Cartoons Out of Nowhere!

Wasn't Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island" great? What, you didn't see it? Get thee to a theater now!
This one ran on February 2nd, 2010. I really like doing conceptual cartoons like this one; strips that really play with the medium and have fun. Drawing the strip was pure joy, and I knew at the time I was doing something special.

By the way, for you "No Exit Nearby" fanatics out there, many of the characters in the background have appeared in the strip before in minor roles. There are some obscure ones in there, so you better keep the NEN Wikipedia article ready.
February 4th, 2010. I think you can tell on which days I just want to draw monsters. This was one of them. For those curious, the three monsters in panel two are: an ant from Them!, James Arness as the Thing from Another World, and the fly from the original 1958 version of The Fly.
February 10th, 2010. I think this is the third time I've drawn an Avatar related strip, which, considering how much fucking money this thing has made, is warranted. The idea of using Avatar to pimp incredibly dangerous Toyota cars rather than fixing them struck me as very amusing. I'm surprised it didn't happen.

Also, that second panel kinda sweet. Oh James Cameron, you've made me believe in blue cat people.

All Cartoons Attack!

Sorry I haven't been posting recently. School's been pretty busy, and I've been working on an animation demo reel.

But enough of that livejournal nonsense, let's post some cartoons!
This one ran on January 21st, 2010. I figured I should probably do a cartoon about Haiti Relief, but I wanted to make sure it wasn't sappy or condescending. Cartoon violence proved to be the best answer.
January 27th, 2010. I thought this one turned out to be a suitably bizarre tribute to the late Ted Kennedy. The fact that the caricature actually looks a little like Kennedy really made me happy.
January 28th, 2010. One of the things I try to avoid in my cartoons is really overt anger. I've found that anger and didactic-ism usually make for poor cartoons, and I was infuriated by the Supreme Court decision mentioned in the strip. By really going all out into goofiness I managed to make my point, without being on a soapbox and just yelling at the reader. Plus, I really like drawing giant monsters.

And yes, that turtle is Gamera.

The Editors Return!

Hey folks, let's dig something out of the vault! In my last post, I talked about the two editors, Mike and Al, who used to appear in "No Exit Nearby" quite a bit before mysteriously vanishing. For awhile this story arc was their final appearance, and the only time they ever met Jim and Jillian.

Part 1:


Part 2:

Part 3:

Damn, now that I look these strips again, they're actually pretty funny. I have no idea why I dropped the characters.

By the way, the above strips were done exclusively for my Facebook profile (friend me!), as a way of keeping my drawing skills fresh during the summer of 2008. It was a fun experiment that produced some of my favorites. Keep tuning in and maybe I'll show you some more.

More Cartoons For You

Hey, here are some more "No Exit Nearby" cartoons. Both of these ran last week.

The CNN guys are two characters that used to appear in the strip a lot. They usually fulfilled whatever pointlessly bureaucratic role that needed filling. They've been the editors of "Time" magazine, Newscorp execs, ABC execs, sitcom writers, and now CNN editors.

Originally, Jillian was going to name the celebrity in the final panel (i.e. "I bet it's Tom Berenger; there's something weird about him"), but I doubted that my editors would find the allegation that a celebrity was responsible for 9/11 all that amusing (at least not their legal department). So I changed it to "one of those "Little House on the Prairie Kids,"" making it less specific and a little funnier.

I like this one because it's so weirdly mean. I think I wanted to do a cartoon about Steven Soderbergh's "Che," and through the process it fell into this particular take on it. From there I decided to include as many ridiculous stereotypes as I could, so I could offend the UW campus socialists and conservatives at the same time.

Originally the cartoon began with an Editor's Note. My editor told me to make it "Cartoonist's note" instead, somehow fearing (I think) that people would believe The Daily endorsed this cartoon. I thought it was pretty silly, but the fact that my editor let this ridiculous cartoon run at all convinced me to play nice.

Both cartoons can be found at The Daily's website, in the Opinion Section.

No Exit Returns

Sorry for not blogging recently. Life got busy again, and blogs have a tendency to fall by the wayside.
"The Daily" started publishing again last week, so I've been drawing a new batch of cartoons. The above is a sequel to one a did a year or two ago, which also gave (hopefully) practical advice to freshmen. Assuming they still read newspapers.
This one was fun to do, because it involved: aliens, monsters, zombies, and Stephen Lang. How times will I get to do that in a student newspaper? (answer: not enough)

It's a minor detail, but I really get a kick out of the tiny Navi's exclamation of horror. It's so goofy.

Bus Taker

I actually enjoy riding the bus, partly because it's a great place to practice your drawing skills. The human body is one of the most difficult things to draw, and you can really never have enough practice.

Bookstores are another great place to do this sort of thing (why do you think they have cafes and reading chairs?).

Bruno ist Coming!

I watched "Bruno" again the other day, and it inspired me to dig up something I'd written about for "The Daily's" blog earlier this summer (I was the blog manager right before The Daily decided to "go in a different direction" with it).

Here it is. For some reason I can't find the article on The Daily's webiste, but the link to the blog is here.

Since we’re all about satire here at “No Exit Nearby” Enterprises, I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk a little bit about Sacha Baron Cohen’s newest film Brüno.

The film tells the story of Brüno (Sacha Baron Cohen), a gay Austrian fashionista bent on becoming “uber-famous,” and who will do anything in his power to achieve this glory. Along the way, Brüno comes to the United States, pitches his own celebrity talk show, travels to the Middle East to solve the Israeli/Palestinian crisis, adopts a black baby, and generally makes a fool of himself and anyone around him.

In this follow-up to his 2006 hit, "Borat," Cohen takes aim at a vast number of subjects, from the idea of instant celebrity to stage parents. But to me, the most fascinating target in the film is the concept of sexuality.

Some have complained that Brüno is an unfair caricature of homosexuality, and the first hour of the film almost bears that out as Brüno is depicted in a number of extremely graphic and bizarre sex scenes. Homosexual sex is portrayed as ridiculous and utterly alien to a heterosexual audience.

However — and we’re getting into spoiler territory here, so reader beware — in the film’s third act, Brüno decides the only way to become famous is to become straight, like his favorite movie stars, Tom Cruise, Kevin Spacey and John Travolta. What then follows in the film are Brüno’s numerous attempts to rid himself of his homosexuality, from visiting a pastor specializing in gay conversion, joining the National Guard and going hunting with three freaked-out hunters.

Late in the film Brüno attends a swingers party and while graphic, absolutely real sex occurs, Brüno stands horrified, unable to understand heterosexuality. The gay sex acts at the beginning of the film might have been ridiculous, but they’re no more ridiculous than the actions of these straight people. Heterosexual sex is just as bizarre as anything Brüno engages in. At least it looked like Brüno was having fun.

The film reaches a climax of sorts — sorry — with Straight Dave’s steel cage match. Straight Dave, Brüno’s alter ego while trying to shed the last of his homosexuality, greets the crowd and whips them into anti-gay, proudly heterosexual fury. He challenges anyone to question his masculinity and is admonished by his spurned lover, Lutz. As the two fight, the crowd delights in the pure spectacle of two men wrestling each other. Their excitements turns to horror, as Brüno and his lover stop fighting and begin to make love on the cage floor. The crowd is visibly shaken as they watch heterosexuality die right before their eyes. From there on out, they will never be able to watch a steel cage without seeing the homosexual overtones.

And that really is the genius of Sacha Baron Cohen, Director Larry Charles and the writers: They managed to take a gay stereotype and make a movie where the joke is the people reacting to him. Brüno is a ridiculous character, but his actions in the film with real people expose the absurdity of all sex. The movie states blatantly that if you’ve got a problem with gay people, take a look at your own sexual practices. You’re a lot sicker than you think you are.

I don’t know if Brüno will change any minds but it takes a gigantic stab in the right direction. Any movie released as a summer blockbuster that makes you feel uncomfortable with your own preconceptions is one worth seeing.

Watching "Bruno" again with a few people who'd never seen it reminded me just how shocking the movie is. There's something about the movie that makes people genuinely uncomfortable. The easy explanation is that they're all homophobes, but I think it goes beyond that. Bruno is such a ferocious sexual being, and the filmmakers have absolutely no inhibitions; the stuff that happens in film goes beyond the cheerfulness of "Borat" into dark, strange territory. It's a potent mix that assured the film's relative failure at the box-office (though 60 million is still a remarkable sum of money for a movie where we're treated to a close-up of a penis spinning around and yelling "Bruno!" at us).

I still think "Bruno" is hilarious, and the passing years will only further cement it as a truly weird, cult classic. See it with someone you love.

And yes it has occurred to me I'm writing about a movie like this on Christmas Eve; it's my gift to you.

Merry Christmas!