Here’s a great short comic about drinking by Montreal-based cartoonist Vincent Giard. Lots of other terrific short subjects can be found in the BD Section of his site.

Giard uses simple animated gifs to get his effects. I sometimes get misquoted as saying that adding animation to comics somehow instantly disqualifies them as comics at all (in fact, I read it as recently as two days ago). Not true.

While I do think that fully-animated monstrosities like the Watchmen Motion Comic stretch the term to the breaking point, I’ve seen examples of looping animation that work going all the way back to some of the earliest Magic Inkwell strips (#23, for example) by Cat Garza.

The best way I’ve come up with to explain it is that looping animation (and sound, for that matter) still communicate a static span of time. If panel 2 clearly comes after panel 1 and before panel 3, it still feels like comics, even if panel 2 is a short loop of some sort.

The point isn’t whether or not we want to give it a particular label or not, but whether a given comic works as storytelling. Does it feel whole? Can we lose ourselves in the reality of the strip? And in this case, I’d say yes.

What do you think?

[via Randy Oest]

Over at Jordan Crane’s What Things Do, they’ve been running a ton of old art by Abner Dean, a mid-20th Century illustrator. (I’m assuming it’s in the public domain or they have permission, it’s clearly not in print anymore).

Pretty crazy stuff, but definitely worth a look—and worth a buy if you can find a used copy of the original.

Here’s the big page. Long load times and probably NSFW, but a real mindbender.

It reminded me of William Steig’s brilliant About People. Also recommended and similarly obscure now, despite its author’s popular kids’ books.

Great imaginations get forgotten far too often.

Anyone know of other largely forgotten artists whose works you loved?

If you can write and draw comics, you can give a great presentation.

Presentation software is incredibly easy to learn. Pick good pictures and some stories to go with them and you’re set. If you’re a little shy, just read one of your comics; maybe one or two panels per slide.

Dave McKean isn’t Steve Jobs or anything in the above video. But compared to 99% of all presenters, he’s mesmerizing. Why? Because his work speaks for itself. And Dave has lots and lots of cool pictures and stories to share.

Pictures blow bulleted lists out of the water, and cartoonist know pictures. Why don’t more of us do this?

If you love creative, cutting edge comics and can be in London anytime from today until September 26, don’t miss the Hypercomics exhibit The Shapes of Comics to Come at the Pump House Gallery in London’s Battersea Park. It sounds (and looks) like a fascinating, site-specific exploration of comics’ outer boundaries. Admission is Free.

Curated by “The Man at the Crossroads” himself, Paul Gravett, and featuring the prodigious brains of artists like Dave McKean and Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, this is sure to be an unforgettable experience.

(And one that I’ll miss, dammit, so somebody take lots of pictures if you can!)

The exhibit is part of the Comica Festival. I stopped by and caught a bit of last year’s and had a great time. Check out their main site for more details on upcoming events.

You know you’re entering strange territory when the first line in the “About” paragraph is an Apollinaire quote.

For that matter, you know you’re in strange territory when the artist in question is veteran DIY avante garde comics artist Warren Craghead.

From the Download page at Diffusion.uk:

A Sort of Autobiography is a possible story of Warren Craghead’s life projected both back to his birth in 1970 and forward to his death in 2060. Each decade of his life is represented by a storycube as a rough self-portrait. Drawn in various styles and encoded in different ways, the cubes tell a story of transformations – of mark-making, of physical appearance and of a life seen through drawing.

Via Matthew Brady who has some smart observations on the project.

Whoops. Kind of overdid it in the comments section for Thursday’s post (see my long comment near the bottom for an explanation).

Ah, democracy…

Ivy always liked Jackson best in the Hall of Presidents. What a wiseguy.

…to Dylan Meconis on the recent release of her gorgeous Family Man collection. (Buy here).

…to Larry Marder on becoming the new president of the CBLDF. (Donate here).

…to California on at least temporarily overturning Prop 8. (Marry here).

Well, okay, there are lots left I suppose (including Zot!, for that matter, though that’s just ’cause I’ve been picky).

Funny thing is, Tamara Drewe by Posy Simmonds, while it may seem like it came out of left field, is actually a perfect choice for the screen.

Simmonds’ graphic novel (originally serialized in the Guardian) is a sheer delight, and with a terrific cast and crew on board, I wouldn’t be surprised if the movie is just as much fun.

If you haven’t read the book, get it now. Then you can pretend that you read it long before you even heard about the movie, and brag about it at cocktail parties.

Though, you may have to insist more than once that “Yes. Yes it really was a comic first!“

One of the comics I read on my way home was Drew Weing’s Set to Sea. I’d been seeing pages of it on Drew’s website for awhile but reading it in book form was a delight. Highly recommended.

If you’re in Athens, Georgia tonight (Friday), you can get a copy from the author himself at the release party from 5-8pm.

Funny thing is, when I thought to make a remark on how Athens is landlocked and checked Google maps to see if Athens was indeed landlocked, I discovered that there is no label in Google Maps for Athens!

See for yourself.

WTF, Google Maps??

[UPDATE: There actually is an explanation—and it’s not what you might expect.]

Jordan Crane has a new website up filled with great comics called What Things Do.

It includes stories by Crane himself, as well as art by USS Catastrophe alumni like Kevin Huizenga, Ted May, and Dan Zettwoch.

Crane’s recent Vicissitude (above) is a good place to start. Cool storytelling and a zillion well-placed spot blacks.

[Thanks to Alec Longstreth for catching this morning’s crazy typo, “Justin” Crane. Oy. Senior moment there.]