SpringCon 2012

May 19th and 20th I had a table (for the first time ever!) at the Midwest Comic Book Association's SpringCon! I was seated next to Sarah Kopitske and across from The Black Hat Collective and surrounded all about by Cartoonist Conspirators. Linkara was there doing... something. As were the Ghostbusters.  It was a lovely crowd!


I set up the table with homemade book stands and sold posters and prints of my portfolio pieces and several comic booklets.  I also wore my Hedorah Fedora.

I still have plenty of inventory, too, so if you want to order something drop me a line.

Read on to hear stories about how the con went, and to see some pictures I made while I was there.

Come to The Medicine Show!

Ladies and gentlemen!  Boys and girls! 

The time has come for a reprise of 

the phantasmagorical, sensational, mystical 

Strombolli's Medicine Show!

Alchemy: Its history and theory

My friend Michael McConnell is designing a gallery exhibit about the periodic table of the elements.   I am a rabid Alchemy enthusiast, so Michael gave me a special assignment:  By Spring 2013 I shall create a 10 minute (or 10'x10'x10') presentation on the elements as understood by the Alchemists.  To prepare for the project I wrote this "thesis" to base my work around.  Here I shall take a "just the facts, Ma'am" approach to the history of Alchemy and focus mainly on what was pertinent to the periodic table.  Still, talking about Alchemy is not an exact science because Alchemy itself was not an exact science, but rather, a "philosophical art" for which each Alchemist had his own unique approach and theories about what he was doing.

The origin of Alchemy:

Hellenistic Egypt, ca 300 BC.  Greek colonists look at the religion of the Egyptians and see similarities between their god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth (The-Thrice-Great).  Both were gods of language, gods of magic and psychopomps (in charge of transmitting souls from one world to the next, like the grim reaper) In the minds of some, the two figures merge into one character called Hermes Trismegistus. 

Resurgence of Dreaming

Resurgence of Dreaming Manifesto
By Thomas Boguszewski and Michael McConnell

     An abundance of cameras and global internet access have made everyone into photographers, filmmakers, and journalists. This new media of the masses has made a critical mass aware of the flaws in our system. Thus, artists pursuing social realism become redundant. In this era, what role do artists play?

     I pledge to bend my art to a new purpose.
     From here on out:

• I enact a resurgence of dreaming. 
• I take responsibility to provide a plethora of alternatives to society. 
• I posit potential solutions to the problems people face. 
• I make my visions attainable, though they are born of dreams. 
• I am aware of and celebrate human nature. 
• I find hope not by denying reality, but by admitting to it and adapting it. 
• I provide examples of how one can live a happy, virtuous life in a world where the traditional cycle —Schooling, employment, earning, consumption, procreation— has been exposed as flawed. 
• I believe that we must never give up on happiness even when old methods have failed. 
• I know it is folly to cling to failed methods! 
• I actualize my personal visions. 
• I also give voice to, and interpret the dreams of others. 
• I depict characters who step outside the normal system. 
• I break the rules and make my own. 
• I encourage others to do the same. 


• I make it clear that any world I dream may be useful and may make us happier, but is not the best possible world. 
• I do not know the one right way to do things. 
• I do not have all the answers (anyone who says he does is out to hurt you.) 

Furthermore,

• I know that this set of goals is only right for certain times and purposes. There are many wonderful reasons to make art out there. 
• I do not sanctify this or any document. 
• I break this pledge whenever I want.

(X)______________________

Creatures of the Minnesota Zoo

On July 31, my good friend Michael, who lives in Kansas City right now, came up to Minnesota, and while he was here, he and I took some time to catch up and visit the Minnesota Zoo.

I'm going to do a number of posts about this zoo trip, because I did a lot of drawing there.

First, here is a little collage of all the creatures I sketched at the zoo.
A bigger version of the pics can be seen at my deviantart

Always Bringing, Always Taking Away - At Paper Moose Jumpsuit and Co.

Back in June, I worked with puppeteers Kate Saturday and Olli Johnson, as well as musicians Erik Ostrom and Brian Rowe to perform a Puppet Show about the Mississippi river onboard a Paddleboat for a live audience.  The show went pretty darn well, so we decided to do an encore presentation.

Because Olli was busy this summer working on a puppet show at the Minnesota Zoo (which I eventually got to see with my friend Michael - a post on this zoo trip is coming soon), we recruited my friend Spencer Riedel (who is a musician, puppeteer and all-around awesome and friendly guy what can also entertain you), to fill in for her.

We practiced together a bunch more and then on August 7th, took Always Bringing, Always Taking Away (or ABATA as we call it) to a performing arts space in Minneapolis called Paper Moose Jumpsuit and Co.

Paper Moose is a very weird place, in a good way.  It is located inside an old paper factory.  The front door is always locked so audiences must enter through the fire escape (!!!).  Walking through the building begins as a tour of a decrepit factory and suddenly transforms into a cozy and intimate arts space.  With a sitting room, a stage, and a little bar.

This time, unlike the performance on the boat, the performance was less river-centric, and more like a get-together of friends and associates to focus on each other and art.

Dino Hunt! - With MNZero

I got together with this group called MNZero —which is something of a minnesota-based rendition of the immersive, real-life art-game called SFZero— to play a game dreamed up by my friend Kate Saturday called "Dino Hunt". 


In this game,

"Tribes of prehistoric vegetarians hunt dinosaur puppets with wiffleball spears, while trying to avoid the predations of ptreacherous pterodactyls. With each meatless kill, they claim a new dish for their vegetarian picnic."

It was a lot of fun.

Each dinosaur had a number of hit points, which represented the number of times it could be hit by the wiffleballs tossed at it by the tribe of vicious vegans.  When the dinosaur is killed, it dies dramatically and offers up its bloody, yet still somehow humane, bounty.

Always Bringing, Always Taking Away - Onboard the Mississippi Megalops

So I spent the last few months working with Kate Saturday and Olli Johnson (as well as the musicians Erik Ostrom and Brian Rowe) on an experimental puppet show called "Always Bringing, Always Taking Away"

"Always Bringing, Always Taking Away" is a 15-20 minute long puppet show about the river ecosystem. The puppets are abstractions of animals, people, and machines made entirely out of ribbon. The show was designed to be performed on a paddleboat called the Jonathan Padelford as part of the "Mississippi Megalops - a Floating Chatauqua" project created by the arts organization "Works Progress" for the "Northern Spark" art festival in Saint Paul, MN, which was organized by Northern Lights.

The boat trip was very fun.  I invited my family and my friend Spencer Riedel to come along for the ride.

Watch the video of our performance onboard the megalops here:



After the stress of prepping for the show on the boat we're taking a break. But I bet there's more to come from this show in the near future. Stay Tuned

Strombolli's Medicine Show

This March I've been helping out at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre.
One of the things that I did there was I helped out with a show called "Strombolli's Medicine Show" created by Daniel Polnau.

It was a sort of weird variety show, cabaret, magic, circus, medicine show... thing.

This is the what the stage and backdrop looked like.  In the center is the cauldron that contains "the panacea to cure all the ills of humanity"

This is Dan as Dr. Strombolli - A zany medicine man who opens the gates to the spirit world to call forth a variety of strange creatures and acts to convince the audience of the existence of magic, and to ultimately fill the cauldron.

Here's MY part:  Backstage I worked at an overhead projector with artists Kate Saturday and Olli Johnson to create kaleidoscopic projections behind the action, using colored plates and gels.

One of the highlights of the show - an image that defies explanation.

The cast photo

We had lots of fun, that's me on the right.