Tag Archives: adrian tomine

The Strand Tote Bag Design Contest

Call for Entries, Current Students, design, Illustration Industry, Inspiration, News, , , , , , , , , ,

The Strand Book Store has partnered with the School of Visual Arts, TOON Books, Drawn & Quarterly and Fantagraphics Books to host a tote bag design contest.

Beginning March 1, 2010, artists from around the world are invited to submit original illustrations featuring the Strand Book Store.

In June 2007, the Strand unveiled the first Artist Tote Bag: Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman loaned his iconic Maus image for the first time ever to celebrate the Strand’s 80th birthday. The Strand then partnered with artists each year, including Adrian Tomine, Seth and Parsons Illustration Alum and Faculty member R. Sikoryak, creating the Strand’s Artist Tote Series. Now, the Strand Book Store wants to give emerging artists the opportunity to have their artwork featured on a Strand tote bag.

Now, the Strand Book Store wants to give emerging artists the opportunity to have their artwork featured on a Strand tote bag.

Contest Dates

March 1-March 31, 2010

Design Requirements

  • The illustration must represent the Strand Book Store.
  • The illustration must include the artist’s signature, “Strand Book Store NYC” and “strandbooks.com” or a representation of the Strand logo (as seen on this page).
  • Size of Illustration: Artwork must be no larger than 11″w x 10″h.
  • Line Weight: Use a minimum of a 2 pt. rule.
  • Halftones: Must be at a 40 line screen or less, with percentages no less than 20% or greater than 60%.
  • No Trapping: If colors come in contact with each other they CAN NOT overlap.
  • Typestyles: Should be no smaller than 20 pt. on 15 oz. fabric with a minimum of 2 pt. rule. Do not use reverse type smaller than 22 pt. with a minimum line rule of 3 pt. Avoid serif typefaces! Their detail tends to get lost in the canvas.

Contest is open to all, aged 18 and above. The Contest is void where prohibited. Please see official rules below.

Judges:

  • Françoise Mouly, Art Editor of The New Yorker & Editorial Director of TOON Books
  • Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer Prize winning comic artist
  • Steven Heller, co-chair MFA Designer as Author Program, School of Visual Arts
  • R. Sikoryak, creator of the book, Masterpiece Comics
  • Adrian Tomine, author of the bestselling book, Shortcomings

Prizes

Grand Prize

  • artwork on Strand tote bag, sold in store and online w/ attendant marketing-artist name on all materials
  • an afternoon with Françoise Mouly and staff at TOON Books offices
  • complete set of Drawn & Quarterly’s 2009 titles (value: $450)
  • a selection of new and recent Fantagraphics Books releases (value: $450)
  • complete set of TOON Books (value: $150)
  • $100 Think Coffee Gift Card
  • artwork featured in slideshow on partners’ websites

Second Prize

  • complimentary Continuing Education class at School of Visual Arts (value $470)
  • a selection of signed Drawn & Quarterly books (value $90)
  • “I Don’t Like to Read” TOON Books basket (value: $70)
  • a selection of new and recent Fantagraphics Books releases (value: $50)
  • $100 Think Coffee Gift Card
  • artwork featured in slideshow on partners’ websites

Third Prize

  • DaVinci Artist Supply Gift Card (value $300)
  • “Beginning Reader” TOON books basket (value: $70)
  • a selection of signed Drawn & Quarterly books (value $50)
  • a selection of new and recent Fantagraphics Books releases (value: $50)
  • $100 Think Coffee Gift Card
  • artwork featured in slideshow on partners’ websites

20 Finalists will receive a Strand tote bag filled with Fantagraphics & TOON Books gifts and a $20 Strand gift card.

r. sikoryak's tote for the strand!

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Drawn & Quarterly at the Brooklyn Book Fair (feat. R. Sikoryak!)

cartoons, comics, Education, Events, Illustration Alumni, Illustration Faculty, Illustration Industry, Inspiration, Publications, , , , , , , , , , ,

d/q signing

Drawn & Quarterly to exhibit at the Brooklyn Book Fair/Festival on Sunday, September 13th!
20th Anniversary Party at Brooklyn’s Rocketship on Saturday, September 12th!
Guy Delisle, R. Sikoryak, R.O. Blechman, Adrian Tomine, Gabrielle Bell and Ron Rege Jr!

For the third year in a row, D+Q will be exhibiting at the Brooklyn Book Festival. The festival has kindly invited Guy Delisle (Burma Chronicles, Pyongyang, Shenzhen) to be a special guest on the festival’s international stage, which will mark Delisle’s first-ever NYC event. D+Q cartoonists in attendance will be [Parsons Illustration Alum and Faculty] R. Sikoryak (Masterpiece Comics), R. O. Blechman (Talking Lines), Adrian Tomine (Shortcomings), Gabrielle Bell (Cecil & Jordan In New York) and Ron Rege Jr. (Skibber Bee Bye, Against Pain). To celebrate such a momentous gathering of D+Q cartoonists as well as toast to the company’s 20th Anniversary, please join us for cocktails at the Brooklyn purveyor of fine comics, Rocketship, on Saturday evening.

Saturday, September 12th, 7:00 PM
Rocketship, 208 Smith Street, Brooklyn, NY
http://rocketshipstore.blogspot.com/

Sunday, September 13th, 10:00AM-6:00 PM
Brooklyn Book Festival, Borough Hall, Brooklyn NY
http://www.visitbrooklyn.org/festival.html

11:00 AM Guy Delisle on the BBF’s International Stage
11:00-12:00 PM Gabrielle Bell & Ron Rege Jr signing
12:00-2:00 PM Guy Delisle & Adrian Tomine signing
2:00-4:00 PM R. O. Blechman & R. Sikoryak signing
4:00-6:00 PM Guy Delisle & Gabrielle Bell signing

All signings will be at the Drawn & Quarterly booth!

MoCCA Follow-Up Week: Christine Young

cartoons, comics, Current Students, Events, Follow Up, Illustration Faculty, Illustration Industry, Reviews, , , , , , , , ,

MAF09-sml

Editor’s Note: This week, we are featuring three entries by students who worked at the Parson’s Illustration tables at the MoCCA Festival this past June.  Our final narrative installment is by newly minted Illustration Alum, Christine Young.

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The MoCCA Fest was so much funnnn! Even though it was really hot in there and I felt like I was about to pass out by the end of it, I would have gladly done so because it was such a great experience seeing a bunch of great art, comics, zines and shirts and meeting cool artists and people from all around the world all under one huge roof! Our Parsons Illustration table had a lot of great prints, books and zines by our fellow students (ya’ll rule), and we sold a bunch too! Among those who were there repping our department were: Beryl Chung, Sophia Chang, Katie Turner, Grace Lang, Sydney Seltzer, Kevin Lee, and Steven Guarnaccia.

Along with selling and trading, I did alot of buying cuz it’s really hard not to cuz of all the amazing things, which was very overwhelming, in the best way possible. I was running around like a school kid after lunch. There were Parsons teachers there too at their own tables such as Neil Swaab, Nora Krug and Tara McPherson selling mad stuff, ya know, no big. And, there were guest lectures by artists such as Adrian Tomine and Gary Panter who were signing stuff all day. Sophia got Adrian to sign her a poster and book, and he did a really cool doodle and I was jealous.

And soooo to sum it up, by the end of the day I went home from Mocca a very happy person with a bag full of awesome comics, zines, shirts and most importantly, a brand new list of art crushes.

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Thanks for the write-up, Christine!  Make sure to check out Christine’s website and her blog to see more of her work.

An Afternoon with Graphic Novelists from around the globe on May 3rd

cartoons, comics, Current Students, Education, Events, Illustration Industry, Interviews, Talks/Lectures, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

pen

An Afternoon with Graphic Novelists from around the globe:
Jonathan Ames, Neil Gaiman, Emmanuel Guibert, David Polonsky, Shaun Tan, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, and Adrian Tomine

WHEN: SATURDAY, MAY 2
WHERE: The Great Hall, Cooper Union, 7 East 7th Street, NYC

1-2:00 p.m. Neil Gaiman: Coraline, Sandman, Books and Imagination
Join Neil Gaiman, the creator of the enormously popular Sandman series of graphic novels, Coraline (recently adapted to the big screen), and a dizzying array of novels, short stories and films — with World Voices Festival director Caro Llewellyn for a discussion on imagination, inspiration and creativity.

2:30-4 p.m. 1,000 Words: The Power of Visual Storytelling
Participants: Emmanuel Guibert, David Polonsky, and Shaun Tan. Moderated by Jonathan Ames. David Polonsky (Israel) illustrated the horrors of the Israeli-Lebanon war in Waltz with Bashir; Shaun Tan (Australia) has imagined the experience of immigration in The Arrival; Jonathan Ames (U.S.) has depicted the life of a failing writer in The Alcoholic; and Emmanuel Guibert (France) has documented war in Afghanistan and in Europe.

4:30-5:30 p.m. Yoshihiro Tatsumi in Conversation with Adrian Tomine
Yoshihiro Tatsumi — widely credited with starting the gekigastyle of alternative comics in Japan some 40 years ago — is joined by Adrian Tomine, the acclaimed author of Shortcomings, for a conversation on the evolution of comics in Japan, the U.S., and around the world. Cosponsored by Cooper Union.

$10/$8 PEN members The three sessions: Only $25/$20 PEN members www.smarttix.com or 212.868.4444
20% DISCOUNT for STUDENTS: $8 for one session, $20 for three sessions. Use code: pen303

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Yoshihiro Tatsumi will also appear in… Working for the Weekend: Modern Day Salarymen
WHEN: THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 4:30–5:30 p.m.
WHERE: Austrian Cultural Forum, 11 East 52nd Street, NYC
Participants: Kathrin Röggla and Yoshihiro Tatsumi

From Kafka’s Gregor Samsa in The Metamorphosis to Richard Ford’s Frank Bascombe in The Sportswriter, writers have explored the everyday realities of working life to tell larger stories. Yoshihiro Tatsumi began depicting the lives of Japanese working people in his comics more than four decades ago, while Kathrin Röggla’s docu-novel We Never Sleep describes the working experience of her European contemporaries. Join them for a discussion about writing the working lives of everyday people—East and West.  Cosponsored by the Austrian Cultural Forum.

FREE and open to the public. However, reservations are required.   Please call ACF’s reservation line at 212.319.5300 (ext. 222) or email reservations@acfny.org.

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All of these events are presented as part of PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. 160 writers from 40 countries take the stage at venues across the city for a week of conversations, performances and readings. New York City, April 27-May 3, 2009. For complete schedule of events (including a ton of other literary-centric delights), go here.

Upcoming show at Giant Robot: Adrian Tomine

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tomine at giant robot

Illustrations and art by Adrian Tomine will be shown in a new show at Giant Robot, which opens on December 8th with a book signing. Adrian’s most recent work, Shortcomings, has garnered critical praise from all over. Here’s an excerpt from the New York Times book review:

Tomine has always been attracted to love gone wrong among the hesitant young men and women of the bourgeois-bohemian set, but he gets his subject across in the unsentimental style of an anthropologist’s report. Unlike the more playful graphic novelists who influenced him, Daniel Clowes (“Ghost World,” “David Boring”) and the Hernandez brothers (“Love and Rockets”), Tomine isn’t given to flights of surrealism, rude jests or grotesque images. He is a mild observer, an invisible reporter, a scientist of the heart. His drawing style is plain and exact. The dialogue appearing inside his cartoon balloons is pitch-perfect and succinct. He’s daring in his restraint.

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Read the full text of the review here, head over to Giant Robot website to see a little sneak peek of the art that Adrian will be showing, and if you can’t make it to the show, pick up your own copy of Shortcomings through Drawn & Quarterly.

Adrian Tomine
Shortcomings and Goings
Opening: Saturday, December 8th @ 6:30 p.m.
Giant Robot
437 East 9th Street

Recommended Reading

General Info,

My current favorite graphic novel is Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings

Without giving too much away (or sounding like a press release), Shortcomings is the story of a relationship gone sour, and the rather complicated ways we fool ourselves and the ones we love. Adrian has mastered what might be called “acting” on the comics page. His body language is subtle and precise, his characters moving through his pages with an exactitude rarely seen in the medium. All told, this is a case study in incisive characterization and perfect storytelling. This site has background info, notes and other goodies. Check it out and then go buy this book.