The Infinite Canvas

Happy New Year, everyone. We're all still recovering from the holidays and the return to the daily grind, so please forgive the recent lack of posts. To kick things off, here's some stuff on an idea from Scott McCloud's book, Reinventing Comics.



I Can't Stop Thinking!

If you're in New York City, please check out MoCCA's exhibit.

2009 New York Comic Con: February 6th - 8th

A reminder to you all, January 2nd is the last day to register and have your tickets mailed to you. After that you will have to pick them up at the Jacob Javitz convention center. Have you bought your tickets yet?

Seam Carving/Liquid Resize

Mentioned WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY back in the second post on this blog, the program Seam Carving (a tool for photo manipulation) has been picked up by onOne Software for development and renamed Liquid Resize. onOne has produced a couple of handy Photoshop plugins, like Genuine Fractals for up-rezzing low resolution images. They do quality work, so I have high expectations for when it's released.

Salon Quickie Tip #3: Matt Groening on Character Design

Matt Groening: The secret of designing cartoon characters — and I’m giving away this secret now to all of you out there — is: you make a character that you can tell who it is in silhouette. I learned this from watching Mickey Mouse as a kid. You can tell Mickey Mouse from a mile away…those two big ears. Same thing with Popeye, same thing with Batman. And so, if you look at the Simpsons, they’re all identifiable in silhouette. Bart with the picket fence hair, Marge with the beehive, and Homer with the two little hairs, and all the rest. So…I think about hair quite a lot.

Good advice, I think the principle of silhouettes in character design can be expanded a bit more though. But that's for the next article...

Inkscape

Via Lifehacker, via gHacks:


"Inkscape is a free, open-source and cross-platform vector editor. Whilst it will no doubt lack behind Illustrator in certain aspects, in my opinion it suffices the requirements of any non-professional graphic designer."

I haven't tried it yet, but it looks pretty snazzy!

2008 Best Graphic Novels List

Lines and colors has compiled a list of lists of the best graphics novels (or comic related publications) of 2008.

It's not just indie stuff, there's a good mix of mainstream and some manga on the lists. There are even some art book suggestions.

Maybe you would like to share your Best of 2008?

One of the books I recommend that is on the list is Tekkonkinkreet by Matsumoto Taiyo. I read the Japanese version years ago. I don't know if the translated version is as good, but it's a weird and brilliant piece worth checking out.

Parka Blogs: Art Book Lists

I love art books but one can't go buying them willy nilly or else you end up with a bookshelf overflowing with them. I usually like to spend a day at the bookstore carefully flipping through them before I make the decision to add it to my permanent collection. Unfortunately, time is scarce and it's been weeks? No, months since I've been in a bookstore. Booo.

Enter Parka Blogs. Parka, real name Teoh Yi Chie, reviews art books. Not only does he review the content of the book and the quality of the printing he accompanies the review with clear, well shot photos and sometimes even a quick video flip through which really shows how much bang you'll be getting for your buck. Above is a video flip through of the Will Eisner's Expressive Anatomy for Comics.

If you like his reviews and are thinking of buying one of the books he covered, try to buy it through his site (it links to Amazon.com) where he gets a commision.