CulturePOP now on TRIP City

WELCOME TO TRIP CITY

WELCOME TO TRIP CITY

Press Release for November 1st, 2011
Contact: tripcityinfo@gmail.com
Twitter: twitter.com/#!/tripcitynews



TRIP CITY is a Brooklyn-filtered literary arts salon launching November 1st, 2011 at WelcomeToTripCity.com. The multimedia website features free content curated by a host of creative heavyweights. "TRIP CITY reinvents the online arts collective with a virtual playground for a diverse set of accomplished and highly individualistic creators,” says Emmy Award winning cartoonist and TRIP CITY founder, Dean Haspiel, “spanning every borough of artistic endeavor from the visual arts to literature, music, video and beyond."

TRIP CITY is the exclusive home of united individuals exploring new media to achieve a modern salon. Brooklyners Dean Haspiel (Billy Dogma, Bored to Death), Seth Kushner (The Brooklynites, CulturePOP Photocomix), Chris Miskiewicz (Everywhere), and Jeffrey Burandt aka Jef UK (Americans UK), will release exclusive content at TRIP CITY, combining avenues of expression such as podcasts and profiles, including upcoming portraits and exclusive interviews with Jonathan Ames, Marc Maron, Ben Katchor, Michael Moore, Henry Rollins, Dan Goldman, and Moby. Additionally, a fellowship of regular contributors will provide their original voices to TRIP CITY, including, Joe Infurnari (MUSH! Sled Dogs with Issues, Marathon), Nick Bertozzi (The Salon, Lewis & Clark), Jennifer Hayden (Underwire), Nick Abadzis (Laika), Jen Ferguson (Art in Chaos), Ron Scalzo (Bald Freak Music), Amy Finkel (Furever), Kevin Colden [Fishtown], and The Perv Whisperer (The Perv Whisperer).

TRIP CITY is a digital experience with future plans to take some of the content and perform it live on the road. “Working with so many Brooklyn locals, we have this great sense of community right out of the gate,” says Jef UK. “Then, when we take the next step and turn TRIP CITY into a live event—which is in the works—our tribe is already gathered, so to speak.”

The TRIP CITY launch will feature Dean Haspiel's “Bring Me The Heart Of Billy Dogma,” Seth Kushner's CulturePOP Photocomix profile of Bored To Death's Jonathan Ames, Chris Miskiewicz & Kate McElroy's “Adrift,” Jef Uk's “The Better Head,” Joe Infurnari's “Memoirs of the Kid Immortal,” Nick Bertozzi's “Lad Zeppelin,” Jennifer Hayden's “S'Crapbook,” Nick Abadzis' “Subterranean Stories,” Jen Ferguson's “Metrollpolis,” Kevin Colden's “Baby With A Mohawk,” Ron Scalzo's "A Dozen Movies That Scared The Shit Out Of Me, Revisited” featuring PSYCHO with an illustration by Rick Parker, and the inaugural TRIP CITY Podcast highlighting a round table interview with the TRIP CITY founders, Chris Miskiewicz' New York Comicon 2011 report, Ron Scalzo's “Ronnie's Story,” graphic novelist, Dan Goldman's exclusive interview with filmmaker, Michael Moore, and the Americans UK’s single “You Can’t Kill The Americans UK.”

http://welcometotripcity.com/

BRIAN AZZARELLO - LEAPING TALL BUILDINGS

Continuing to catch up on these last group of subjects. The most recent profiled on the site is writer Brian Azzarello, best know for his work on 100 Bullets, Joker, Batman: Knight of Vengeance and the new Vertogo series, Spacemen.

The portrait was taken during a trip to Chicago last spring and is meant to invoke Brian's noirish writing style.

Read the GRAPHIC NYC Profile on Brian Azzarello-
Brian Azzarello on Crime and Superheroes

DAN DIDIO - LEAPING TALL BUILDINGS

My shoot with DC Comics Co-Publisher (with Jim Lee) Dan Didio was a classic situation of making something happen in spite of having almost no time. This past spring, Chris Irving and I were finalizing subjects for and it occurred to us we had too many subjects telling the Marvel Comics side of the equation and not enough representing DC Comics. A bunch of calls and emails later and we were granted a short window of 30-minutes with Dan to do the shoot and interview.

When we arrived, we were informed that our time needed to be cut to just 20-minutes, since Dan had an important meeting. There seemed to be something top secret brewing at DC's offices and we almost saw something on the wall of Dan's office before we were quickly ushered out. I now believe it was all about DC's New 52 publishing plan, which had yet to be announced at that time.

We sat in the reception area, under a life-sized statue of Superman, as Dan answered Chris's questions at light speed. I knew my only options for the shoot would be to do something with the statue and/or the Metropolis mural by the elevator bank.

As the interview was winding down, the publicist asked me if I was getting what I needed. I told him the interview seemed to be going great. No, he meant the photos. Photos? I hadn't taken any yet! He had assumed I would shoot while the interview was being conducted, but I don't work that way--I needed a posed photo. Well, we were out of time, I was told.

Please, just give me three minutes. I can make it happen in three minutes.

I shot 17 frames in those three minutes utilizing the two spots in the reception area. A version of the one with Superman will be used in the book. I like how The Man of Steel becomes a design element to frame Dan and perhaps comment.

It was definitely one of my faster shoots, but thankfully my career shooting celebrity-types has prepared me well for situations such as these.

See the Dan Didio featuring my photos, Chris's interview-based essay and art from his comics work here.

CulturePOP Photocomix preview: Jonathan Ames

Grant Morrison - Leaping Tall Buildings

Much of my time this past summer has been spent finishing up my part on the book, LEAPING TALL BUILDINGS: The Origins of American Comics. While Chris Irving has been editing the text and our designer Eric Skillman has been creating layouts, I've been a) making final, hi-res version of all of my photographic portraits and b), with the help of my intern, India, collecting art from all of the subjects to go along with their profile and portrait. It's been a massive amount of work for everyone involved.

We thought we had all the material together for the approximately 60 subjects whose stories and art would tell the narrative of comics history in the book. We were out of space, and in fact, we were way over the 240-page count our publisher powerHouse books had granted us. 60 pages over! But, there was one particular subject who had eluded us and it always bugged me that he wasn't in the book, so I figured I'd try Grant Morrison one more time. He lives between Scotland and LA, so it was mostly proximity which kept him from us, but he was scheduled to be in NYC to promote his new book Supergods, and he graciously found some time to meet with us.



Grant Morrison is a rockstar comics creator, who even in his superhero work manages to challenge the reader with his use of thought-provoking trippy futurism which looks back as it looks forward, and his big IDEAS. His work on Batman these past few years forces the reader to pay attention or get lost forever and his All Star Superman brings 50s era comic tropes to the 21st century in a story of epic beauty. Anyway, yeah, I'm a fan.

The shoot happened over 20 minutes in his midtown hotel room. Grant was gracious and patient and willing to experiment. I showed up with no concept whatsoever except I knew experimentation would be needed. Grant is a striking looking fella' and clearly a great subject and the interesting patterned wallpaper and mirrors in the room provided me with the rest. The photo at the top is the one that will be in the book. I think the viewer can interpret it several ways and I like that. I have my own interpretation, based upon his work and the often meta qualities, but I think it best to leave it vague.

See the Graphic NYC profile of Grant Morrison, featuring my photos, Chris's interview-based essay and art from his comics work here.

Marc Maron

I first met comedian Marc Maron about 6 or 7 years ago when I was assigned by Heeb Magazine to shoot him for their Heeb 100 issue. At the time, Maron hosted a show on the Air America radio network and I wasn't at all familiar with him.

Last year, I became addicted with Maron's WTF podcast, an interview-based show recoded in his LA garage, where he chats in-depth with comedians. His brutally honest humor and frank discussions have me and many, many others checking back every Monday and Thursday, when new episodes are posted.

Recently, I saw Maron had a live broadacast scheduled at the Bell House, here in Brooklyn, and I thought he'd make a great CulturePOP Photocomix subject, so I emailed him at the old address I had from years ago to my great excitement, he quickly responded and plans were made through his publicist.

Maron had a full schedule planned for his visit to Brooklyn, so I was only given 30 minutes before his show to make it happen. Myself and my friend/studio-mate/CP editor and fellow WTF fan, Dean Haspiel worked up a series of questions which would lead Maron to give us the quotes we'd need for the text and we worked as a tag team (like Iron Sheik and Nicolai Volkoff) to get 15 minutes of solid talk out of him. He gave us the goods, being his usual caustic, honest and self-deprecating self.

For the shoot, I walked Maron through several locations at the Bell House, very quickly in order to be sure to get the variety of visuals need in order to make a proper photocomix profile. He was a great subject for me giving me a range of poses and reactions and also being spontaneous, as seen in the preview photos here.

Maron was a great 'get' for project and I look forward to showing the full piece in a couple of months. For now, I'll post a few of the more straight "portraits" from the session. More soon.

CulturePOP Photocomix Tribute to "Our Man" Harvey Pekar (RIP)

CulturePOP Photocomix Tribute to "Our Man" Harvey Pekar (RIP)
by Seth Kushner
Edited by Jeff Newelt & Dean Haspiel
Interview by Christopher Irving
See it--http://activatecomix.com/104-25-1.comic

Seth Kushner's CulturePOP: Photocomix Profiles of Real-Life Characters returns (see info below for previous 24 episodes) to ActivateComix.com on Tuesday, July 12 2011 with a special tribute to Harvey Pekar, on the one-year anniversary of his death.

The 25-page piece, the 25th CulturePOP profile, features photos of the autobio comix pioneer, taken by Kushner just a few months prior to his untimely death, fused with quotes by an interview conducted by Christopher Irving the day of the shoot, to make a "fumetti" / photocomix equivalent to an American Splendor comic.

In addition to the words of Pekar himself, the piece includes photos of, quotes from, and illustrations by some of Pekar's collaborators; Josh Neufeld (artist, American Splendor), Dean Haspiel, (artist, The Quitter + American Splendor), Jeff Newelt (editor, Pekar Project & upcoming Harvey Pekar's Cleveland), Ted Hope (American Splendor film producer), Joseph Remnant (artist, Harvey Pekar's CLEVELAND) Shari Springer-Berman & Robert Pulcini (directors, American Splendor film) and Michael Taylor (script supervisor). Plus, Joyce Brabner, Harvey's widow and collaborator talks about her plan to have a monument erected to Harvey in Cleveland.

"I didn't know Harvey very well at all, not personally at least." Kushner says. "I knew him as many did, through his comics, and the great film, American Splendor. I've worked with Dean & Jeff on this tribute for months and I hope it will stand as a fitting one to a man whose seemingly ordinary, but unique voice, influenced and uplifted so many. Harvey Pekar, a seemingly ordinary guy from Cleveland, a former file clerk, made an indelible mark on comics, influenced several generations of comics creators, and died too soon."

See it--http://activatecomix.com/104-25-1.comic

LEAPING TALL BUILDINGS - Chris Claremont

As Christopher and I and designer Eric Skillman work on finishing LEAPING TALL BUILDINGS to meet our publisher's deadline we'll be occasionally posting profiles from the last batch of sessions, like the recent two-part profile on legendary X-Men scribe Chris Claremont.

When I was 9-years old and I first started collecting monthly comics, Claremont's name, along with Frank Miller's, was among the first I knew in comics. His X-Men was instrumental in the early days of my obsession. I remember issue 181, the post Secret Wars issue in Japan, was the first I bought, followed by a several-year long back-issue hunt to fill the gaps. I eventually collected back as far as issue 125, and earlier sporadic issues. All that said, it was a thrill to sit in the living room of his Brooklyn house and hear all the behind-the-scenes stories of those classic issues. Have a look a the profiles and see for yourself.

Chris Claremont on Evolving the X-Men, Part One

Chris Claremont on Evolving the X-Men, Part Two

ICONS OF FANDOM

Richard Roundtree is best known for his portrayal of private detective John Shaft in the 1971 film Shaft and in its two sequels, Shaft's Big Score (1972) and Shaft in Africa (1973).


Peter Mayhew is best known for playing the Wookiee Chewbacca in the Star Wars movies. His peak height was 7 feet 3 inches.


Michael Biehn is best known for his roles in James Cameron's science fiction action films The Terminator as Kyle Reese, Aliens as Cpl. Dwayne Hicks, and The Abyss as Lt. Coffey. He has also acted in such films as Tombstone, The Rock, and Planet Terror.


Brian O'Halloran is best known for his roles in Kevin Smith's View Askewniverse films, notably as Dante Hicks in Smith's debut film Clerks and its 2006 sequel, Clerks II.


Adam Baldwin is known for his roles as Animal Mother in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, Ricky Linderman in My Bodyguard, Knowle Rohrer in The X-Files, and Marcus Hamilton in Joss Whedon's Angel. He also established a cult following as Jayne Cobb in the series Firefly and its film sequel Serenity, and for starring as Chad Shelten in Day Break. He currently stars as John Casey on the NBC comedy-spy series Chuck.

The TRANSMETROPOLITAN ART BOOK

Several months back, I heard from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, asking if I'd like to contribute an original piece of art for a book they were producing for charity based upon the Vertigo Comics series, TRANSMETROPOLITAN, by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson. I quickly jumped at the chance, even though I was ashamed to say I had never read the book. Yes, I was a huge fan of the creators from their other projects, but somehow the long running Vertigo series slipped by me. Hey, I read a ton of comics and I can't read everything, right? Right? True, but sometimes the really good stuff slips by, like TRANSMET.

I saw the list of contributors, (see list of heavy-hitters below) and knew I'd have to do something special to earn my place among them. I'm not a "comics artist" per se, I'm a photographer, so I needed to play to my strengths. I decided I'd do a Photocomic, like what I do with my CulturePOP series. But, what would be the narrative? Step one, was read at least one of the books and get a feel for the characters and story.

I quickly devoured the first collection of 6 issues and found myself hooked. How did I miss this series initially? Reminder: One can't read everything. Right. Within two weeks I read 6 volumes and decided my homage to this brilliant series shouldn't be a recreation but some sort of commentary.

The lead character, Spider Jerusalem is a Hunter S. Thompson-esq journalist in a future world rank with corruption. Ellis's commentary felt as fresh to me now as I'm sure it was when the books were first released. Spider, a champion of the truth, could be a prophet for the disenfranchised. People would want to be like Spider. I would do a piece on a guy becoming Spider.

A quick call to my bald buddy, musician and Bald Freak Music label owner Ron "Q*Ball" Scalzo, and a plan was in motion.

I ordered a pair of Spider's signature glasses from etsy.com and seeing Ron in them, it was amazing how much he resembled Spider. A wig was used for panel 1, since Ron's already bald, and thanks to Kenny at Kings County Tattoo for standing in on panel 4. The background in the final two panels come from some photos I had from last years New York Comic-Con at the Jacob Javits Center.

I should be getting my copy in the mail any day now, so I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's contribution and seeing how mine fits.

From the CBLDF site - It has been nearly ten years since the release of the final issue of TRANSMETROPOLITAN, the Eisner-nominated comics series from writer Warren Ellis and artist Darick Robertson. This art book features all new illustrations from the top talents in Comics, with the original co-creators participating, donating a brand new cover and a foreword for the book!

TRANSMETROPOLITAN combines black humor, political scandal, and moral ambiguity to look into the gonzo mind of an outlaw journalist and The City he inhabits. Aided by his embattled Editor and his two Assistants, the protagonist blazes a path through a futuristic world of skyscrapers and technological wonders, dark alleys and unspeakable depravity.

The TRANSMETROPOLITAN Art Book is a lovingly crafted and designed tribute to a seminal work. Contributors include:

Aaron Alexovich, Stephanie Buscema, Jim Calafiore, Stefano Caselli, Cliff Chiang, Richard C. Clark, Kevin Colden,Katie Cooke, Molly Crabapple, Farel Dalrmple, Camilla d'Errico, Gary Erskine, Richard Friend, Dan Goldman, Cully Hamner, Lea Hernandez, Phil Hester, Rantz Hoseley, Matt Howarth, Seth Kushner, Jonathan Luna, Milo Manara, John McCrea, Moritat, Dean Motter, Eduardo Risso, Darick Robertson, Jimmie Robinson, Stuart Sayger, Tim Seeley, Fiona Staples, Bryan Talbot, and many, many others.

The book is available for order now.

The Head Set

A couple of months back I spent a Saturday night bouncing around the LES with my old buddy, Ron "Q*Ball" Scalzo, of the aptly named Bald Freak Music, taking shots of his newly signed band, The Head Set.

The concept for the photos was simply to follow the guys on a night out and capture the vibe of the city and avoid a stiff "band shot". I did a lot of blurred motion type night shots, with the one above being the most successful.

The band's energetic new album is out now and you can get it at their online shop.

LEAPING TALL BUILDINGS - Jeffrey Brown

As can be seen from the photos above, I didn't go very conceptual with Jeffrey, and didn't need to. His work is mainly personal autobio, so it made the most sense to simply photograph him in his life, at work, in his home.

For more about Jeffrey and his work, check out the GRAPHIC NYC profile on him we just posted-
Jeffrey Brown: The Incredible Changing Artist!

I'll post the other Chicago subjects and more soon.

ICONS OF FANDOM

Concluding my latest additions to this series, here's a varied collection of "Icons."

Gary Busey has appeared in over 120 films, including; Lethal Weapon (1987), Point Break (1991), The Firm (1993) and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in 1978 for his role inThe Buddy Holly Story. He has also made regular television appearances on Gunsmoke, Walker, Texas Ranger, Law & Order, and Entourage.

Michael Gross is an actor whose most notable roles are father Steven Keaton from Family Ties and the Graboid hunter Burt Gummer from the Tremors franchise.

Robert Knepper is an actor best known for starring as Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell in the Fox network's drama series, Prison Break, for which he was nominated for a Satellite Award. He has also appeared in the films Hitman (2007) and Transporter 3 (2008), and joined the cast of Heroes for its fourth season and recently Stargate Universe.

Peter Ostrum is a former child actor whose only film role was Charlie Bucket in the 1971 motion picture Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

Michael Bollner is a German former child actor who played Augustus Gloop in the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Lloyd Kaufman is a film director, producer, screenwriter and occasional actor. With producer Michael Herz, he is the co-founder of Troma Entertainment film studio, and the director of many of their feature films, including The Toxic Avenger and Tromeo and Juliet.

Dean Stockwell is an actor of film and television, active for over 60 years. He played Rear Admiral Albert "Al" Calavicci in the NBC television series Quantum Leap and in the Sci Fi Channel revival of Battlestar Galactica as Brother Cavil. He is also known for To Live and Die in L.A., Blue Velvet and Married to the Mob.

CulturePOP Photocomix

Seth Kushner's CulturePOP:

"Photocomix Profiles of Real-Life Characters"

on ACT-I-VATE.com, FREE

All 24 episodes available free:

Elyssa Loveless: Performance

Clark Gayton: My Sousaphone

Caits Meissner: Dear Roger

Carlos 'Mare 139' Rodriguez: The Full Circle

Melisa Winitzky: Rooftop Yoga

The Super Sucklord: Culture Jamming

John D'Aponte: The Family 'Stache

Jennie Fiske: Ukulele Dreams

Olga Karmansky: Rightside-Up

Jonny Wilson: Eclectic Imagery

Jen Ferguson: Bridge Work

Douglas Rushkoff: Taking Back The World

Baron Ambrosia: Flavor of the Bronx

Lisa Natoli: The Aerialist

Dean Haspiel: The Angel

Rachel Kramer Bussel: Bound

Matthew O'Brien: Underworld

Reggie Watts: Just Riffin'

Tim Hall: Exile

Dave Franzese: Life In The Dark Igloo

Jihae: Fig Leaf

Akim Funk Buddha: Urban Tea Ceremony

Nancy Schwartzman: Drawing The Line

Cynthia Von Buhler: Royal Blood

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, designerJohn 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 performerJennie 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 launched Tuesday 10/5 with a photocomix profile on Bronx Flavor TV host Baron Ambrosia. Other Season2 scintillating subjects: 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 (full list above).

“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.

Seth Kushner's photographic portraits of celebrity-types have appeared in such publications The New York Times Magazine, Time, Newsweek, Businessweek, L'Uomo Vogue, The New Yorker 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 (with Christopher Irving) and working on his next book, Leaping Tall Building: The Origins of American Comic Books. Seth first comics work was Schmuck (with artist Kevin Colden) and can be seen on ACT-I-VATE.

ICONS OF FANDOM

Following up on my earlier Ernest Borgnine post from Monday, here are a few more Icons I photographed this past weekend.

Butch Patrick is a former American child actor and is widely known for his role on the TV show The Munsters (1964–1966) where he played Eddie Munster,

Dana Ashbrook is an actor best known for playing Bobby Briggs on the cult TV series Twin Peaks (1990–1991) and its 1992 prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.

Hal Linden is a stage and television actor and television director, best known for his starring role in the television comedy series Barney Miller (1975 - 1982).

Robert Romanus is an actor and is best remembered for his role in the 1982 comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High as the ticket scalper Mike Damone, and as Natalie Green's boyfriend Snake on The Facts of Life.

SPIDERS EVERYWHERE!!

CulturePOP Photocomix may be done for the moment, but I'm still doing Photocomix. I've collaborated with writer Chris Miskiewicz on his EVERYWHERE Anthology. The piece, SPIDERS EVERYWHERE, is an homage to B-movies of yesterday and features a young woman being terrorized by thousands of creepy, crawly SPIDERS!

SPIDERS EVERYWHERE is Written by Chris Miskiewicz, Photocomix by Seth Kushner, edited by Dean Haspiel and starring Cat Cabral, David Blatt and Gerry Perrer.



See it here - http://activatecomix.com/120-5-1.comic


The premise for, EVERYWHERE created by Chris Miskiewicz, is simple: You wake up to find that millions of animals have appeared EVERYWHERE around the world at the same moment. What happened and what does it mean when the natural world has gone horribly wrong? Every month Chris teams up with a different artist to illustrated his latest tale. Past contributors have included; Andrew Wendel, Rick Parker, Bobby Timony and Nathan Schreiber.

Working on SPIDERS was a unique challenge for me. Aside from shooting it in a style similar to that of a dramatized film, I had to create literally thousands of spiders! Chris proved to be an ideal collaborator by writing a well-paced script, casting actors and providing egg and cheese sandwiches on the day of the shoot.

Comments welcome and appreciated, as always. Hope you enjoy it!

Ernest Borgnine - Icons of Fandom

I spent Saturday at the Chiller Theater out in NJ, continuing my Icons of Fandom series. I'll post more this week, but for now, here's my portraits of Ernest Borgnine, an actor whose career has spanned six decades. He's best know for his role in the 1955 film Marty, for which he won an Oscar, the 1962-66 series McHale's Navy, as well as in The Vikings, The Flight of the Phoenix, The Dirty Dozen, Ice Station Zebra, The Poseidon Adventure , The Black Hole and The Wild Bunch.

Part of the limitations of this series has been the short amount of time I get with each subject and the convention center/hotel environments which have led me to do very close shots with obscure backgrounds. The pulled back shot above gives me some much needed variety, I think and gives the impression of a living room, even though it was actually a hotel ballroom and a line of over 100 people were waiting for autographs just to my left.

ACT-I-VATE on The Webcomic Beacon Podcast

This past weekend, myself and a few fellow ACT-I-VATErs sat down to record a discussion with The Webcomic Beacon. It was all done over Skype, so at least I assume everyone was sitting.
We each spoke about ACT-I-VATE, it's history and how it works, as well as the evolution of our individual projects and future plans. Included in the discussion were:

Troy Wilson of PANELS FOR PRIMATES, Chris Miskiewicz of EVERYWHERE, Seth Kushner of CulturePOP, Dov Torbin of THE REVOLUTION WILL BE TELEVISED, and James Smith of GANG OF FOOLS.

Here host Fes mangle our names here! http://webcomicbeacon.com/episode-183/

CulturePOP Photocomix - LIVE READING

CulturePOP Photocomix broke the fourth wall last night with a live reading at the KGB Bar, as part of the Tom Hart's Sequential Artists Workshop's Annual Fundraiser Reading & Benefit.

Designer John D'Aponte read my profile on him, The Family 'Stache (http://activatecomix.com/104-4.comic) and Jennie Fiske (AKA-Plucky Charms) read her profile, Ukulele Dreams (http://activatecomix.com/104-10.comic).

There was a tremendous turnout for a rainy Easter Sunday, so much so both the theater and the bar had to be utilized. The night went long, and organizer Tom Hart dashed around like a mad man coordinating, but folks seemed to be in good spirits.

Lots of great cartoonists will be read their work as well, including: Dean Haspiel and Daniel J Kramer, John Kerschbaum, Lizz Hickey, Josh Bayer, Domitille Collardey, Leela Corman, Sam Henderson, Leslie Stein, Martha Keavney, Stephanie Mannheim.

CulturePOP Photocomix - LIVE READING

CulturePOP Photocomix is on hiatus at the moment, but there will be a live reading by two CP subjects reading my profiles of them at KGB Bar this Sunday as part of the Sequential Artists Workshop's Annual Fundraiser Reading & Benefit.

Designer John D'Aponte will be reading The Family 'Stache (http://activatecomix.com/104-4.comic) and Jennie Fiske will be reading Ukulele Dreams (http://activatecomix.com/104-10.comic). The images will be projected on a screen behind the readers. Additionally, lots of great cartoonists will be reading their work, including:

Dean Haspiel and Daniel J Kramer
John Kerschbaum
Lizz Hickey
Josh Bayer
Domitille Collardey
Leela Corman
Seth Kushner and readers
Sam Henderson
Leslie Stein
Martha Keavney
Stephanie Mannheim


Easter Sunday, April 24 · 7:00pm - 9:30pm

KGB Bar Upstairs Theater
85 E. 4th Street
New York, NY

More details here - http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=144881678910836

Hope to see you!

CulturePOP Photocomix book debuts at MoCCA Arts Fest

Above are the front and back covers to the CulturePOP Photocomix books I've self-published. They are a limited edition of 400, 36-pages, and are full-color. The dimensions are 5.5" x 8.5" horizontal format. The book collects four remastered versions of my profiles on; Sucklord, Baron Ambrosia, Lisa Natoli and Carlos 'Mare 139' Rodriguez.
I'm going to debut it at the MoCCA Arts Fest this coming weekend on April 9 & 10, at the Lexington Avenue Armory. I'll be at the ACT-I-VATE/Undie Press table I1, on the south side of the Armory (the side with EXIT) sitting with Tim Hall, Chris Miskiewicz and Kevin Kobasic.

Please stop by if you plan to be at the show.