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MIKE JUDGE MASTER CLASS @ UT

Monday, February 9, 2009

mike judge master class sketchnotes
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Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill, Office Space, and Idiocracy, visited the University of Texas tonight for an RTF “Master Class” with John Pierson. I told John I was a huge fan, and he was nice enough to invite me. Of course, I brought my sketchbook.

Note: if you want to cartoon someone, don’t sit front row. Distance = better abstraction.

sketch of john pierson
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sketch of mike judge
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Mike lives right here in Austin, Texas, and came off as a really smart, down-to-earth and unpretentious guy. He was even nice enough to make a Sharpie doodle of Butthead in my sketchbook!

Last night there was a party in town to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Office Space (I missed it, but heard it was great.)

You can read some good quotes and watch some of my favorite clips by him over on my tumblelog.

Bob Phillips and his great crew of Ryan Britt and Dan Stricklin came out to the house last night to interview me about the blackout poems for Texas Country Reporter. If you’re not familiar with the show, here’s a bit of background from the NYTimes article, “If It’s in Texas, the Texas Country Reporter Has Seen It“:

Bob Phillips, the Texas Country Reporter…barreling…with his television crew in his Ford Explorer daubed in the billowing red, white and blue of the Texas flag….Not much escapes Mr. Phillips, 56, a Lone Star Charles Kuralt, who has logged more than 35 years on the state’s back roads and may be the most-traveled man in Texas….Mr. Phillips’s half-hour programs already total more than 2,000 — about four times as many as his idol, Mr. Kuralt, produced for his CBS News segment “On the Road” from 1967 to 1980. They are broadcast weekly on 25 stations in Texas and afterward are beamed eight times a week on the rural satellite and cable network RFD-TV. The network…reaches some 30 million households nationally….

He has long been an institution in Texas, where he spent a dozen years as the spokesman for Dairy Queen and now shuttles between his television studio in Dallas and Beaumont, where he lives with his second wife, a television anchor.

Meanwhile, Texas Country Reporter has become a popular brand, with guidebooks, cookbooks, T-shirts and an annual October festival in Waxahachie, near Dallas, where more than 50,000 fans come to meet subjects from the shows…

Check out their Youtube channel to see some of the shows.

Here’s Dan, Bob, and me making a horrible face as I BS about something.

Here’s Ryan shooting a trick shot of the marker bleeding through the paper.

Here’s Ryan and Dan shooting some stills for the feature.

They were real nice guys, and even though the shoot was a little grueling (5 1/2 hours!) it was a good time. Bob asked terrific questions, and we had a good interview.

The segment won’t air in Texas for a couple months (nationwide will be even longer), but I’ll let y’all know when it does.

(Thanks to my wife Meg for taking the great photos!)

THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY, PART TWO

Monday, January 12, 2009

The last time an ad agency tried its hand at a blackout poem, it was for a Lexus ad. Today’s ad agency blackout poem comes from Microsoft, on page four of the Marketplace section of the Wall Street Journal:

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It’s part of Microsoft’s new $150,000,000 advertising campaign. Read more about it here.

Since the folks at Microsoft are such big fans, it seems only right and natural that they should buy each of their 60,000 employees a copy of Newspaper Blackout Poems in September.

That’s fair, right?

(Spotted again by the eagle-eyed Linda Ball. Mark Larson pointed me to the image.)

UPDATE: see more ads from the campaign in the comments of this post

2008: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

What a nutty year. The pages of my paper 2008 diary are full—right up until the end of June, when things got crazy, and I lost six months of my life to writing a book, buying a house, and watching Obama get elected. Phew! About the same happened with this blog: July came around…and poof! I blogged about half as much for the second half of the year. (Check out the infographic above and the 2008 Visual Archive.)

So what now, 2009? The only thing I have planned is the book release in September. I’m going to take a break in January and February, curl up on my office couch, and read some really big books. Hopefully start blogging some more. Around March, I’m going to try to start on another book. Maybe a graphic novel. I’ll be posting whatever I come up with here, along with a bunch of blackout poems that didn’t make the book.

Thanks for reading. It was a great year for me, and everybody who visited the site, left comments, linked to the poems…y’all made it so.

My very best to you. Warm wishes for a great 2009!

MY READING YEAR, 2008

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

11 good books I read this year:

What It Is
by Lynda Barry

What more can I say about this book? It’s collage, it’s a writing textbook, it’s a memoir…it’s everything. It’s big. It’s hardcover. It’s awesome.

Ways of Seeing
by John Berger

Fantastic book based on a 1972 BBC miniseries. Amazing how much the contents remain valid in the age of the internet. My map of the book.

Thoreau At Walden
By John Porcellino

Porcellino’s simple, zen lines are perfect for adapting Thoreau into comics.

Born Standing Up
By Steve Martin

A book that moved quick and didn’t bullshit. Great writing, very subtle and smart jokes. My map of the book.

Don’t Make Me Think
By Steve Krug

A classic book about web design.

My notes on the book.

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
By Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

A wonderful book about the psychology behind creativity.

My notes.

The Power of Myth
By Joseph Campbell

A series of interview with Campbell, accompanied by lots of images. My map of the book.

And Then There Were None
By Agatha Christie

My wife’s favorite author. Great, classic read.

The Gift
By Lewis Hyde

On art and commerce. Terrific read.

My map of the book

Moneyball
by Michael Lewis

My review of the book.

The Cheese Monkeys
By Chip Kidd

A very funny and quick read. Since so much of the action takes place in the classroom, it sort of functions as a wacky introduction to graphic design.