Friday Night Random Stuff

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 24, 2006 - 21:20

REVIEWS

I might have linked to this before, but this is a good review of Scott McCloud's book, Making Comics with a scan of the very interesting page on primary and secondary expressions.

LEGAL

This video, titled The Disney Trap, features a discussion on how copyright prevents creators from telling new stories about old characters.

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS

Everyone is linking to Chris Ware's "variant" covers for the current New Yorker issue. This comic book marketing gimmick feels a bit less gimmicky in this instance given that it's Chris Ware and the New Yorker, but c'mon... do we really want a world of variant covers of issues of People or Sports Illustrated?
Boing BOing caught this photo from a 2003 exhibit - a setting of sculptures of superheroes in old age called The Hospice. Cool, weird and total dork-i-tude all in one. Click here for close up photos of the exhibit.
From the blog Your Mom's Basement comes this Jack Chick-ish comic about Marvel's Eater-Of-Worlds, Galactus.
Fast Film by Virgil Widrich, is a very interesting piece of animation that uses snippets of famous films to create a sort of moving collage. Cartoon Brew posted this 2003 project here and it's worth seeing (given it's likely conflict with current copyright law it's possible it won't be available forever).
Finkbot demonstrates how to create an "Art Bot" out of a small motor, batteries, paper cup and markers. It does sound like a cool project for kids to do. Maybe it could also be the conceit for a webcomic :) (If you need to make a motor here's a page on how to make a simple motor from a wire, battery and screw.)
How to make a mini comic from one sheet of paper.
A scan of Disney artist Carson Van Osten's Comic Strip Artist's Kit. This is a really good primer to practical problems and fixes for comic strips.
Can you make an alphabet from scratch? How about in an hour? Here's Ape Lad's effort. (I had to do this as an assignment in college - my final is too big to scan in, but I did it around the oil spill at Huntington Beach, California.)