It's been a busy week, so I don't have any unhappy totems for the chades challenge, but here's an unhappy fella from my sketchbook. I'll make the Chades post tomorrow along with the new challenge.

Art by Committee, Round 2
Time for round 2 of Art by Committee, a game where a passage from a science fiction manuscript is taken out of context and illustrated. This week's caption was: "I never understood why you were with him in the first place." More excellent submissions at the Gurney Journey.

RIP, Dave Stevens (July 25, 1955-March 10, 2008)

Comic artist and creator of the Rocketeer Dave Stevens passed away yesterday after a long battle with Leukemia. Stevens is my dad's favorite artist, and one of my earliest artistic influences. I think I've sketched scenes and poses from every single issue of Rocketeer, particularly those featuring Betty Page. His death is a real loss to the artistic community, and he will be greatly missed--especially by the Madisons. So long, Dave, and enjoy the skies!

Go, Spielberg, go.

E. Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, levelled up to the big dungeon in the sky last week, so I figured I'd post a monster drawing in his memory.
This is a design from a DnD campaign I'm running. Half of the fun of gaming for me is creating new creatures and cultures for the players to encounter. This guy is a oceanic cliff-dwelling marauder that rides five-foot wide voracious crab-steeds (hence the crab sketch on opposite page). If you need any monster/crab design inspiration, just google 'coconut crabs', they are glorious abominations of nature.

Addendum 3.10.08
Wired magazine came up with their own tribute to Gygax by having folks submit DnD-themed redesigns of their logo.

Chades Challenge IX: Unhappy Totems
Leo Matsuda and I went for the same gag. Poor Leo's had his idea doubled two challenges in a row. More cool ideas on Moro Rogers, Steve MacLeod. and Josh Billings' blogs. To mix things up, how about we add an element to the challenge? Nobody likes seeing an angry god, so next friday, why don't we post resolutions to our Totems' dilemmas? If you want, you can make a new reason for your character's unhappiness, and have him solve that situation. Should make for some interesting gags, and some very regretful dogs.

Was Charlene Sinclair a prehistoric Juno?

A recent edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences claims that dinosaurs probably experienced a high rate of teen pregnancy.
UC Berkeley (go Bears!) paleontologists Sarah Werning and Andrew H. Lee found medullary bone, a calcium-rich deposit of bone tissue that acts as an internal resource for eggshells and only develops prior to ovulation, in the fossils of three adolescent specimens: an Allosaurus, a Tyrannosaurus, and a Tenontosaurus. These animals died before full maturity, but showed clear signs of pregnancy. Werner and Lee say teen-pregnancy was most likely a survival mechanism. Many dinosaur species had a high adult-mortality rate, so early reproduction was the best way to ensure the future of the species.
Paleontologists also say this growth pattern resembles mammals more than it does reptiles. Resembles Triassic trailer trash to me.

James Gurney's Art by Committee
If you like our bi-weekly Chades Challenge, you'll really dig James Gurney's weekly Art by Committee game. James finds a caption from an obscure published work and everyone takes a shot illustrating it. This is my favorite entry from this week, done by a girl named Sarah.

Obsessing over TRIFLES
Last January, Pixar University presented a stage production of Susan Glaspell's turn-of-the-century drama, Trifles. This year we're creating a short-film adaptation, set more in the Depression era. It's a Pixar University production, so don't expect to see it in theatres or anything, it's just for education. Trifles is a compelling story, and adapting our performances from stage to screen is a cool challenge. This time I made sure to cut my hair. Apparently there weren't any hippie sheriffs in the 1930s.


Pam Walker is directing, with Mark Andrews DPing and Pete Sohn as cinematographer.

Crushers of elves, stealers of maidens, agents of evil.