COMICOPOLIS Opens in Minneapolis This Friday (August 28th)

Comicopolis, a gallery show featuring the work of a number of Minneapolis cartoonists (including me) opens this Friday… hope you can make it!

Please join us Friday, August 28th for food, drinks and music!

Comicopolis:
Low life, high art

Opening reception:
Friday, August 28th from 6-9pm

Location:
FrameUps Minneapolis
4325 Nicollet Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55409
(612) 870-1292

Featuring comic art by:
Kirk Anderson
Ken Avidor
Shannon Brady
Kevin Cannon
Will Dinski
Roger Lootine
Brittney Sabo
Andy Singer
David Steinlicht
Steven Stwalley

Wanna help promote the event? Have a chicklet!

COMICOPOLIS Facebook Page

BIG FUNNY SHOW OPENS THIS FRIDAY (August 7th, 2009) IN MINNEAPOLIS!

If you enjoy this site and you live near the Twin Cities, you won’t want to miss the BIG FUNNY show my friends and I have been putting together over the last number of months. It opens this weekend, and it is going to be spectacular.

The show premieres BIG FUNNY, an oversized 48-page newspaper of comics by 45 different artists, inspired by the funnies sections of yesteryear. The gallery show features original art from the publication, numerous antique comic strips (some over 100 years old), a retrospective of unknown cartoonist William Ede, and an old cigarette vending machine rigged up to sell small boxes of little funny mini-comics. Hope to see you there!

THE NEWSPAPER INDUSTRY IS COUGHING blood and gasping on its deathbed. Newspapers lost their relevance a long time ago, and with internet media blossoming they can no longer compete. Readers and advertisers have moved on.

Unfortunately, newspapers are taking their beautiful bastard child, the newspaper comic strip, with them.

Today’s newspaper comics are much-maligned… and deservedly so. Today’s small strips, with mostly predictable, safe themes and bland characters are a pale shadow of what newspaper comics were in their wild and colorful youth.

110-or-so years from their birth, it’s been a good run. Let us not mourn the death of the

newspaper comics… rather, let us have a wake to celebrate what they once were, and to build something new.

The International Cartoonist Conspiracy, Big Time Attic, and Altered Esthetics gallery are collaborating to produce an oversized newspaper comics section like they would do it today if they still did it like they did it in the old days.

It will be called BIG FUNNY, and it will be both.

The paper will premiere at a show at Altered Esthetics in August, featuring some of the original art from the paper, along with historical comics pages from the dawn of the last century.

BIG FUNNY Website.

City Pages A-List Review

Optical Sloth review

Poopsheet Foundation review

Newsarama review

Drawn Review

Amy Crehore’s Little Hokum Rag review

Photo gallery of the little funny sideshow


Can’t make the gallery show? You can buy copies of BIG FUNNY here.

Opening Reception
August 7, 2009 7pm-11pm
ALTERED ESTHETICS
1224 Quincy St NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413

SHOW RUNS AUGUST 7-29, 2009

GALLERY HOURS:
TUESDAY & THURSDAY 1pm-7pm, SATURDAY 1pm-5pm

Museum Features Soapy, Leaving Their Future in Doubt… See the Pictures

Here is a big gallery I just posted of images from the previously mentioned Hot Ink: Comic Art show at the Minnesota Museum of American Art, currently showing until January 4th… at which point the Museum’s lease runs out, leaving them with an uncertain future. One can only speculate that this directly had to do with their decision to deface their walls with Soapy the Chicken comic strips. You can read reviews of the show here and here. Click the image to go to the gallery.

The show features the work of:
Big Time Attic
Kevin Cannon
Zander Cannon
Will Dinski
Tom Kaczynski
Reynold Kissling
Lars Martinson
King Mini
Tyler Page
Evan G. Palmer
Brittney Sabo
Zak Sally
Barbara Schulz
Tim Sievert
Andy Singer
Tom Spence
Steven Stwalley

You can visit the gallery here:

Minnesota Museum of American Art
mmaa.org
50 West Kellogg Blvd.
St. Paul, MN 55102

HOT INK: Comic Art in Minnesota Show Opening This Friday

My work, along with work by a number of other Minnesota cartoonists, is going to be featured in a show opening this week at the Minnesota Museum of American Art. Yes, that’s right, there is a museum that actually wants to hang Soapy the Chicken originals on their walls, god help them. Here is the info.

Hot Ink: Comic Art in Minnesota is an exhibit opening October 3rd (and staying up until January) at The Minnesota Museum of American Art. Featured artists include a number of folks in the Conspiracy… here is the full list…

Big Time Attic
Kevin Cannon
Zander Cannon
Will Dinski
Tom Kaczynski
Reynold Kissling
Lars Martinson
King Mini
Tyler Page
Evan G. Palmer
Brittney Sabo
Zak Sally
Barbara Schulz
Tim Sievert
Andy Singer
Tom Spence
Steven Stwalley

The opening party is October 3rd. It costs $10 to get in to the opening ($5 if you are a member or student), but is free if you visit another time. For the opening there is a members preview from 7-8PM, and then it is open to the public from 8-10PM.

Minnesota Museum of American Art
mmaa.org
50 West Kellogg Blvd.
St. Paul, MN 55102

MicroCon

MicroCon, a fantastic annual one-day convention in the Twin Cities every year, is this Sunday. I will be at the Cartoonist Conspiracy table there where you will be able to get a sneak preview of the brand-new Lutefisk Sushi Volume C box set, which will be premiering for sale next week at Altered Esthetics (May 2nd).

MicroCon, Sunday April 27th, 10AM-4PM
Minnesota State Fairgrounds
Progress Center
1621 Randall Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55108
mncba.com

Lutefisk Sushi Volume C Opening, Friday May 2nd, 7PM-10PM
Altered Esthetics (alteredesthetics.com)
1224 Quincy St. NE
Minneapolis, MN 55413

Bottomless

Poor Soapy is really getting neglected these days as my life is getting in the way… I’ll post more strips eventually for the patient among you, so if you are enjoying our ongoing serial, do not despair… it will continue some time soon.

I have pictures of Soapy at the state fair to post as well, but they are currently on my wife’s computer… those should be up soon as well.

In the meantime, I just finished laying out and scanning my >23 and <25 hour comic from this year's festivities... here it is for your reading pleasure (750k PDF)...