Young
Edd Gould always enjoyed drawing comics of himself and his friends. Growing up in the internet age, his
doodles evolved into Flash animations of increasing complexity, and in time Edd and pals
Tom Ridgewell and Matt Hargreaves teamed up to produce an
"Eddsworld" series of online webtoons and
comics.
At first crude and halting, the group's
"eddisodes" progressed from
surreal shorts and
one-shots into full-fledged productions that pushed the boundaries of amateur web animation, with
expressive characters,
full soundtracks, complex effects, and a fast-paced, off-kilter sense of humor:
MovieMakers -
Spares -
WTFuture -
Rock Bottom -
Hammer & Fail (
2).
At its height, the college co-op was producing shorts for
Mitchell & Webb and the
UN Climate Change Conference,
fielding offers from Paramount and Cartoon Network, and racking up
millions of hits on YouTube.
Work slowed, however, when Gould was
diagnosed with leukemia -- a relatively survivable form, though, and Gould carried on
working gamely through his hospital stays. So it came as a shock last week when Matt and Tom
announced that Edd had passed away, prompting an
outpouring of
grief and
gratitude from
all the
fans he'd
entertained and
inspired in his short 23 years.
posted by Rhaomi
on Apr 2, 2012 -
5 comments
Larry Gonick is a veteran American cartoonist best known for his delightful comic-book guides to science and history, many of which have previews online. Chief among them is his long-running
Cartoon History of the Universe (later
The Cartoon History of the Modern World), a sprawling multi-volume opus documenting everything from the Big Bang to the Bush administration. Published over the course of three decades, it takes a truly global view -- its time-traveling Professor thoroughly explores not only familiar topics like Rome and World War II but the oft-neglected stories of Asia and Africa, blending caricature and myth with careful scholarship (cited by
fun illustrated bibliographies) and tackling even the most obscure events
with intelligence and wit. This savvy satire carried over to Gonick's
Zinn-by-way-of-
Pogo chronicle
The Cartoon History of the United States, along with a bevy of
Cartoon Guides to other topics, including
Genetics, Computer Science, Chemistry, Physics, Statistics, The Environment, and (yes!)
Sex. Gonick has also maintained a few sideprojects, such as
a webcomic look at Chinese invention,
assorted math comics (
previously), the
Muse magazine mainstay
Kokopelli & Co. (featuring the shenanigans of his
"New Muses"), and
more. See also
these lengthy interview snippets, linked
previously. Want more? Amazon links to the complete oeuvre inside!
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Jun 6, 2011 -
29 comments
Social news site
Reddit recently held their
"Best of Reddit 2010" awards honoring key players in the site over the last year, including the progenitor of
the Rally to Restore Sanity, the clever drive-by cartoonist
Sure_Ill_Draw_That, unofficial image host
Imgur, and feel-good story of the year
"Today you, tomorrow me." But perhaps most interesting was the winner for Best Big Community:
FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU! Originally inspired by 4chan's popular
Rage Guy meme, F7U12 (for short) is a clearinghouse for user-made web comics, slice-of-life affairs that
tell a story or
share a common frustration using
a small collection of crudely drawn yet highly evocative facial expressions. Several have become small memes in their own right -- the wily
Trolldad, the doormat
Okay, the prideful
Fuck Yea, the melodramatic
Gasp. And
one comic, inspired by the warped text randomly generated by
reCAPTCHAs (
previously), has given us
Lord Inglip --
god of
a dark religion now
rivaling FSM whose
cryptic commands marshal
loyal armies of
gropagas,
falcows,
Sellicks, and...
canary into exploits both
monstrous and
inconvenient (
timeline,
wiki). Obey him --
or else! More fun with F7U12:
rage face origins,
rage faces in real life,
Twitter feed,
search comics,
create your own (
alternate).
posted by Rhaomi
on Feb 8, 2011 -
168 comments
PORTRAIT-DEX! Cartoonists create Pokémon self-portraits, with all three evolved forms. Featuring, among other fine artists,
Scott Kurtz (PVP),
Box Brown (Everything Dies, Bellen!),
Anthony Clark (Nedroid),
Aaron Diaz (Dresden Codak), and
Steve Wolfhard (Cat Rackham), who also runs the project.
posted by Gator
on Oct 27, 2010 -
13 comments
Life as a Comic is series of short videos by Rob Paravonian (famous for The Pachelbel Rant) about what it's like to be a working stand-up comic. It has recently started up again after a long break.
Here's the first episode which is about doing gigs at venues which aren't full-time comedy clubs. Direct links to the rest of the episodes, all of which are in quicktime-format, below the cut.
[more inside]
posted by Kattullus
on Apr 19, 2010 -
14 comments
The Invisible Life of Poet is a webcomic by
Christopher Stetson Wilson that's been published weekly for three and a half years. It features the adventures of nerdy high school student Poet and his retinue (mostly his friend Ben). There are many ways to navigate the
archive. For a quality skim, check out the
author's favorites. If you want a more indepth look you can check out the tag categories,
characters (e.g.
Seph the Corruptor,
Coach Fathead),
contemporary issues (e.g.
class warfare,
gender issues),
culture and society (e.g.
mass media,
religion),
hyperreality (e.g.
board games,
hallucinations),
miscellaneous (e.g.
great art,
lowbrow humor) and
psycho-social constructs (e.g.
bullying,
love and seduction).
posted by Kattullus
on Mar 27, 2008 -
17 comments
Kill Bill + Harry Potter =
Kill Harry, featuring cameo appearances by Bender the robot, Bruce Campbell, and Zombie Rick James, bitch.
posted by Gator
on Feb 20, 2006 -
16 comments
