WadeB

March 7, 2011

Mike Viola is Lost in the Supermarket

There is a base human need to consume. We gotta eat. We do it with food, we do it with sex, we do it with raising our kids. We do it with movies, music, musicals, paintings, pictures, pictures of musicians in musicals who paint movie posters. The list goes on. What do we love more than lists? Crossing something off our lists. Consuming our lists.

Let’s walk right past the “I wanna be famous” stage of being an artist. Even though you tell yourself and everybody else around you that you “don’t want to be famous, I just want to be heard.” You’re kidding yourself. You’re hungry. I know very famous people at the top of their game. One guy is the only surviving member of his era. He’s the best. Everyone knows he’s the best. And it’s not enough for him. And that hunger has nothing to do with more fame. He’ll die starving, a very rich man.

Tags: art, being an artist, hey song, idea, movie posters, Music, nick drake, pictures of musicians, Song, Supermarket.

Filed under Songwriting by WadeB on Mar 7th, 2011. Comment.

Refresh Things with New Guitar Strings

The other day, I finally got around to replacing the strings on my acoustic guitar, something that had been overdue for a while.

As I finished fitting the last new string, and then tuned them up properly, my guitar seemed to have a refreshed sound, from these zingy new strings. It struck me that I should probably change the strings a bit more often, just to get that feeling of refreshing the sound once in a while.
Read more on Refresh Things with New Guitar Strings…

Tags: different tunes, how to change guitar strings, light gauge, light strings, steel string.

Filed under Guitar by WadeB on Mar 7th, 2011. Comment.

Cool Comic Art — Alex Raymond

Comic panel of Secret Agent X-9 fighting a gang of armed thugs.

Alex Raymond excelled in dynamic action illustration

I immediately fell in love with Alex Raymond’s art when first exposed to it. As a film noir and detective fiction fan, I discovered that he illustrated a comic strip called Rip Kirby, with the script by Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon and Thin Man author).

After Raymond’s death, the strip continued with other artists and changed to Secret Agent X-9.

Raymond made his biggest splash as the originator (author and artist) of Flash Gordon. Awesome stuff and influential to this day.

Here you go — enjoy Alex Raymond.

WADE

Tags: alex raymond, art, caption, dashiell hammett, detective fiction, film, Illustration, maltese falcon, rip kirby, width.

Filed under Vintage Comics by WadeB on Mar 7th, 2011. Comment.

Comics Review Newsmaker Interview: Dan Nadel, Tim Hodler Of TCJ

EXCERPTED FROM: The Comics Journal

It’s my understanding that venerable industry news and criticism magazine The Comics Journal let the world know today that Tim Hodler and Dan Nadel will be taking over the magazine’s web iteration.

Hodler and Nadel are best known as an editorial team in terms of their work on the magazines The Ganzfeld and Comics Comics. Nadel has also written two lauded books for Abrams collecting artists that worked in mainstream comics that might have been alternative creators in modern times, and is the driving force behind the art comics publisher PictureBox.

Tim and Dan are among my favorite writers about comics and favorite comics people generally. I look forward to what they bring to the Journal, and I greatly look forward to their long overdue attention to a proper on-line archive.

Tags: dan nadel, editing, editorial, gary groth, mainstream comics, news, newsmaker interview, Site, tom spurgeon, work.

Filed under Vintage Comics by WadeB on Mar 7th, 2011. Comment.

What It Means To Be A Six-Figure Writer

I’ve probably learned more about copywriting in the past two years than in my entire life.

When I started in journalism, I was given the conventional wisdom of the times (this was late 70s).

Unfortunately it was the conventional wisdom of earlier times and is still the same conventional wisdom.

It is amazing nobody ever gets discouraged because the “official rules” just don’t work.

Studying people who actually make money copywriting is eye-opening. You realize how far off the path you were. It can be humbling.

So here is an essay by someone who is up and coming as a copywriter. And please don’t think that $ 100,000.00 is an ultimate goal. It’s a milestone, and probably just the beginning of the journey.

You can make more money as a successful copywriter than you can as a novelist or screenwriter — if you do it right.

Enjoy one woman’s story — by clicking through the link below.

WADE

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What it means to be a six-figure copywriter courtesy of American Writers & Artists Inc.

Tags: artists inc, beginning of the journey, conventional wisdom, copywriter, earlier times, journalism, nobody, Studying, wisdom.

Filed under Direct Response Marketing by WadeB on Mar 7th, 2011. Comment.

March 6, 2011

Where’s Krazy Kat?

Click on image to enlarge

“Not all the notable comic-strips being published today are included in this group. There are some conspicuous absences. Each of the group represents a particular innovations in strips that sets it apart in appeal to mass readership.

Seen over at Rosebud Archives (thanks!)

Joyville

Tags: appeal, being, comic strips, conspicuous absences, innovations, Krazy, mass, mass readership, readership.

Filed under Vintage Comics by WadeB on Mar 6th, 2011. Comment.

Garfield Minus Garfield — How Existential!

I don’t know — Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve never really found Garfield that funny.

If you’ve never seen the comic strip before and you start reading it on Monday, you will know all the jokes by Friday. From then on it’s just variations on the same few situations.

Garfield is lazy, he loves to eat, he’s crazy about Lasagna, his master is a dull and dim-witted fellow.

So what could you do to improve Garfield?

Irishman Dan Walsh has a project called “Garfield Minus Garfield” or “G-G” in which — well, I’ll let him explain it.

Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.

So you might wonder if simply deleting the title character from the strip actually improves it. Maybe — maybe not. But it certainly can’t make it any worse.

WADE

Tags: american suburb, existential angst, garfield comic strips, jon arbuckle, journey, Lasagna, losing battle, reading, Site, Strip.