Six Chix: The Comic Strip

I have to admit this cartoon is a bit of stretch for celebrating Chinese New Year. It was drawn in 1994, before I was syndicated – before I had an editor, etc.

And this one – also a little strange, and also drawn in 1994 – is  in honor of 2012 as the  Year of the Dragon. Hope you enjoy celebrating Chinese New Year  - and hope you have a wonderful year – full of good luck and prosperity!

Looking at Isabella’s and Margaret’s posts about sketchbooks I have to say I am a bit envious. I almost never use a sketchbook.
Instead, I use copy paper. LOTS of it. recently, a friend of my husband who recycles computers and printers gave him a LARGE amount of copy paper reclaimed (not used!) from the printers. Hooray! It is like Christmas.

Plus, for whatever reason, my pens love this paper. Maybe because it’s pretty dry since we have it sitting in the dining room area since we have no place to stash it right now without it taking on dampness.

I won’t be running out, anytime soon, so lots of time and paper to draw and experiment!

Please accept my apologies in advance if this cartoon seems insensitive. I don’t always know the best way to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr’s  birthday. In New York, it  doesn’t take much effort to explore other cultures, and eating Chinese takeout might not count. Also, from what I’ve read about  General Tsao, his life might not jibe with Dr.King’s vision of a “method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation”. However, with help from my friend Harley Spiller, I am becoming more educated about Chinese food. Hope you enjoy this episode of “Snack Tracker”.

An artist friend gave me a small, spiral bound, sketchbook for Christmas. Sketchbooks are like candy to me and I’ve learned over time that there’s no point in saving them for some great work of art. So In the evening with the TV on I play.

There is often  no rhyme or reason for a drawing; it all depends on the first shape I make on the paper. That’s how this first one came about. I wasn’t feeling angry or suspicious but that girl was.

The next drawing is a not very interesting doodle. Hey, sometimes you’re inspired and sometimes you’re just moving the pen around.

See what I mean?

The next drawing comes from deep in my subconscious. As a very little kid I spent hours, days, weeks, and months attempting to draw a horse. I remember the moment I finally succeeded in creating a chalk drawing of a horse that pleased me. It felt like the most amazing accomplishment ever achieved. I wasn’t quite four. The horses come unbidden now.

Last night I was thinking of Van Gogh and his Olive Tree. These are neither great art or olive trees but they are my hills and my trees and that’s good enough. My sketchbooks are not about anything but the joy of pen on paper.

More some other day. In the meantime, try drawing just for the fun of it.

Magritte once said “This is not a pipe”and the image above  is not an image by the artist Cattelan. It is a cover of Pinocchio illustrated by Richard Floethe, published in 1937. I reached for it after seeing Cattelan’s show at the Guggenheim. Cattelan’s  life sized donkeys, chickens and children reminded me of Italian fairy tales, but the fact that they were all hanging like marionettes clinched the connection to Pinocchio. Add to that  themes like :What is a real boy? Do we really have free will? A conscience? etc., and the connection becomes even clearer.

Continuing on my jaunt through Museum Mile (afforded by a week long winter holiday break) I sketched from one of Goya’s paintings at the Frick, Dona Maria Martinez de Puga.

I don’t know much this painting but found it very compelling. Goya fans will have to forgive my scribbling on lined note paper.

At the  Frick there were also  early drawings by Picasso. When they said early, they meant it. They had them from age 9, 11 and 15.  His “Woman with Pitcher” was done when he was 28, and in the real version, she is not cross-eyed as I have her here. So thanks for coming along on this ersatz museum trip. Next time, I will bring better paper.

Besides tidying up after the holidays and making resolutions, January’s tasks usually include returning or exchanging things. That’s the basis for this cartoon from 2007. Hope we all have a wonderful 2012!

Merry Christmas Chix fans!!! Here’s a little something different I drew up for today. I did a series from the mid to late 80′s called “The Terrible Tea Time” which featured two women who were best friends and lived together and their ups and downs. It was pretty alternative. I was watching the season finale of  “American Horror Story”  the other night and found it to have a surprisingly heart-warming Christmas element to it. Just the kind of thing the Tea Time ladies would enjoy…so here they are:

Here are more winter holiday themed cartoons. Mine is based on the idea of what might happen if Santa’s elves decided to sit down and calculate their hourly rate. The other is a greeting card given to me by New York NCS chapter member, Hart Waltman, and is part of his annual snow globe tradition.

I grew up in central New York where the snow piles up in heaps.  [Don't let anyone kid you, Syracuse beats Buffalo when it comes to miserable winters!]  I made a few snowmen as a kid but preferred tunneling into the deep blue of my snow caves. Frosty didn’t impress me much; he was all about candy and his hat. But as the years went on  I found I had a fondness for the round shapes of the snow people. They turn up in my Six Chix work and in my Sticks calendars. So here are four from my note card collection. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Solstice!

Here is the cover to the latest issue of World War 3 Illustrated, a comic book by a group of activist cartoonists. The subtitle “From the Mid-East to the Mid-West” encapsulates the ties between the protest movements of Madison, Wisconsin, Cairo, Egypt, and Occupy Wall Street. Below is a panel from a story by “Tamara Tornado”. She describes an unpopular government housing program in the area of Luxor, Egypt.

These are not the funny pages. The stories are brutal, sad, uplifting, enlightening and whimsical, but all of them present perspectives and details about workers rights and protest movements that will not be found elsewhere . And all are well drawn and well written. Available from Top Shelf Comix.

I was particularly interested that the location of this comic book is Cairo. My mother grew up  there between 1929 and 1947. I went for a visit in 1983. Here is an excerpt from my “travel comic” in progress about that trip: