Icons of Fandom

I continued my long-running series this past weekend at New York Comic-Con. There were many more subjects present who were of interest to me, but huge crowds and difficult publicists made it tough.

Seth Green, best know as Oz on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Scott Evil in the Austin Powers films and is the co-creator of Robot Chicken.

Richard Hatch portrayed Apollo on the original Battlestar Galactica and Tom Zarek in the recent BSG remake.

Jerry "The King" Lawler, pro wrestler and foil to the late Andy Kaufman.

James Marsters, best know as Spike on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Brainiac on Smallville and from the Battlestar Galactica prequel, Caprica.

Icons of Fandom

It's been a long while since I've added to this series. Click the tag at the bottom to see earlier images. There are several event this month which will allow me to further this project, the first of which was last weekend's Wizard World Big Apple Comic Con.

Barry Williams, best know as Greg Brady on The Brady Bunch.

Mike Lookinland, best know as Bobby Brady on TV's The Brady Bunch

Burt Ward portrayed Robin in the 1960 Batman TV show and movie spin-off.

Jake Lloyd played young Anakin Skywalker in 1999's Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Ahmed Best, best know as Jar Jar Binks in the three Star Wars prequels.

Kevin Nash, professional wrestler and actor.

Greg "The Hammer" Valentine, pro wrestler.

CulturePOP Season 2 premieres today

Meet Baron Ambrosia HERE.

CulturePOP Season 2 launches tomorrow at ACT-I-Vate.com

CUBA: My Revolution

CUBA: My Revolution by Inverna Lockpez (above) & Dean Haspiel (below) is a new graphic novel from DC/Vertigo Comics. It's the true story of Lockpez's experiences as a medical student and artist in Cuba during the early 1960s when Castro came into power.

I went to an exhibition and artist's talk this past weekend and reported on it at GRAPHIC NYC.

The work will be on display at the Kentler International Drawing Space until December 12.

Inspired by the book, I really wanted to shoot a portrait of Inverna, one which might reveal some of what she went through in her life. Happily, the gallery made several very large-scale prints of Dean's work from the book, which made a perfect, graphic and bold background for my shot.

The photo of Dean, with his work, is a fine addition, I think, to what is now a large collection of portrait collaborations we've done together.

Seth Kushner's CulturePOP Season 2 starts 10/4 on ACT-I-VATE.com

Seth Kushner's CulturePOP:
"Photocomix Profiles of Real-Life Characters"
Season 2 starts 10/4 on ACT-I-VATE.com, FREE
All 12 episodes of Season 1 available free:
http://www.act-i-vate.com/104-1-1.comic

Seth Kushner loves comics and loves taking photos of interesting people. Over the past year, Seth began combining the two passions, in the form of photocomix, AKA fumetti, first popularized in the U.S. with Harvey Kurtzman's Help and later in Robert Crumb's Weirdo. In those cases the experiment was played for laughs, but Seth's doing something different: fusing photojournalism, personality profile, and comix. His first photocomix profile was of the late, great Harvey Pekar, for GRAPHIC NYC, the comics journalism site he co-edits. CulturePOP is his new ongoing series of photocomix profiles on ACT-I-VATE.com.

"What Seth achieved with that initial Pekar interview-cum-comic was a triumph," said Jeff Newelt, Harvey's editor on The Pekar Project. "He took key moments of an interview, matched the words with photos he took, and sequentially arranged the results so as to read as smoothly as an American Splendor comic."

In CulturePOP Season 1, Seth's shined his flash on the lives of subjects including poet Caits Meissner, sousaphonist/producer Clark Gayton, singer/songwriter Elyssa Loveless, designer John D'Aponte, graffiti artist/sculptor Carlos "Mare 139" Rodriguez, yoga instructor Melisa Winitzsky, former US champion rhythmic gymnast Olga Karmansky, toy designer Super Sucklord, author Douglas Rushkoff, VJ Jonny Wilson of Eclectic Method, burlesque performer Jennie Fiske and artist Jen Ferguson.

"Seth Kushner's omniscient lens distills NYC's brave and bold into graphic time capsules," says Dean Haspiel, creator of Billy Dogma, & The Alcoholic.

CulturePOP Season 2 launches Tuesday 10/5 with a photocomix profile on Bronx Flavor TV host Baron Ambrosia. Episodes run every other Tuesday and will include such scintillating subjects as writer / erotic editor Rachel Kramer Bussel, cartoonist Dean Haspiel, illustrator / designer Dave Franzese of Dark Igloo, aerialist Lisa Natoli, hip hop performer Akim The Funk Buddha, comedian/musician Reggie Watts and more TBA.

“Working on CulturePOP has been a dream come true,” says Kushner. “It’s the melding of my life-long love of comics and my photography into a new form of profile for me. Working on the first twelve was such a challenging and rewarding experience that I can’t wait for viewers to see some of the new tricks I’ve incorporated into the next twelve.”

CulturePOP is co-curated by Jeff Newelt, and edited by Dean Haspiel.

Join CulturePOP's Facebook fan page - http://www.facebook.com/CulturePOPphotocomix


Seth Kushner — shoots portraits of celebrity-types for such publications The New York Times Magazine, Time, Newsweek, Businessweek, L'Uomo Vogue and others. Seth's first book, The Brooklynites, (with Anthony LaSala) was published by powerHouse Books in 2007 and was) considered ”a terrific coffee table photo/interview book” by The New York Times. Currently, he's co-editing the comics journalism site Graphic NYC (www.NYCGraphicNovelists.com) (with Christopher Irving) and working on his next book on comic book creators. Seth first comics work was Schmuck (with artist Kevin Colden) and can be seen on ACT-I-VATE.com

ACT-I-VATE Live Comix Reading

I was very happy to be a part of a cool even this past Sunday - The ACT-I-VATE Live Comix reading at the DUMBO Arts Fest Digital Summit.

Simon Fraser started things off with a reading from Lily MacKenzie, and donned a purple wig to channel his avatar, Cosmo.

Joe Infurnari did a dramatic reading of his strip Vs. from SMITH MAG's Next-Door Neighbor series.

Graffiti artist/sculptor Carlos 'Mare 139' Rodriguez read from my own CulturePOP Photocomic profile on him.

Jeff Newelt, ACT-I-VATE Minister of Hype used his famous Havey Pekar impression to read from the late writer's Next-Door Neighbor piece, illustrated by Rick Veitch.

Jeff also read another Harvey piece, from SMITH Mag's The Pekar Project, edited by Jeff and drawn by Sean Pryor.

Dean Haspiel read from his autobio work, Street Code, with an assist from Chris Miskiewicz.

The event closed with a reading of Dean's Billy Dogma story from The ACT-I-VATE Primer. Assisting Dean were Jeff Newelt and Natalie Kim.

Thanks to Noah Norman for his help in making this a successful event.

Dumbo Arts Fest Digital Summit

I'll be a part of a very cool event this Sunday. Following a talk with Doug Rushkoff (a past subject of mine) there will be a live ACT-I-VATE comix reading with my CulturePOP photocomix profile on Carlos 'MARE 139' Rodriguez will be read by the subject himself, while the images are projected.


Dumbo Arts Fest Digital Summit: RUSHKOFF Talk and ACT-I-VATE Comix Reading

Sunday, September 26TH
4:00pm - 8:00pm
St. Ann’s Warehouse
38 Water Street, Brooklyn, NY



4pm - Media theorist / author Douglas Rushkoff's
Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Era

5pm - Live Comix Reading with members of ACT-I-VATE.com webcomix collective, Dean Haspiel, Joe Infurnari, Simon Fraser, Jeff Newelt AKA JahFurry, Seth Kushner and special guest Carlos 'MARE139' Rodriguez

6-8pm -- After Party / Wine Tasting: Brooklyn Oenology's “FRIEND” Riesling, label art by Jen Ferguson.
Blanc & Rouge, 81 Washington Street

--

4pm
Media theorist / author DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF presents:
Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Era
new book available at http://rushkoff.com/

Do we direct technology, or do we let ourselves be directed by it and those who have mastered it? “Choose the former,” says Douglas Rushkoff, “and you gain access to the control panel of civilization. Choose the latter, and it could be the last real choice you get to make.”

We continue to accept new technologies into our lives with little or no understanding of how these devices work on us. We do not know how to program our computers, nor do we care. We spend much more time and energy trying to figure out how to use them to program one another, instead. And this is a potentially grave mistake.

Just as the invention of text utterly transformed human society, disconnecting us from much of what we held sacred, our migration to the digital realm will also require a new template for maintaining our humanity. In this talk, Rushkoff shares the biases of digital media, and what that means for how we should use them.

5pm
Big-Screen Live Comix Reading with members of ACT-I-VATE.com webcomix collective, Dean Haspiel, Joe Infurnari, Simon Fraser, Jeff Newelt AKA JahFurry, Seth Kushner and special guest Carlos 'MARE139" Rodriguez.

This crew will be reading comix not only from ACT-I-VATE but from SMITH Magazine's Next-Door Neighbor anthology as well at The Pekar Project.

Dean Haspiel is co-founder of ACT-I-VATE.com; creator of Billy Dogma and Street Code; creator/editor of Next-Door Neighbor; co-creator of The Quitter w/Harvey Pekar; the brand-new CUBA: My Revolution w/ Inverna Lockpez, and The Alcoholic w/ Jonathan Ames. Dean recently won an Emmy for his illustrations in the main title sequence for HBO's Bored to Death, the show based on Jonathan Ames life starring Jason Schwartzman as Ames and Zach Galifianakis loosely based on Dean.
http://deanhaspiel.com/

Jeff Newelt AKA JahFurry is ACT-I-VATE's Minister of Hype, as well as comics editor of SMITH, Heeb, & Royal Flush Magazines. He is editor of The Pekar Project, Harvey Pekar's (American Splendor) webcomics series on SMITH. Jeff will be reading two Pekar stories in his patented Pekar voice.
http://twitter.com/jahfurry

Photographer Seth Kushner, in addition to his renowned portrait series of on GraphicNYC, is the creator of CULTUREPOP: Photocomix Profiles of Real Life Characters. one of those real life characters, Carlos "MARE 139" Rodriguez will read his own profile. Carlos is a legendary graffiti artist and sculptor
CulturePOP - http://act-i-vate.com/104.comic
http://sethkushner.com/
http://mare139.com/

Joe Infurnari is an Eisner-nominated cartoonist with two books forthcoming from First Second and is the creator of the ongoing ULTRA-LAD strip http://act-i-vate.com/56.comic
http://joeinfurnari.com/

Simon Fraser is a Scotland-born cartoonist, is currently creating 'Lilly Mackenzie and the Mines of Charybdis' http://act-i-vate.com/9.comic and 'Nikolai Dante' the Eagle Award winning character that has graced the pages of Great Britain's 2000AD since 1997, co-Created by Robbie Morrison.
http://simonfraser.net/

AFTER PARTY 6pm - 8pm
Blanc & Rouge 81 Washington Street
Brooklyn Oenology winemaker Alie Shaper will be tasting the newly released “FRIEND” Riesling, which features the art of Jen Ferguson. A portion of the proceeds from this wine will go to support animal welfare. Jen Ferguson's art will also be on display in the store.
http://jenferguson.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/dumbo-art-festival-2010-bklyn-oenology-wine-tasting/
http://www.artinchaos.com

Graphic NYC site update.

While the Graphic NYC site updates has definitely slowed, we have two recent posts of some substance.

Where Superman Was Born: A Visit to Jerry Siegel's House

I was recently in Cleveland for a shoot and made time to visit the former home of Jerry Siegel. It was an amazing experience. See my thougths and photos.

Michael Kupperman and Tales Designed to Thrizzle's Lessons in Absurdity

Rachel Kramer Bussel - CulturePOP preview

My photocomix profile series CulturePOP returns on October 3rd, with a profile on Dean Haspiel, followed by a new installment every other Monday. Yesterday I photographed future CulturePOP subject, Rachel Kramer Bussel. Rachel is a writer of erotica, pop culture and cupcakes, and also runs the In The Flesh Reading Series.

My profile on Rachel won't run until December, but for now check out these portraits from our session. I think the actual piece will raise some eyes.

Sophie Auster for L'Uomo Vogue

I recently did a shoot with musician/actress Sophie Auster for the October of L'Uomo Vogue. I originally met Sophie, daughter of authors Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt, when I photographed her for my book, The Brooklynites, a few years back. I though she was a great subject, so I was happy to be able to photograph her again.

The photos seen here are outtakes. I'll show the selected image after publication of the magazine.

Dean Hapiel's Emmy win!

I am proud to announce that my friend and the subject of GRAPHIC NYC's upcoming book, Dean Haspiel: The Early Years, Dean Haspiel, has won an Emmy award for his contribution to the opening title sequence of the Jonathan Ames HBO series Bored To Death.

Congrats, Dino!

The photo above, was taken by me just last week for the CulturePOP photocomic I did on Dean, which will be the debut of Season-2 on October 4th.

View the Emmy Award winning opening below.

Jonathan Groff

I took these photos of actor Jonathan Groff a while ago, but realized I never showed them here.
Jonathan is best know for his roles in the Broadway musical Spring Awakening and in the TV show Glee.

These photos were originally taken for Time Out NY magazine to promote his appearance in the show Hair.

CuturePOP Season-2 preview

CulturePOP, my photocomix webseries of profiles is returning soon with a new season of characters. The first one shot was Baron Ambrosia, the host of the TV show, Bronx Flavor.
The Baron was a fascinating subject and helped to inspire me to experiment further with page/panel design and narrative solutions.
I just finished laying out his profile, even though I'm excited to share it, I'll keep, it under wraps until this fall. Meanwhile, see a preview above.

Graphic NYC site updates

Paul Guinan & Anina Bennett: 4 Color Portrait



Jim Shooter's Secret Origin, in his Own Words - Part One



Jim Shooter's Secret Origin, In His Own Words - Part Two

Cappie Pondexter for Sports Illustrated

A couple of months back I did my first shoot for Sports Illustrated. The subject, WNBA NY Liberty Player Cappie Pondexter had just arrived in NYC, so the concept was to show her at different spots around town. It was the first blisteringly hot day, in what turned out to be a summer of blisteringly hot days, but Cappie gave her all for the shoot.

A sampling of images, some published in the mag, and some not-