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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in David Lasky's LiveJournal:

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    Monday, April 28th, 2008
    1:22 am
    I missed Stumptown
    I was not able to attend the Stumptown Comics Festival this past weekend, and though it is barely over I am already hearing about all the great people and things I missed.  I'm bummed.  I stayed at home so I could (ironically) work on a comic book I've been hired to draw.  I also had to attend a birthday party, a high school showcase, and meet with some of my fellow art teachers.  And I saw the Crumb exhibit at the Frye one last time before it left town (and this last one was my favorite viewing of the exhibit).  And I did get some pages penciled on the comic book, an educational comic for the King County Dept of Public Health.  So it was an eventful and very necessary weekend in Seattle for me -- but I miss all my comics friends!  Hope to see you next time!  

    Current Music: Bob Dylan "Love Sick"
    Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
    1:05 am
    Happy Birthday, Dad!
    Today my father turns 70.  I put together this card for him...

    Have a great day, Dad!!!
    Monday, April 21st, 2008
    11:44 pm
    Cultural Riches

    When the Internet had it's big coming out party in the late mid-1990's, much was promised.  And yet, when I'd try to look at things on friends' monitors, I would have to wait 5 minutes for even a simple graphic to appear.  So frustrating!  Those problems have largely been solved, and there is a multitude of cultural riches available to those who are willing to look for them.  Allow me to recommend a few things that live up to that early promise of the Internets...

    My friend Bob Rini is a fantastic visual artist.  But he's also a music enthusiast of the first order.  Check out his wonderful blog to hear Bob Dylan songs as you've never heard them, see Nirvana as you've never heard them, and discover many other odd musical treasures.  

    I teach with a woman named Anne Grgich who has curated an exhibition of Outsider Art which is called "Internal Guidance Systems".  It just opened at a place called Track 16 in Santa Monica California.  If you live in LA, you can go see it for yourself.  If you don't, you can see it on Anne's Flickr site.

    Learn about animator Stefan Gruber...

    Speaking of animators, the last of Disney's "Nine Old Men" passed away just one week ago.  Rest in peace, Ollie Johnston.  When I mentioned it to Tom Dougherty, he recommended I check out the Milt Kahl hands on his blog.  And now I'm recommending it to you.





    Current Mood: How'd it get so late?
    Current Music: Cibo Matto (best of)
    Monday, April 14th, 2008
    12:26 am
    April 2008 12 of 12
    On the 12th day of every month, I try to participate in "12 of 12", in which people around the world take 12 pictures that are posted as a photo-diary of the day.  Here's what I did this time around:




    Current Music: Lucinda Williams "West"
    Friday, April 11th, 2008
    9:57 am
    Tom Hart / Frank Young / AEM
    Tom Hart is now on Livejournal!
    http://hutchowen.livejournal.com/

    Wednesday was Frank Young's birthday and I forgot to mention it.  Frank and I are about to embark on our vision of the Great American Graphic Novel.  Here's a small sample.

    Today is Anne Elizabeth Moore's birthday.   Wishing you a great day, AE!





    Current Music: kexp
    Monday, April 7th, 2008
    9:56 pm
    Zapped covers

    Zapped covers, originally uploaded by davidlasky.

    These are the two covers to the two editions of "ZAPPED", a jam comic that was drawn, photocopied, and bound all in the same night, April 4, 2008. It happened at Seattle's Frye Art Museum as an activity related to their phenomenal exhibit of Robert Crumb art. The covers were pre-printed as were the opening and closing pages. A few dozen artists spent about an hour drawing what would appear in the middle of the book.

    The cover was designed by Greg Stump and myself. I cut the linoleum and Jennifer Bauer and Nat Stottrup printed 300 copies on the Frye's press. Because of the time consuming nature of lino-cut printing, and the drying time required, the covers were printed a few days in advance. The rest of the comic was photocopied.

    3:34 pm
    Greg Stump's Birthday

    Greg Stump at Cafe Victrola, originally uploaded by davidlasky.

    Today is Greg Stump's birthday. Happy Birthday to the hippest cartoonist/journalist/educator I know!

    Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
    11:08 pm
    Jam Comic Preview

    This is the opening page to a jam comic which Greg Stump and I will orchestrate tomorrow at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle (4/04/08).  7pm sharp!  All artists and would-be artists are welcome to sit down and draw a panel or two of the comic.  By 10pm, all the jammed pages will be photocopied, folded and stapled into a comic book with lino-cut printed covers.  The comic will then be distributed to participants and attendees as a memento of the evening.  There will also be a Slide Rule showing in the auditorium and a series of dramatic performances within the Crumb exhibit.  Come on down.

    I drew the two panels on the left, and Greg drew the two on the right.   



    Current Mood: expectant
    10:12 pm
    Leela Corman's "Unterzakhn"
    Leela Corman has always been a good cartoonist, but with her new work in progress she proves herself to be an emerging virtuoso...

    Monday, March 31st, 2008
    12:56 pm
    A very special Jam Comic Event! Frye Art Museum, Seattle, April 4 (this Friday) 7pm
    http://www.fryemuseum.org/pages/calendar.htm

    Greg Stump and I, aided by a handful of dedicated volunteers, are going to attempt to (among other things) create a very snazzy comic book (drawn by whomever shows up to participate) and copy, fold, and staple it THAT SAME NIGHT, so we can distribute it before the evening ends at 10pm.
     


    Current Music: Robert Palmer "Simply Irresistible"
    Friday, March 28th, 2008
    1:19 am
    Pluto is a Planet Protest
    A couple of weeks ago, I met some people who made me aware that Pluto, long regarded as our ninth planet, was voted "not a planet" by a small elitist group of astronomers, who did not consult with the scientific community at large.  Does it sound like a US presidential election of recent memory?  So anyway, I got involved in a protest in Seattle's Greenwood neighborhood.  You can see and hear me talking (in silhouette) about 1:10 minutes into this video...
     
    For more Pluto protestations and info on the man who discovered Pluto, see this video:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65SD54M8LkY


    Current Music: Bjork "Pluto"
    Thursday, March 27th, 2008
    12:08 pm
    How to Make Zines and Mini-Comics

    Here is my "how to" zine of a few years ago, with some updates pasted in...

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/26542262@N00/tags/zines/

    It is downloadable if you click the "All Sizes" icon above the images.



    Current Music: jazz that I am making up with my breath
    Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
    12:31 pm
    Congratulations, Jason and April!

    with this ring, originally uploaded by davidlasky.

    Over the weekend, my brother married April, the light of his life, at the Giants' stadium in San Francisco. It was a fantastic wedding.

    For the ceremony, they stood on the roof of the dugout (first base side -- the visitors' dugout?). The weather was perfect.

    Monday, March 17th, 2008
    12:21 pm
    The genius drawing in the corner

    If you're into comics that are "philosophical" like, say, the New Yorker's, but not so smug or self-conscious as the New Yorkers; funny, but not TOO funny; you really ought to check out the daily strip that Billis Helg (LJ ID: chirpasee) draws and posts to his YOUNGADVENTUREFRIENDS web site.

    Here's one example:


    copyright 2008 Billis Helg

    Current Music: Blue Healers "Help is on the Way"
    Thursday, March 13th, 2008
    11:08 am
    12 of 12 for 3/12/08

    I sometimes participate in "12 of 12" and post 12 photos from the 12th of the month as a picture diary of that day...


    1. In the early am hours of the 12th (which for us was still "Tuesday night"), Leeann requested that I document her new hairstyle she'd gotten that day.  She decided that Bear should be documented too.


    2. We slept in on Wednesday morning.  Leeann showed me an article from Tuesday's paper about proposed development in the Interbay neighborhood.  She pointed out that the photo was taken in what was once our front yard.  It's hard to tell for certain, but I think she's right.   We lived in the Interbay from 1995 to 1998.  It's an industrial part of town, between Magnola and Queen Anne.  Most Seattlites drive through it, never realizing that there are a few residential blocks among the warehouses and train tracks.  I was surprised that the article was painting a picture of the neighborhood as "blighted".  It was a place where an artist/temp-slave could afford to rent a house with a yard.  Ten years ago, the area you see in the photo was a beautiful front yard.  I think the only reason it has become 'blighted' is that developers bought up the property and didn't maintain it so they could petition the city to build more condos there... 

    Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
    12:28 am
    Cartoonists Northwest

    A little over a week ago, I went to the Cartoonists Northwest "Toonie" Awards Banquet at Ivar's Salmon House on Lake Union.  It was my first CNW awards dinner, and it was every bit as great as I'd heard these to-do's can be.  I was nominated for "Best Illustrator", and didn't win (the better illustrator, Pat Moriarity did win).  But then, to my surprise, I won a brand new award called the "Ink in his Vein Award: for humanitarian action, innovation, and cartooning passion." What a great honor!  Thanks, CNW!

    Among the highlights of the evening was seeing my old friend Pat Moriarity win the Golden Toonie.   Pat is talented, funny, professional, and a darned nice guy.  I was glad to see him get his props.  Hall of fame awards were given to living legends in the NW, such as Mike Grell (who I got to meet for the first time!) and Bob Cram, a cartooning weatherman from the 1960's (he, at age 80 (!), was on a ski trip, but his daughter gave a wonderful acceptance speech for him).  Shary Flenniken, the keynote speaker of the night, gave a great speech about cartooning and life in general.  It sounded at first like she was merely stringing together anecdotes from her life, but her monologue was full of great lessons. (ALso: When is some enterprising publisher going to give Shary an advance to assemble a Trots and Bonnie collection??)  Elizabeth Pankey displayed an amazing quilt of her caricatures.  And Stevie van Bronkhurst won a silent auction bid on a bound volume of giant Sunday comics pages from 1930.  Yay Stevie!  A lot more happened, but I'll leave it to CNW to write up the full report...

    Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
    11:32 pm
    drawn.ca


    I was surprised to see a sudden jump in my flickr traffic today.  I did a search and found that my French New Wave watercolors garnered a mention on drawn.ca, a cartooning and illustration blog I have long enjoyed.  Thank you, Adam @ drawn.ca!



    Current Mood: surprised
    Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
    12:58 pm
    I make always a Sonic Boom

    A few months ago, I contributed to a booklet that promotes Seattle to artists who might want to relocate here.  An Italian blog somehow found this and posted a translation of my short interview.  Wow, how cool!  
    http://glamourmag.style.it/
    (scroll down to the Golem picture)

    Just for fun, I used ALta Vista's Babelfish translator to translate the translation...


    The city of Seattle has asked its residents more created you than to become cultural guides. Here the indications of the illustratore David Lasky (www.davidlasky.info). 

    Where go the illustratori to Seattle? 
    In order to discover it, it participates to the organized days Friends of the Nib from Jim Woodring to the Café Racer (www.caferacer.net), a premises for motorcyclists who every Wednesday leaves us to use the space on the back for our Comics night. You are all the welcomes: you will see to us lì with our blocks of paper, to design sketches... 

    The better addresses in order to buy comic strips? 
    Zanadu Comics (www.zanaducomics.com) it is from years ' 70, but council also Comics Dungeon (http://comicsdungeon.com/) and The Zine Archive and Publishing Project (ZAPP; www.hugohouse.org) to the inside of the Hugo House in Capitol Hill: it is where they come conserved ` zines and comic strips, consultabili on appointment. 

    The zone of the city not to lose absolutely? 
    To me it appeals to to go around to the Ballard Library, a echo-building around which one gathers always small crowd of young people (in order to understand the spirit of the quarter: http://inballard.com/). When they are from those you leave, I make always a Sonic Boom (www.sonicboomrecords.com), my preferred disc store. 

    Cristina D' Antonio

    The original interview can be read here (in PDF form):
    http://www.visitseattle.org/cultural/guides/artists/ArtistsGuideSeattle.pdf

    Thursday, February 21st, 2008
    12:54 pm
    For you cool kids who shop at hot topic.... don't

    Hot Topic stores sell t-shirts with plagarized designs, stolen from a threadless shirt by an artist called Jess Fink.  Hot Topic hires design companies that steal from other artists.  Please buy your t-shirts directly from threadless.com or a similar, more reputable dealer.  Urban Outfitters is probably OK.  



    While we're on the subject of Soap, I want to recommend the band "A Gun That Shoots Knives".  They're sort of an American equivalent to "FLight of the Conchords", except that they don't have their own TV show.  Yet.  

    EDIT: Dalton informs me that Urban Outfitters is also a fashion plagarist.  Man, buying clothes can be so complicated.  Be like me and shop at Ross Dress for Less.  (I know, I know, third world sweat shop labor, etc)...  (I should just learn to sew).

    Current Mood: urban hipster
    Current Music: a gun that shoots knives
    Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
    11:46 pm
    Eclipse in Seattle

    Eclipse in Seattle, originally uploaded by davidlasky.

    There was a total eclipse of the moon in Seattle tonight. With my limited photographic abilities, this was the best photo I could get of it. It was pretty cool.

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