2006–2016
LUST, the “Lustlab Ad of the Week” collection, is going to the printer on Friday. SOoooo exciting!!!
“Lustlab Ad of the Week” is a comic adaptation of one of the week’s kinky personal ads in Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger, and I post them here every Wednesday. See it on their site here. LUST, the “Lustlab Ad of the Week” book collection, is scheduled to be released with Fantagraphics Books in January 2008.
A new review in the Chicago Sun-Times suggests that I “channel” Junior – which is EXACTLY what I was trying to do:
“Junior is an aspiring artist — vividly channeled by Ellen Forney — and his scribblings provide another layer of understanding and levity to the story. The drawing of American-Indian wannabe Ted (“I’m not Indian … but I feel Indian in my bones”) should give anyone with a Pendleton jacket pause.”
Also, it looks like I may be joining Sherman for his Seattle readings on October 11 at the Central Public Library and October 30 in Lake Forest Parkway (where is that??). News on that when it comes.
I bought a package of bafflingly-named “Famous Dogs” cigarettes years ago while traveling around China with my brother, and have always wanted to draw the pups on the packaging.
“Lustlab Ad of the Week” is a comic adaptation of one of the week’s kinky personal ads in Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger, and I post them here every Wednesday. See it on their site here. LUST, the “Lustlab Ad of the Week” book collection, is scheduled to be released with Fantagraphics Books in January 2008.
Here’s another enthusiastic review of Diary, with this about me:
“Arnold wants to be an artist. He’s constantly drawing comics about his life on crumpled scraps of paper, which the reader sees every few pages. These black-and-white drawings are by Seattle-based cartoonist Ellen Forney, who, through a mix of rough sketches and more artfully done images, captures the frustrated Arnold’s isolation, anger and humor as well as the situations that are driving him to put pen to paper.”
I got this pose from an 1835 painting by Peter Fendi, in Taschen’s Erotica Universalis. One real challenge for me in doing a “couple seeking” comic is to show a couple that’s not just together, but look like they’re welcoming someone else. This couple was originally kissing – a pose I obviously altered.
“Lustlab Ad of the Week” is a comic adaptation of one of the week’s kinky personal ads in Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger, and I post them here every Wednesday. See it on their site here. LUST, the “Lustlab Ad of the Week” book collection, is scheduled to be released with Fantagraphics Books in January 2008.
Book with Sherman Alexie is getting great, great reviews. My art is “hilarious” (Santa Cruz Sentinel) and “adds levity and summary to the story line” (The Oregonian).
Also, from a recent interview with Sherman in the Seattle Times:
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Q: And were the cartoons your idea?
A: Yeah. When I started writing it as a novel, for some reason in the first paragraph, I made [the main character] a cartoonist. I sent Ellen Forney, who is a friend of mine, about a page, I think, and I said, “Can you draw a cartoon of this?” About five minutes later, it came back over the e-mail. So she was a part of this five minutes into its creation.
I’m getting angry, though, because people are assuming I had nothing to do with the illustrations, that the press hired her. It was a really collaborative effort. Some of them I dictated, some of them we did together, some of them she did on her own.
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I’m glad Sherman is noting that, because he and I did work together really intensely. (And, I did do a lot of it on my own!)
I had never heard of a Sybian. What a hunk of machinery! Bonus: here’s a video of Carmen Electra riding one on the Howard Stern show.
“Lustlab Ad of the Week” is a comic adaptation of one of the week’s kinky personal ads in Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger, and I post them here every Wednesday. See it on their site here. LUST, the “Lustlab Ad of the Week” book collection, is scheduled to be released with Fantagraphics Books in January 2008.
I’ve been remiss in posting the fabulous reviews of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the book I did with Sherman Alexie. My comics/illustrations are “witty,” “insightful,” and a few times just referred to as “Junior’s drawings” (the main character). I’ll take as a compliment and assume the reviewer was swept into thinking they were “real”. Here’s a link to the reviews on Sherman’s site.
The show went GREAT. Many thanks to emcee Whitney Pastorek, who did a hilarious acoustic version of Stairway to Heaven; Miss Indigo Blue, who restaged her brilliant Lemon Song burlesque number; and the Dt’s, who totally rocked, as they always do.
Me with my slick headset mic:
Photo credit: sciencevsromance.net
By showtime, the Bagley Wright Theater (850 seats!) was standing room only (!!) – it was pretty wild to come out on stage and see people packed all the way up the balcony. I was told later that at least a hundred people waited outside through most of the show, hoping to get in when other people left.