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Okay… There’s finally a ‘Team US’ shirt available in the Outdoor Galore Store. I think Paste and a couple of his buddies have ‘autographed’ the front for you. And put a band-aid on there. The back looks nice, though. Maybe wear it backwards. Click the picture. That’ll get you there.
There’s other stuff in the Outdoor Galore Store, too. Look over to the left just now. See that ‘Outdoor Galore Store’ logo? Click on that and see.
Way back in 1989, I joined up with other local cartoonists in a group formed by the few professionals in the area. Over the years, we did a couple of self-promotional comic books.
Earlier today, random circumstances and a few random clicks on my Wacom tablet (which gets a little squirrelly sometimes and clicks where I don’t intend) threw this into the corner of my vision. It’s our second promo comic! Still available on Lulu.com. In it, I teamed up with Adam Shaw to illustrate a translation I had made of Der Erlkönig. Not your typical comic book fare, I suppose, but it was fun. There’s a lot of other cool stuff in there, too.
Feel free to click on it and see if you’d like to add to your grand collection of Cravens Obscure Cartooning. You might even find a link to an earlier promo comic where I illustrated a thing called Flapdoodle. I liked it very much. I think the kindle version is free.
If you really want a challenge, you could try to find some of the old Caliber and Malibu comics I worked on. I spotted one for sale a while back. It’s an old Caliber Presents anthology with a Fugitive story in it. I did the cover, which was terrible, I think. Ah, youth. The Fugitive stuff was fun. It was a futuristic detective chasing an insane serial murderer through old TV shows. I can’t remember how many episodes we did, but there was a Rocky & Bullwinkle one, and Lassie, and Hogan’s Heroes, and Bewitched, and MTV, and Gilligan’s Island, and even Sesame Street that was a comment on the passing of Jim Henson. For Malibu, I worked on a Planet Of The Apes annual/anthology. It was fun, too. The penciller for a lot of that stuff was James Tucker (now of animated Batman fame.) He’s amazing.
On the other hand, if you want something a little fresher… or even more ‘underground’, depending on your definitions, you could go check out the first issue (and associated goods available) of the Ninja comic I worked on. It’s HERE. The site offer is a big ol’ bundle of stuff that gets shipped to you. It’s on the ‘adult’ side, so 18 and older only.
So, there I was, minding my own business, when I’m invited by my kid’s CLUE teacher from a couple of years back to come to the school where she’s teaching now.
And… get this… talk to the CLUE class about Cartooning.
Mind you, these are the smart kids, so heaven only knows why they’d want to know about expressing themselves through illustration…
So, I went, and handed out some handy, if slightly dated, handouts about how many different kinds of cartoonists there are… you can tell the age of the handout because it says something dumb like “CD/DVD covers” instead of “Podcast graphics”
And after I filled the kids with all the cartooning knowledge they could ever need (assuming they’ll ever need any) I left. Which gave Ms. Coates the opportunity to force the poor youngsters to draw EDITORIAL CARTOONS! Yes, the most despised kind of cartooning in repressive societies everywhere. The kinds of cartoons that regularly get Egyptian and Syrian cartoonists jailed and their families threatened.
Can you believe what freedom-loving hooey they let teachers pass on to our treasured offspring? Man, we better hope there’s no reactionary, ego-driven, heavy-handed regime takes root here or those kids are in for it.
Anyhow, here’s some photos!
Memphis Cartoonist Named to Board of National Cartoonist Society (NCS)
Memphis, TN: The National Cartoonist Society (NCS), formed just after WWII by cartoonists returning from USO tours to entertain U.S. troops overseas, has named Memphis-based cartoonist Greg Cravens to their incoming board of directors. The decision comes after Greg was the local coordinator of an NCS/St. Jude event last May. The event brought more than 200 internationally known cartoonists to Memphis to draw for St. Jude patients and to fundraise though a series of cartoon art auctions and live events.
Greg’s artwork is familiar to residents of the Memphis area over the past twenty-five years. He has illustrated advertising for FedEx, The Memphis Flyer, The Peabody, Rock 103, The Grizzlies, Redbirds, Shoney’s, Perkins, The Memphis Zoo, Jack Pirtle’s Chicken, Keras Chevrolet, and hundreds more businesses. Because of his work on the syndicated comic strip The Buckets, he was allowed to join the NCS in 2002, and shortly after was nominated for a Silver Reuben award for his work on the Memphis Flyer.
His duties for the NCS will involve screening new member applications. He will also take on duties for the NCSFoundation, which will involve more work with their children’s hospital program and their “Cartooning For Kids” events. He says, “I’m looking forward to more NCS events at St. Jude, and other children’s hospitals throughout the Southeast. Also, since I’m the only NCS member for a couple of hundred miles in any direction, I’m especially looking forward to seeing more members come here more often.”
Steve McGarry, president of the NCSFoundation, said, “He did a really great job with (NCS/St. Jude) logistics in Memphis and I’m sure we (the NCSF) will keep him busy.”
Information about the National Cartoonist Society can be found at www.reuben.org
Greg’s syndicated comic strip can be seen in newspapers in the U.S., Thailand, Australia, and at www.gocomics.com/thebuckets.
Webcomic Hubris! is at www.hubriscomics.com.
Advertising portfolio is at www.cravenscartoonist.com
Okay, I’ve been trying to add this button to my, frankly, cluttered website. (Due for an overhaul, here)
And I can’t make heads or tails of things. So until I do, here’s a nice big button for you to click on, and read TSOJ’s interview with me.
Barring that, you can also navigate around and read his interviews with other cartoonists who may or may not flap their traps as often as I do.
Want to read? You know, Books. Like made of paper and all real and everything.
Check out Benoit Chartier and his work at Trode.
I met him at Charlotte HeroesCon, where he was selling his book Red Nexus (which has nothing to do with Red Necks, Us. But maybe I need to write a parody novel, huh? Huh?) and I got my copy there. Signed.
Anyhow, he’s got a new website. It’s good. Go see!
Long story short. Kenosha WI is cool. Dan’s cool. Dan’s got a book full of cartoons. Here’s your chance to get it.
Short story longer: I wrote the foreword to the book. That’s not actually a selling point, but my ego won’t let it pass without a mention.
Brother Jeff interviews himself.
Interviewer Jeff: It looks like you just got back from a bike ride. I can see there’s mud on your teeth.
Biker Jeff: Yes. I tend to smile a lot when I’m cruising down a muddy single track.
IJ: So, you enjoy mountain biking after a rain?
BJ: After, during, before. It doesn’t matter. When the trail’s muddy it seems like a whole new trail. It’s a nice change of pace. You have to change your style. Lean back a bit more, check your speed, stay off the brakes in the turns, anticipate the slide, blame the kids for the muddy footprints in the kitchen when your wife gets home…
IJ: Did you wipe out today? You know, take a tumble, taco a rim, get another concussion?
BJ: Nope. I haven’t wrecked this season except for that one jump at Squilchuck back in August. I had no problem going off the jump, but I must have forgotten to make sure the bike was under me for the landing. I lost a little skin, but I wasn’t using it for anything at the time. And, as for the concussion last year, I don’t think I had a concuss… it was… What was the question?
IJ: I don’t remember the question. I think we were just talking to our-self.
Hey, did you see any wildlife on the trail today?
BJ: No attack-grouse today, and no rattlesnakes on the trail, but the damage from the big boys was all over.
IJ: Damage? Big Boy’s? Did someone attack a Shoney’s?
BJ: No, man, the animals… the deer have been using my trail and tearing it up. Then there are the elk. The only difference between an elk and a furry post-hole digger is that a post-hole digger doesn’t poop while it’s making holes in your trail.
BI: How about bears?
BJ: Funny I should ask me that question. There was a young bear just ahead of me today. I never got a look at him/her, but I heard him/her up in the brush when I got off the bike to take pictures. I accidently chased him/her back in the summer at the same spot (if it’s the same bear). Jet black, small, and really fast – faster than I am on the bike going full speed.
IJ: Aren’t you worried you’ll get attacked?
BJ: No. I don’t think he can ride a bike, and I’m pretty sure the service berries taste better than me. That said, if he ever gets tired of being chased, I’ll have to do some swift negotiation involving peanut butter, ‘cause there’s no way I could outrun him.
IJ: Well, there you have it, folks. That’s all the time I care to spend talking to myself. Until next time, happy autumn trails!
