I am currently watching a television series called The Genius of Design on BBC 2. I happen to have done a little graphic design, when I lived in London, and it is a subject I find compelling.
Design is ubiquitous in modern life and indeed human life. (In a sense, all human action ids) A big part of my interest in Comics and Animation centres on the role design plays in how (and whether or not) they work. Genius of Design focusses on Industrial Design, but I believe that the processes and motivations of design transcend their fields of practice. One of the designers featured on the first programme was Dieter Rams, a German industrial designer whose designs for Braun in the 1960s and '70s are considered iconic.
'Back in the early 1980s, Dieter Rams was becoming increasingly concerned by the state of the world around him – “an impenetrable confusion of forms, colours and noises.” Aware that he was a significant contributor to that world, he asked himself an important question: is my design good design?'
This, then, is the first of a short series of blog posts musing on design, through the lens of Rams's Ten Commandments of Design:
A fortnight ago, Marvel - acting on a complaint by one of its writers that his work had been unlawfully reproduced - requested that Livejournal close its popular Scans_Daily community, where members share scans of comic books.
Duly, a storm of debate broke out on the web about whether or not this was fair or nice. It was all a bit of a palaver, since Scans_Daily ceased trading for all of a week.
Small wonder that the web has given birth to its own copyright waiver, in the form of Creative Commons, with heavyweight intellectual support from Lawrence Lessig, Yochai Benkler and others. Creative Commons basically argues that people (aka users aka consumers) want to make and share more than they want to turn a buck.
This is a nightmare, from a commercial perspective. And here's the rub. The fundamental question is this: Are comic books, or scans of comics, products or texts or both?
To my mind copyright is fundamental not to creativity but to marketing. In this case, copyright 'infringement' affects a publisher's 'right' to make a profit. Potential (though by no means proven) knock-ons may be a saturation of the market with product, lowering its value and devaluing the creator's product.
Those are big ifsand copyright holders seem more concerned with prosecuting their rights than proving their case.
If the unwelcome posting of scans were merely a moral issue, the writer might have taken it up with the offending poster or the Scans_Daily community, in general. The fact that Marvel intervened speaks to the commercial interests that were deemed to be threatened.
Let's face it, what internet users (aka people) want to do - at least as much as shopping or anything else - is to share and gossip. Scans_Daily is the equivalent of a bunch of comics fans sitting around and pointing out the 'good bits' to one another.
The issue is going nowhere fast. Nor, for now, is Scans_Daily.
This year, Dublin: One City, One Book - Dublin's annual celebration of literature - celebrates native son Bram Stoker's Dracula for the month of April.
Paul Grist (self-publisher and creator of Kane and Jack Staff), one of my very favourite comics creators, is posting a new web-comic! It's called The Eternal Warrior (I think!) and looks amazing!
Really does look good. Very faithful to the look and feel of the comic. A lot of people dislike the anti-climactic ending of the comic, so it will be interesting to see if the film gives it more impact. You can view a much bigger, clearer trailer here.
Wired has a good article about the Hollywood 'goldrush' for comic properties.
Described as an open mic night for comic artists, comic creators are challenged to produce a one-page strip on a pre-decided topic or theme.
It's a bit of fun for the contributors, tests their skills (presumably) - a bit like 24 hour comics - and seems to provoke some interesting creative responses.
The last round was themed on 'The End of the World,' so this round's theme (stories from school days) is decidedly lighter.
Contributors are invited to take inspiration from the wonderful Playground Law, but I hope the creators draw on their personal experiences of excruciating shame and embarrassment.
Incidentally, Playground Law also provides a handy questionnaire to help you choose a career. It seems I am best suited to become one of the following:
Ever wanted a greeting card for somebody you didn't particularly like? Why is this group neglected, just because they are jerks? Colleen Marlow says enough! She has cornered this market. She also caters for the non-jerk crowd.
Little is known about Golden Age comics artist Fletcher Hanks, but that he made some very weird comics. Hanks is probably known for the unintentional humour in his exclamatory captions and impassive, sociopathic heroes, but that tells only half the story.
Hanks allied his crude storytelling to powerful, eerie images, with a strong graphic sense in titles such as...
Euro 2008 has arrived and with it a cornucopia of improbably named footballers! Here's how I see the European Awesome Football Names Cup 2008 panning out.
First to be eliminated will be Croatia, which includes only the awesomely-named Srna, in its lineup. Greece will fair little better, leaving Patsatzoglou alone up front.
The Czech Republic and Italy will stall in the group stages, with only Ujfalusi and Skacel, andGrosso and Quagliarella, carrying the standards, respectively. It is imperative that Switzerland cultivates more awesomely-named players like Hakan Yakin and Gygax, if it is to compete in the World Awesome Football Names Cup in 2010.
Austria will put in some brave performances, with Ivanschitz, Standfest and Korkmaz and Germany will battle fiercly, thanks to the the awesomely-named efforts of Schweinsteiger, Hitzlsperger and Odonker.
France will really miss Bixente Lizarazu and Zinedine Zidane, although Squillaci, Boumsong and Mandanda will work hard. Portugal features the impressively-named Nuno Espirito Santo, Pepe and Nani, but is unlikely to reach the later stages of the competition. Spain will plop out of the competition too, despite the best efforts of Palop, Capdevila and De La Red.
Thanks to the Gabulov, Bilyaletdinov, Zyryanov and Pavlyuchenko, Russia is likely to make the quarter-finals for the first time ever! Sweden should also make the quarter-finals thanks to Shaaban, Stoor, Ljungberg and Allback.
Poland has pedigree (and lots of 'k's and 'z's); I see Boruc, Bak, Jop, Pisczczek, Gargula, Wawrzyniak and company fighting valiantly, but being beaten to third place by Romania's Popa, Chivu, Ghionea, Sapunaru, Rat, Dica and Mutu.
In another year the European Awesome Football Names 2008 Cup would surely go to Holland, whose awesomely-named squad included the likes of Stekelenburg, Ooijer, Boulahrouz, Heitinga, De Zeeuw, Huntelaar, Kuyt and of course Vennegoor of Hesselink!
But yet again they will be denied in a final, this time by the powerful Turkey, whose squad is strong, deep and full of names that read like Science Fiction villains. I predict that Volkan Demirel (see above), Tolga Zengin, Emre Belizoglu, Gokhan Zan, Hamit Altintop, Rustu Recber will lead the likes of Gungor and Sarioglu to a closely-contested, but well-earned victory.
Celebrate by using any of these six free design/illustration/image editing tools online (and off):
The Gimp - and for those who can't imagine using anything other than Photoshop, there's GimpShop, which adapts the Photoshop interface and hotkeys for Gimp!
Ah the Belgians! Always flying the balloon for comics and being (improbably) the centre of the European Union.
Do Your Strip is a project that brings together 50 (or maybe 70?) comics illustrators to design characters - such as this one by Mr Clement - and draw a short strip.
Ah ha! But they must do a strip showing how to draw their character, so that children (and me) can draw their own strips with them. Nice!
The resulting strips will be exhibited in Brussels - at time of writing, this seems to be on hold - and published as a book (of which you can download a PDF preview. Nice work Belgians!)
It's a shame that my native Ireland is so relatively comics illiterate, because this kind of thing would get anybody excited. An exhibition that parents would enjoy bringing their kids to.
Whether or not you like the Impressionists (I prefer the fringe characters, like Manet and especially Degas), it's an amazing exhibition.
One of the Impressionists' innovations was to take painting outdoors, en plein air and they are known as colourists, but this exhibition - which is full of Degas, including some of his very famous pieces -features some wonderful draughtsmanship.
I really like the exhibition space at the National Gallery. It's compact and bright. And the restaurant downstairs is wonderful!
Remi George, better known as Hergé - the creator of Tintin - is 101 today. Today a huge worldwide industry has grown up around Tintin - spawning shops and merchandise and countless books and a long-anticipated film adaptation by Steven Spielberg - but, says comic critic Paul Gravett:
'Hergé - the Belgian-born father of Tintin - remains a figure who inspires devotion, controversy and, most of all, mystery.'
Gravett's article is very interesting, as are the commentaries from Chris Ware and Micheal Faber.
Genius of Design focusses on Industrial Design, but I believe that the processes and motivations of design transcend their fields of practice. One of the designers featured on the first programme was Dieter Rams, a German industrial designer whose designs for Braun in the 1960s and '70s are considered iconic.
