Jillian Tamaki (Skim, Indoor Voice) is between projects right now, with one project on the editor’s desk and another not quite under way. So when the New York Times asked her to illustrate a piece on political sex scandals, she was ready, willing, and more than able. Here’s the main illustration, and click through to her blog to see some other sketches. (Mildly NSFW—this is the Times, after all—but she includes one drawing that was apparently too hot for them.)

What kind of sociopathic monster would not want to pay the man who made this?

“Considering a career in illustration? The money now is LESS than in 1980s, + you spend half your time chasing it cuz NOONE WANTS TO PAY YOU.”

– The great cartoonist and illustrator Michael Kupperman, whose Tales Designed to Thrizzle is legitimately one of the funniest comics ever made, serves up some real talk on Twitter. Congress failing to extend unemployment benefits is still the most depressing thing I read about the economy this week, but Michael Kupperman — Michael Kupperman! — having a hard time getting paid to draw things is a close second.

"Strange Adventures," by Paul Pope

The National Cartoonists Society has announced the nominees for the 64th annual Reuben Awards, which recognize outstanding achievement in cartooning.

It’s been known since late February that Stephen Pastis (Pearls Before Swine), Dan Piraro (Bizarro) and Richard Thompson (Cul de Sac) would vie for the Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year.

However, now we get the full list, which includes nominations in the comic book division for Terry Moore (Echo), Paul Pope (“Strange Adventures,” from Wednesday Comics) and J.H. Williams III (Detective Comics), and in the graphic novel division for David Mazzuchelli (Asterios Polyp), Seth (George Sprott) and David Small (Stitches).

The full list of nominees can be found after the break. Winners will be announced on May 29.

THE REUBEN AWARD
• Stephen Pastis
• Dan Piraro
• Richard Thompson

TELEVISION ANIMATION
• Kevin Deters – Walt Disney Prep and Landing
• Mike Gray – The Infinite Goliath
• Seth McFarlane – Family Guy

FEATURE ANIMATION
• Ronnie del Carmen – Storyboard Artist – Up
• Tomm Moore – Director – The Secret of Kells
• Barry Reynolds – Character Designer – The Secret of Kells

NEWSPAPER ILLUSTRATION
• Bob Rich
•Tom Richmond
• Robert Sanchuk

GAG CARTOONS
• Glenn McCoy
• VG Myers
• Dave Whamond

GREETING CARDS
• Glenn McCoy
• Kieran Meehan
• Debbie Tomassi

NEWSPAPER COMIC STRIPS
• John Hambrock – The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee
• Wiley Miller – Non Sequitur
• Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman – Zits

NEWSPAPER PANEL CARTOONS
• Dave Blazek – Loose Parts
• Tony Carillo – FMinus
• Hilary Price – Rhymes with Orange

MAGAZINE FEATURE/MAGAZINE ILLUSTRATION
• Ray Alma
• Anton Emdin
• Tom Richmond

BOOK ILLUSTRATION
• Lou Brooks – Twimericks
• Tom Richmond – Bo Confidential
• Dave Whamond – My Think-A-Ma-Jink

EDITORIAL CARTOONS
• Nick Anderson
• Rob Rogers
• John Sherffius

ADVERTISING ILLUSTRATION
Steve Brodner
Randall Enos
Mort Gerberg

COMIC BOOKS
• Terry Moore – Echo
• Paul Pope – “Strange Adventures” (Wednesday Comics)
• J.H. Williams III – Detective Comics

GRAPHIC NOVELS
• David Mazzucchelli – Asterios Polyp
• Seth – George Sprott
• David Small – Stitches

Canadian artist, illustrator and cartoonist Gary Taxali has an art show coming up at the Narwhal Gallery in Toronto. The good news for those of you who don’t live anywhere near that city is that almost the entire exhibit is up online for you to peruse. (via)

American Presidents

The New York Times is reporting that famed illustrator and caricaturist David Levine passed away today at the age of 83 after complications from prostate cancer.

Mr. Levine’s drawings never seemed whimsical, like those of Al Hirschfeld. They didn’t celebrate neurotic self-consciousness, like Jules Feiffer’s. He wasn’t attracted to the macabre, the way Edward Gorey was. His work didn’t possess the arch social consciousness of Edward Sorel’s. Nor was he interested, as Roz Chast is, in the humorous absurdity of quotidian modern life. But in both style and mood, Mr. Levine was as distinct an artist and commentator as any of his well-known contemporaries. His work was not only witty but serious, not only biting but deeply informed, and artful in a painterly sense as well as a literate one. Those qualities led many to suggest that he was the heir of the 19th-century masters of the illustration, Honoré Daumier and Thomas Nast.

The above link comes courtesy of Eric Reynolds at Fantagraphics, which published a collection of Levine’s work, American Presidents, in 2008. Most of Levine’s work, however, was done for the New York Review of Books and they have a nice, searchable gallery of his work online. I would also encourage you to check out this excellent Vanity Fair article on Levine that ran last year.

I’ve got your Guitar Heroes right here, pal: Argentinian illustrator Maxim Dalton has paid homage to a small army of six-string warriors with a print called “Guitar Lessons.” Featured are guitar gods from Jimi Hendrix to Jack White; personally, I was happy to see Pete Townshend mid-windmill and David Gilmour in his Guinness t-shirt. Click here to see the whole thing and to reserve a copy if you’d like one of your own, and be sure to check out the comments for Dalton’s defenses of who did and didn’t make the cut. Making metal horns while viewing is optional.

(Via David Heatley)

True Blood by Albert Exergian

If you had to pick one iconic image to sum up your favorite television series, what would it be? That’s the challenge graphic designer Albert Exergian set for himself when he created this gorgeous, funny series of posters, each of which boils a popular TV show down to a single essential visual. Check out the gallery of some of our favorites below, check out every single one of them at Exergian’s site, and buy prints of your faves at Blanka.

(Via Shaggy Erwin.)

Here’s Red in your eye: The Autumn Society, a collective of Philadelphia-based illustrators, is paying homage to the 15th anniversary of Mike Mignola’s signature creation Hellboy with an art show that opens tonight at 6 p.m. at comics retailer Brave New Worlds. Click here to see a gallery of the contributors’ pieces for the show — a truly dazzling array if you have any interested whatsoever in what Mignola (and John Arcudi, and Guy Davis, and Duncan Fegredo, and and and…) hath wrought.

(Hat tip: TJ Dietsch)

Elementary, my dear Ganges! Wildly acclaimed, prodigiously talented cartoonist Kevin Huizenga has taken a break from chronicling the vagaries of our daily existence in his series Ganges and (the late, lamented) Or Else to take on the greatest detective in literary history and his arch-nemesis. (No, not Batman and the Joker, but I like the way you think.)

At his blog, Huizenga has posted a two-page comic featuring the first and final face-to-face confrontations between none other than Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty. The strip is part of the Famous Fictional Villains show at St. Louis’s Mad Art Gallery, curated by Huizenga’s friend, fellow cartoonist, and occasional collaborator Dan Zettwoch. The opening reception for the show — which features baddies ranging from Macbeth‘s witches to Alien‘s facehugger, interpreted by Zettwoch, Huizenga and over a dozen other artists — takes place tonight from 7pm to 11pm.

from Jon Vermilyea's He-Man and the 13 Trials of Eternia

He’s done comics with Frank Santoro, made videos with Animal Collective, and forever redefined the way we look at Kool-Aid and breakfast foods in his buoyantly bizarre comics for MOME, but now cartoonist Jon Vermilyea is tackling something near and dear to the hearts of nerds everywhere: The Masters of the Universe!

Behold He-Man and the 13 Trials of Eternia, a gorgeous silkscreened 11″ X 8″ booklet featuring the Herculean labors of the hero also known as Prince Adam and illustrated in Vermilyea’s inimitable day-glo style. Only 21 copies of the book were produced, and by god I’m getting my hands on one of them if I have to sell my soul to Skeletor.

(Via Sean Belcher.)

Dune art by Paul Pope

Cartoonist and Heroes Con creative director Dustin Harbin is obviously a comics guy. But even for sequential-art partisans, every once in a while the literary spice must flow. Thus Harbin has created the Dune book club, a weekly discussion of the original science-fiction classic by author Frank Herbert, hosted on Harbin’s blog. In addition to thought-provoking posts and comment-thread chats about the book, which Harbin calls “probably my favorite novel ever,” the book club is also something of an art club, with Harbin, Paul Pope, Patrick Keck, Peter Lazarski, Pen Ward, Thomas “Smo” Smolenski, and Evan Dahm all providing luscious comics and stand-alone illustrations based on the book. (Pope, another big-time Dune devotee, had already drawn a scene from the book in the style of a Wednesday Comics page.) Personally, I’m waiting for someone to take a crack at a sandworm.

A black cat crosses Seth's path

Lately, acclaimed cartoonist Seth has mostly been busy delighting us with his designs for Drawn & Quarterly’s John Stanley Library. But with Halloween only a day away, the artist behind George Sprott and Wimbledon Green has decided to spook us instead. Seth has provided illustrations for a series of New York City ghost stories, reported by writer Lizzy Ratner in The New York Times. Created in ghostly blue and white, they’re like the artiest, most tastefully drawn episode of Ghost Hunters ever.

(Via Peggy Burns at the D&Q blog.)

Sammy Harkham's Where the Wild Things Are

We’ve said it once before, but it bears repeating: Vice Magazine has commissioned a murderer’s row of 24 alternative comics artists–including Sammy Harkham, Tony Millionaire, Matt Furie, Lisa Hanawalt, Jordan Crane, Benjamin Marra, and Vanessa Davis–for a hugely impressive comics tribute to Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze’s long-anticipated movie adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic storybook. The movie comes out today, and all 24 artists’ interpretations are now live. Let the wild rumpus start!

Elsewhere, Monster Brains has posted a nice little gallery of Sendak’s art, along with a video interview with the illustrator.

Very, very hot back then.

Centipedes were hot back then.

Want a trip down memory lane that won’t even cost you a quarter? There may not be a deluxe line of hardcover reprints dedicated to the visionaries whose fervid fantasies festooned the arcades of your youth, but chances are these anonymous artists shaped your appreciation of cartooning nearly as much as the stars of any given DC Archive or Marvel Masterwork. Enter Monster Brains, one of the Internet’s great repositories of weird and wild art and illustration, curated by Aeron Alfrey (himself no slouch when it comes to macabre art). Over the past two weeks, Monster Brains has played host to a daily avalanche of arcade art from video games and pinball machines. It’s a veritable nostalgia button-masher, to be sure (Millipede! R-Type! Karnov!), but it’s also an inspiring look at an area of cartooning with seemingly no rules, where the goal was simply to stand out even among a sea of similarly lurid-looking games. Mission accomplished!

If an event comic came out looking like this, I'd by three copies of each issue

Curt Purcell's paperback gallery

Does your love of trash put Oscar the Grouch to shame? Then feast your eyes, glut your soul on the (extravagantly NSFW) Flickr account of Curt Purcell, the blogger behind equally unworksafe horror-blogosphere cornerstone The Groovy Age of Horror. Curt’s been sharing his extensive collection of pulp paperbacks and X-rated Italian horror comics for years now, and he’s recently scanned in hundreds of their covers, helpfully divided into Fumetti, Horror Paperbacks, and the aptly named Sleaze Paperbacks for your browsing pleasure. For fans of the seedy side of Eurocomics or the lurid illustration styles of yesteryear, it’s tough to top.

Also worth checking out: Curt’s series of posts on Blackest Night (with an extensive detour into the classic Levitz/Giffen Legion storyline The Great Darkness Saga). A lapsed comics reader, Curt has been drawn back in by this year’s big DC event’s horror overtones, and his outsider/insider perspective regarding the evolution of “event comics” is quite fresh and eye-opening.

Cho's 'White Noise'

Illustrator and cartoonist Michael Cho recently revamped the cover for Penguin’s edition of the Don DeLillo classic “White Noise.” He talks at length about the process of putting the cover together and how he worked with editor Paul Buckley and Delillo to arrive at this final image.

I gotta say, I like it a lot better than the original cover.

(found via the Ephemerist)

Nieman's 'I Confess'

I’ve long been an admirer of illustrator. designer and children’s book author Christopher Neimann‘s work, though I realize I haven’t been quite aware of jut how clever and inspired his work often is. The above image, for example, comes from an extended comic on his working methods that manages to be self-deprecatingly funny and informative at the same time. I’d also recommend checking out his blog on the New York Times. His latest entry, Masters of the Universe, uses voodoo dolls to crack jokes about his OCD. Why hasn’t anyone thought of collecting this stuff in a book yet?

A Fingerman zombie

Over on his blog, Bob Fingerman says that he recently sold his second novel, a zombie thriller titled Pariah, to Tor:

The interesting thing is that part of my deal with Tor is to provide the book with some original interior art (I might do the cover, too, but that is pending). My approach is not to do illustrations of any scenes or characters in the book. I prefer to let the readers picture that for themselves. Instead, one of the characters is an artist and he does studies of the undead to pass the time (no more TV or Internet, so one must pass the time doing something). The conceit of the accompanying art will be that these are his drawings. I don’t want any of the art to be typical EC-tinged stuff. The approach is to do sensitive, objective drawings. The zombies didn’t ask to be this way. They’re not evil.

Sounds like an intriguing approach. Above is an example of what he’s talking about. And Fingerman says he might post some rejected sketches from the project soon.

Ben Hatke's Sendak tribute

Terrible Yellow Eyes is a new art blog that asks a variety of talented illustrators and cartoonists to pay homage to the Maurice Sendak classic, Where the Wild Things Are. That’s Ben Hatke’s contribution above, one of several great pieces found at the site.

Guy Gonzalez cover for Screw

“Dirty” Danny Hellman has started a new art blog that you’ll definitely want to bookmark, albeit in the comfort of your own home, since it’s devoted to art that graced the cover of Al Goldstein’s prono mag, Screw. A number of noteworthy cartoonists did covers for the magazine at one time or another, including Peter Bagge, Vaughn Bode, Robert Crumb and Wally Wood.