Wizarding Weekend
Sun 5/11/2008
Well, I went to the Harry and the Potters show last night at the New York Public Library. It was pretty epic; they had a horn section and everything!
The image above is a postcard I recently finished for the band, as part of their "merch" for this summer's tour (it will be in a set with a few other postcards I guess? Keep an eye out!) It was REALLY fun to work on, and I also did some 1" pin designs for them too, which should be up on my illustration blog next week.
Speaking of which, I'm almost done drawing all the characters for Matthew Reidsma's Harry Potter Drawing challenge! I drew Dumbledore this week, which is maybe my favorite thing I have ever drawn (so far...) Only two more to go and I will move on to a new illustration challenge!
Oh, and just so everyone knows, Cameron alerted me to the fact that Season 3 of The Muppet Show will be out on DVD May 20th! I'm pretty excited (OBVIOUSLY) because it took TWO WHOLE YEARS for season two to come out. So the last nine months felt like they passed relatively quickly!
Anyways, I'll have some good stuff to watch on my breaks this summer while I am chipping away at all my projects!
KARL KOCH!
Wed 5/7/2008
Okay, holy crap, I am TOTALLY flipping out. I just got linked by none other than KARL KOCH, the official 5th member of Weezer!!!!
See a few months ago, when P7 #013 hit the streets, I thought, "Who do I want to send this to?" And for some reason, it had never occurred to me to send my comics to George Lucas. So I sent him some comics, because WHY NOT, right??? And as I was walking back from the mail box I thought, "Wait! I should send some to Rivers Cuomo too!"
I already sent Rivers a batch of Comics back in 2006, but I wasn't sure if he got them (I just sent them to him at the Harvard mailroom, figuring he must have a student mailbox, right?) So this time I looked up the official way to send mail to weezer, and that is (OF COURSE) by first sending it to Karl!
Karl Koch, for those of you that don't know, has been with Weezer since its very inception. He has worked as a guitar tech, roadie, historian and archivist, webmaster, etc. etc. ETC. He does so many different jobs for the band, that on pinkerton, in the liner notes, it lists his credits as "Karl Koch: Karl Koch"
So this is all to say, that when I decided to put some comics in the mail for Rivers, I put some extra comics in the mail for Karl too. Because, goddamnit, Karl is a stand up guy. PART of what makes it so much fun being a weezer fan, is having a direct link to the band, via Karl. He constantly updates the weezer blog, letting us all know what new projects are in the works and what's going on with the band.
A week after I sent out the comics, I got a very polite rejection letter from George Lucas's secretary, saying that it makes him uncomfortable accepting gifts from people he does not know. So she sent back the comics. Which is fine, whatever. But a few weeks after than that (I.E. TONIGHT) Karl wrote the following in the weezer blog:
Random plug dep't: "Phase 7" comics by Alec Longstreth. Alec is an OG weezer fan from the early days, an original '95 fanclubber and everything. He sent me some issued of Phase 7, and as a big indie comics fan I must say, his comics are excellent! Check them out!
To be called "an OG weezer fan" by KARL FREAKING KOCH is the ULTIMATE compliment for a weezer fan. My weezer street cred just went through the friggin ROOF! :D
Home Stretch...
Sun 5/4/2008
Well, spring has sprung here in New York, and the days seem to be alternating between bright and sunshiny, and grey and rainy. I can't decide which I prefer, they are both really nice!
The only bummer is that I have not been able to get outside much. I am heading into the home stretch of teaching for this semester, and what with all the catching up I have to do from my trip out of town, it is going to be a pretty stressful couple of weeks...
Of course, once I reach the end of the semester there are a whole SLEW of projects I have been neglecting, which I will have to dive back into. It feels a bit like a triathlon (not that I've ever done one!) But you know, I've just swam my 3 miles, and I'm on like my 80th mile of biking thinking, "Only 30 more miles to bike!" except that once I'm done, I'll have to run a whole MARATHON.
Well, the ultimate end of the race will be Vermont. I'm trying super hard to keep all of my side projects reined in to just this summer. That way I can head up to CCS and focus solely on Basewood.
In the meantime, I'm still trying to make the most of New York City! On Wednesday this week I'm meeting up with a few of my old art school friends to see The Pratt Show (it will be such a relief to be on the spectator side of the event!), then on Thursday I'm going out to Rutgers to give a talk about Comics for one of my friend Ellie's Library School classes, and then on Saturday Harry and the Potters are playing a show at the main branch of the New York City Public Library. It's going to rule! I can't wait...
Well, anyways, this is all to say I've got a lot of balls up in the air, so I apologize in advance if posts are few and far between in the coming weeks. I hope everyone is enjoying their start of spring!
-- Matthew