blog: things you should check out

Wondermark in the A.V. Club!

I’m pleased to announce that as of this week, classic Wondermark episodes will be running in The Onion’s A.V. Club every Monday and Thursday! Many of you know that Wondermark ran in the print edition of The Onion for several years and it took a global economic collapse to defeat my talon-like hold on that paper. Now, after patiently waiting across the street and pretending to read a magazine since 2008, I’ve managed to sneak into the A.V. Club through an unattended back door and will be frantically hacking some HTML onto their site twice a week until they notice. Check out my curated selection of favorite episodes from Wondermark’s 7+ year history, twice a week at the A.V. Club!

Check out: Me on the FourCast podcast!

Recently I had the honor of being a guest on FourCast, a lively talk show in which various personages issue outlandish predictions regarding all manner of future events. I was pleased to be invited, and despite a technical hiccup or two (which I blame on sinister agents aghast and furious at the cunning accuracy of my predictions), I think it was a smashing show all round.

Here is an MP3 of the episode, or here is the same thing with video:

And, of course, I cannot let this subject pass without a friendly reminder that if you like nonsensical talky stuff, then there’s also my nonsensical talky program Tweet Me Harder! Here is (what I feel is) a particularly strong episode, in which we give an infant the 55-year-old arms of a murderer just to see what happens.

Airplane fish are a GENRE now.

Twice a year, I offer my books in “Artist Edition” — I create a custom unique sketch in every book, for those that desire it. Patrons of the most recent offering are well familiar with my fixation on “flying fish,” by which I mean strange hybrids of fish and aircraft (or fish and armored vechicles, or insects and aircraft, or land mammals and construction equipment). Here are some examples from this spring’s series of Artist Editions:

I will be honest with you: I have harbored furtive dreams of turning this particular subject into an oeuvre, of creating larger and ever-more-complex tableaux of sea creatures/aircraft, engaged in all sorts of aerial hijinks in glorious, full-painted color. (The sketch at the top of this post was an expression of this urge to refine and develop the theme.)

Well, thanks to diligent reader and frequent correspondent Kevin S., I have learned that apparently someone else had the same idea — Roland Tamayo:

I HEREBY DECLARE TAMAYO MY NEMESIS

…although I should point out that my inspiration, and perhaps Tamayo’s as well, was and is the surrealist vehicular work of Stan Mott:

I believe this more comprehensive collection may be Stan’s official site, but with respect, it’s miserable to navigate. However, if you have a little patience you’ll find the charming “History of Tanks” illustration series there, which I’m sure is why 90% of the sketches I’ve done at conventions in the past year have featured tanks in some fashion (usually attached to African wildlife).

Finally, consider this your official warning that the fall Artist Edition series will become available very soon! Before the moon is full! October is going to be a big month, I’m just brimming with exciting news. ALL IN GOOD TIME.

16mm film camera for sale!

I’m selling a 16mm film camera! A bunch of years ago, on a lark, I decided to buy this Krasnogorsk K-3. The K-3 was invented by the Soviet Union to capture battlefield footage on 100-foot spools of film, and it has a wind-up crank so it doesn’t require lugging a battery pack around or any external source of power at all. The 17-69mm F1.9 zoom lens is also removable and swappable (it’s got a Pentax M42 screw mount), and the camera’s even got a built-in speed control to shoot from 8 to 48 frames per second.

Here’s some footage I shot with it a few years ago (apologies for low YouTube quality):

And here is the eBay auction! I’m even offering free shipping (to the U.S.) because I am kind of dumb, and I’ll toss some free Monocle Poppers into the package too. The auction ends tomorrow is over. Thanks!