave Gibbons, Ryan Sooks, Bruce Timm, Ashley Wood, and others, leaving no room for disappointment in their twenty-six pages. What surprised me the most when I dug into these comics was the thematic consistency between the stories. Although coming from a variety of artists and writers (and a refreshing variety of styles), each story seemed to get the world of characters of The Rocketeer. The sense of fun and respect to the source material portrayed in these comics really shows how much the creators love the work they're revisiting.

But sappy emotions don't tell a lot about the content of Rocketeer Adventures. As the third issue resonates with me the most, there are a few elements of it I'd like to address. While the original Rocketeer comics always revolved around how Cliff's relationship with his girlfriend Betty (modeled after the late Bettie Page) intersected with his high-flying misadventures, the third issue's stories focus more on the actress beside the hero.

"A Rocketeer Story" by Ryan Sook features some fantastic artwork in its depiction of the awful luck and coincidence that characterizes Betty and Cliff's lives. While Betty still plays the role of a damsel in distress, this story's presentation is sensitive to Betty's view on the the Rocketeer and how their lives can never intersect peacefully. One's success is often tied to the other's failure, furthering the distance between them. I think that the story's last two pages, integrating the last scene of the in-story film with the comic's events, was notably well-executed, especially with Sook's ability to depict emotions (even on the masked hero).

Joe R. Landsdale and Bruce Timm's "Heaven's Devils" uses a nontraditional format, presented as prose with center-page illustrations by Timm. The story is rather straight-forward, but its presentation as a story in an old pulp adventure magazine helps carry it. Landsdale's writing and Timm's illustrations stick to this theme perfectly, making it a swell ode to both Stevens and his influences.

This issue closes with "Junior Rocketeers" by Jonathan Ross, Tommy Lee Edwards, and John Workman. Not only do I love Tommy Lee Edwards' brushwork and color palette, but I really enjoyed how the story deals with the period The Rocketeer takes place in while focusing on the comic's female characters. "Junior Rocketeers" introduces a gang of Rocketeer fans with a single girl member who get caught up in Cliff's latest misadventure. Ross portrays Betty as a character who gets into a lot of trouble but doesn't need Cliff's help to get out of it, joining the young outcast girl in getting Cliff out of a jam his jetpack can't help him out of. It's refreshing to see these roles flipped, especially since Rocketeer stories can get formulaic in that sense. The humor and attention-to-detail also make this a strong story in my eyes, taking advantage of the comic's late-1930s setting both aesthetically and within the plot, even referencing the old Captain Marvel film serial.

From what I've read so far, Rocket Adventures is a delightful, exciting, and tasteful memorial to the work of Dave Simmons. I'm certainly picking it up when it's collected next month! If you're a fan of the pulps, the '30s, or good ol' Nazi-punching adventure, you should grab a copy as well or track down a back-issue. And if you haven't read David Stevens' original comic, I couldn't recommend it more!

Eric Alexander Arroyo is a hot-blooded junior who wears a fedora, digs giant robots, and obsesses over flowing scarves. He's spent his life wandering Florida and Las Vegas, and hopes to find an apartment in the bowels of a volcano. Although he's training to be a cartoonist, he'd rather be a crime-fighting cyborg when he grows up.