"False Alligat-ions" at the Full Moon Puppet Show (Jan 2014)

It's my sewer alligator puppet show!



In False Alligations, Teddy the weird orphan boy discovers that there are alligators living in the city's sewers, but the authorities will not believe him.  When he goes into the sewers himself to investigate, he finds that things are not what they seem.

I wrote, directed and performed in False Alligations in January 2014 as part of the Full Moon Puppet Show, organized by Liz Schacterle, at Open Eye Figure Theatre in Minneapolis.

The January 25th performance featured Janet Skidmore as the narrator and playing guitar; Theo Goodell providing additional puppeteering and playing the toy xylophone; and Bob Helland on additional Guitar.  I performed Teddy, ran the projector, and was the puppeteer behind the alligator king.

Everybody had incredibly nice things to say about the show, and people liked it so much that we was invited to perform "False Alligations" again in September as part of the last Full Moon Puppet Show, during the Handmade Worlds Festival of Puppet Theatre, produced by The Puppeteers of America.  (This time with Janet Skidmore reprising her roles, and Francisco Benavides and Jane Marshall providing additional puppetry)

The year I was too busy to blog

Hey all,  Thomas Boguszewski here.

This site has been awfully silent since last November.  I've been doing a lot of fun stuff and telling nobody about it.  That's all going to change, though.

In the coming weeks I'll be catching up on lost time, and sharing stories about the projects I've worked on and experiences I've had in 2014.

Among them:

4 puppet shows
a book trailer
3 operas
3 conventions
1 film festival
1 delayed animated film
1 cancelled commercial
1 aborted installation piece

300 pages of comedy

a collection of incredible summer adventures...

and more!
stay tuned while I not only revitalize the stream of news stories, but redesign this blog as well!
Here's looking forward to a future where I take more of what's going on in my world and share it with others.

Comic Artists' Night at the Opera - Arabella

The Minnesota Opera generously invites artists and members of the press to dress rehearsals for each show that they premiere.  The Black Hat Collective and I arrive with pens, pencils and paintbrushes and make it out mission to interpret each show through cartoons and sketches.

In this 1932 opera by Ricard Strauss, a family is living far beyond their means in a fancy hotel (pictured).  Their credit has run out and they are in danger of getting kicked out, unless they can get their eldest daughter Arabella to marry somebody with money.

Unfortunately Arabella doesn't want to get married for money, she wants to fall in love.  Though she has a number of suitors, she does not have feelings for any of them.

However, Arabella's younger sister Zdenka (pictured) - who dresses as a boy and goes by the name "Zdenko" - has secretly fallen in love with Mateo (not pictured) - one of the men who pines after Arabella. Zdenka loves Mateo so much that she doesn't want him to be unhappy, so she tricks Mateo by writing him love letters and signing Arabella's name.  As a result, Mateo thinks Arabella is in love with him, when she is not.

Drawn Out Storytelling - Rebecca by Steve Zimmer - illustrated by Thomas Boguszewski

This is my second piece for Drawn Out Storytelling:  A live show based in Brooklyn, New York which combines live storytelling and live music with live illustration.

In this tale, performed at Drawn Out's "End of the World" show in June 2012, Steve Zimmer tells of his attempts to find love with a new neighbor.

Read the story in the form of an illustrated comic made with animated GIFs below:

Drawn Out Storytelling - "Good News vs. Bad News" by Erin Barker illustrated by Thomas Boguszewski

At the Minneapolis Indie Expo in Nov. 2011, I hooked up with Drawn Out Storytelling:  A live show based in Brooklyn, New York which combines live storytelling and live music with live illustration.

By February 2012 I was illustrating for them.  The title of the show was "I hate you" - The theme was about animosity within families, and the story was Good News Versus Bad News (also called "Love and Baseball") by Erin Barker. "  In it, a daughter has to deal with hate and love in her own family when she learns the truth about her mother’s pregnancy.  Read the story in comic form below.

New Year's Party 1200 Years in the Making Catches World by Surprise

  Chichen Itza, Yucután, Mexico - December 21, 2012. 
  Onlookers were shocked and terrified this morning when the Kukulcán pyramid at Chichen Itza began to rotate, spin, and open up like a gigantic puzzle box. For moments, the six tourists then visiting Chichen Itza feared that this event was a portent of the much-advertised 2012 apocalypse. Then the massive pyramid began to emit fireworks and confetti, as well as play catchy music using an intricate system of bells and whistles that had apparently been built inside.

Inside the Monkey Lab: A Story Collider Comic

Click here to read Inside the Monkey Lab
on the Story Collider website

This summer I got a small paid gig illustrating comic books for The Story Collider, a podcast and online magazine that collects audio stories about how science has effected people's lives. My second comic, Inside the Monkey Lab went online in October.

"Guy Schaffer wanted to understand the brain, but the only job he could find was in a monkey lab — a lab where a monkey attack led to a deeper set of crises."

Time and Pressure: A Story Collider Comic

This summer I got a small paid gig illustrating comic books for The Story Collider, a podcast and online magazine that collects audio stories about how science has effected people's lives, "From finding awe in Hubble images to visiting the doctor... Whether we wear a white lab coat or haven't seen a test tube since eighth grade"

My first comic, Time and Pressure, went online in May, and illustrates Rachel Bitney Wecht’s story of her struggle to woo a physicist—The Story Collider’s own Brian Wecht.

Click here to read Time and Pressure
on the Story Collider website

The Tale of Turnip Head - In Color

You've heard of Christmas in July, but what about Halloween in May?

You might remember The Tale of Turnip Head from when I posted inks for it in November.  Part of, "one of my ongoing, long-term projects... a graphic novel about the history of Halloween," The Tale of Turnip Head is "a wordless fantasy illustrating the evolution of the Jack-o-Lantern" that begins with a Celtic warrior on the battlefield.

This Spring I bring you the colored version of the story, and the news that I'm selling booklets of Turnip Head.

Enjoy!

The Elixir

. .

An ugly man turns to the secrets of alchemy to make his inner self apparent on the outside —at any cost.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Process Statement:

I created The Elixir as my final for Sight and Sound: Film in the Tisch School of the Arts way back in June 2010. It was shot on 16 mm film using an Arri S 16mm Camera from 1952.  The story of how this film came to be is long and colorful.  Technical and personal difficulties abounded in production.

The Tale of Turnip Head

     One of my ongoing, long-term projects is a graphic novel about the history of Halloween. So far I only have an outline for it written out, and a folder with a few page layouts.
     I figure the full-sized project will take a few years to finish, but I wanted to whip something up in time for Halloween this year. So I created a little four-pager sequence called "The Tale of Turnip Head."
     It's a wordless fantasy illustrating the evolution of the Jack-o-Lantern. It starts off with a Celtic Warrior in the midst of battle. Enjoy.

     and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

 

I plan to take the "Turnip Head" inks and either color them or put some gradients in there to distinguish the figures a bit more. I also have another short Halloween story (an eight pager) blocked out, so you'll probably see it soon.

So I'm a writer now.

The four thoughts that brought about my rekindled love of writing:

1.

First, I was reading about a great woman polymath named Blanche Ames.  When Blanche died, her daughter wrote, "For her to have an idea was to act."

Which meant to me, instead of thinking about how I'm going to do something, or how much I want to, if I have an idea I should just act on it.  It's freed me up creatively a lot.  I stopped writing "to-do" notes to myself in my journals, and when I did that it freed up all that time and space and creative energy so I could do real writing.  Substantial writing, the kind with ideas.

24-hour comic - Oct 1 2011

So this is my answer to the creative challenge of this year's 24-hour comic (to create a 24-hour comic in 24 hours).  I was only able to make 8 pages during the 24 hour period, but that's okay.  I tried my best.  This project is made of firsts:  My first 24-hour comic, my first time using bristol board, my first time using ink and watercolors together in a "real" comic.  It was a great day.  Photos of the event to come.

IT CRAWLED ON MY FACE

Perpich Horror Movie (Spring-Summer 2009)

Well it took me 2 years to get around to it but I FINALLY put Secret Places: A School Divided up on the internet for all to see!

Created Spring-Summer 2009

In my senior year of high school at the Perpich Center for Arts education I applied for and was awarded a $100 grant to create a horror movie set at the Arts High School.

How to Cook a Story with Thomas "Bake-a-chef-ski"

I created a comic to submit to the cookbook-themed comic anthology "Just Add Ink" created by Altered Esthetics and the International Cartoonist Conspiracy.  It's a two-pager, but I'm presenting it here in the form of 8 4-panel strips, just because I can.