Schmuck on ACT-I-VATE

The forth installment of my webcomic with Kevin Colden, SCHMUCK is up at ACT-I-VATE. The situation for our main character reaches it's schmucky crescendo this week.

The ACT-I-VATE Experience
Video directed by Seth Kushner
and Carlos Molina - CulturePopProductions.com
Original Score by Q*Ball

The ACT-I-VATE Experience, a documentary directed and produced by Graphic NYC's own Seth Kushner and Carlos Molina, (CulturePopProductions.com) gives a behind-the-scenes look at the premiere webcomics collective.

“What began as a promo piece for ACT-I-VATE became an informative film about webcomics, web vs. print, and the future of the industry,” says Seth.

The ACT-I-VATE Experience features interviews with and art by such comics luminaries as Dean Haspiel, Nick Bertozzi, Mike Cavallaro, Simon Fraser, Tim Hamilton, Leland Purvis, Molly Crabapple, Kevin, Colden, Dan Goldman, Josh Neufeld and many more.

The film has already premiered at the Baltimore Comic-Con, Brooklyn’s King Con, APE in San Francisco, Quimby's Bookstore in Chicago, and online at Newsarama.com.

ACT-I-VATE, the premiere webcomix collective, features original, serialized graphic novels and is updated daily. ACT-I-VATE's select artists produce their signature work sans editorial oversight and offer their comix for free to an ever-growing audience of loyal readers. In addition to these high-quality comix, ACT-I-VATE is known for having lifted the veil between creation, creator, and reader by providing a forum for spirited dialogue between audience and auteur. The website confirms one of ACT-I-VATE's core tenets: that the artists and writers of this curated comix community are the optimal providers of intellectual properties and original content.

Schmuck on ACT-I-VATE

The third installment of my webcomic with Kevin Colden, Schmuck went up on the webcomics portal, ACT-I-VATE today. If you've been following the story, things get a lot schmuckier this week. Click Here to read part three.

Moby

To me, one of the most interesting people making music over the 10 or 12 years, is Moby. I did a quick impromptu shoot with him years ago, but I've always wanted to do a proper on, so I was happy when L'Uomo Vogue assigned me to shoot him, and on my birthday.
The theme of the issue is "Objects of Desire," so I asked Moby to chose a few of his favorite things to use as props. The items he came up with were interesting, to say the least. See outtakes below-

How Harvey Pekar Got Me Laid (A Schmucky Tale) on GNYC

Pekar Week on GRAPHIC NYC concludes with How Harvey Pekar Got Me Laid (A Schmucky Tale) with art by my SCHMUCK collaborator Kevin Coldon. See it Here.

SCHMUCK on ACT-I-VATE

My webcomic collaboration with Kevin Colden, SCHMUCK continues today at ACT-I-VATE.com. Check out the second installment and please come back next week for part three.

The Pekar Project

Harvey Pekar Week continues on GRAPHIC NYC with the feature Gettin' The Band Together, which introduces at the people behind the project.

Tara Seibel, artist

Sean Pryor, artist

Rick Parker, artist

Joseph Remnant, artist

Jeff Newelt, editor/producer

Harvey Pekar, writer

The whole gang.

Harvey Pekar fumetti (photo comic)

Every week on GRAPHIC NYC, Christopher Irving and I post a profile of a comic book creator. Usually, the profile consists of Chris's interview based essay, my portraits, and some examples of the subject's work. This week we did something different.
For the GNYC profile on Harvey Pekar, I decided that all of Harvey's quotes should be presented in word balloons, coming from him, in a fumetti (photo comic) form.
Planning ahead, I knew I'd need plenty of photos of Harvey with a variety of expressions, to make this work. Thankfully at the shoot a few weeks back, Harvey delivered exactly what I needed.
The next step was to get Chris's article, isolate the quotes, break them down into beats, and match them with appropriate photographs. It took weeks. But, I made comics out of photographs, which is something I've wanted do do for a long time, and plan to experiment with further in the future.

Sampled below, is one sequence from the piece, where Harvey talks about his experience with David Lettermen.











Thanks to my buddies Dean Haspiel and Kevin Colden for their advice and Jeff Newelt for his help.

Please check out the full profile, American Splendor's Inimitable Harvey Pekar on The Pekar Project, with much more of my photo sequences.