Wednesday, November 30, 2011

SPECIAL OFFER: Larry Marder Personalized Hardcovers for CBLDF!







Wahoolazuma! CBLDF President Larry Marder contributes this signed hardcover edition of his most peculiar comics experience Beanworld! Captivating readers from grade school to grad school, Beanworld is a peculiar fantasy that operates under its own rules and laws. Series creator Larry Marder says, "Beanworld is about the affinity of life. It's like A Bug's Life meets Mutts, as told by Dr. Seuss and Joseph Campbell." Meet Mr. Spook, Professor Garbanzo, Beanish, and the Chow Sol'jer Army as they experience adventures that prove, whether friends or adversaries, we all ultimately depend on each other for survival. Beanworld reflects deep truths about our world, including themes of ecology, advertising, culture, and art, making the experiences of these fanciful creatures feel as true, funny, moving, and relatable as anything in our own reality.

Personalization requests due by December 5!

Here’s How The Personalization Works:
When you place your order with the CBLDF for these holiday premiums, you can have each of the offered books personalized to one or two names, and the artist will sign and personalize the book on a high quality CBLDF-branded bookplate. When you place your order in the comments section, please include the personalization request, such as: For Carl & Nancy, or For Will, or To The Groppers! Sorry – artists will not be able to provide sketches or other messages.

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This Larry Marder/Beanworld thing is part of a much larger CBLDF Spirit of Giving drive.
The Will & Ann Eisner Family Foundation will make a contribution to the CBLDF for every donation and membership placed during this campaign!

Be a hero this holiday by giving the most unique gifts that make a real difference when you support the CBLDF with the Spirit of Giving!

Larry












Monday, November 28, 2011

Larry Marder's DEJA VIEW!




First I told myself  "I'll finish Here There and get 'em done."
Next I pushed it back to until I get all the coloring and new pages for Beanworld 3.5 in the can.
Then I thought I could go the distance and get Something More finished first.
Wasn't gonna happen.

What am I talking about?
Cataracts.
I had 'em.
Bad.
My cloudy eyes weren't going to carry me through to the end.


I was told almost 8 years ago that I'd need to have my cataracts taken care of within five years.
I held out as long as I could.
It was okay to lose my night vision.
I even could handle the "cloudy look" of people's faces and not being able to see virtually anything or anyone in large gatherings and public places. After all I could still draw all day and night.
And then--I couldn't.

I knew by the end of San Diego Comic-Con that I couldn't get by any longer.
It was time for me to face the facts.
My eyes were in need of repair.

Now, I'm a total wuss when it comes to my eyes.
An eyelash caught in my eye or a bit of grit under the eyelid and I'm not a happy camper.
Never could wear contacts and never once considered having Lasik surgery either.

So the idea of having the lenses in my eyeballs, y'know the ones I was issued upon birth, being taken out and swapped for something man-made quite frankly gave me the heebie-jeebies.

Everyone told me: Don't worry about it.
It's a cakewalk.

Well, it was.
Easy as pie.

Out came my old clouded up natural lenses and in went my super duper 21st century lens implants and the world became new. Like Dorothy opening the door onto Munchkinland kind of mind boggling new.

Incredible.
Amazing.
Astounding.
Astonishing.
Uncanny.
All those Marvel Comics title adjectives.

So now I can see distances never dreamed of before.
I'm experiencing colors in ways I haven't in years and years.

I've worn glasses since about the time the USSR put Sputnik in orbit.
All my life I've pretty much always been the most near-sighted person anyone-I-know knows.
No longer being myopic is downright bizarre.
I don't need to wear glasses anymore to see things super clearly across very long distances.

This is weird because prescription lenses for extreme nearsightedness greatly reduces the size of everything that is looked at through those lenses. For all my adult life, the things I see have appeared much smaller than they actually are. All of a sudden everything around me is huge. This is taking some getting used to.

Things up close are a different matter.
I need reading glasses to, well, read.
And draw.

Since my ocular implants I've been experimenting with different magnifications at various close distances.
Plus my eyes are still healing and adjusting and changing every day .
And I'm on quite the regimen of eye drops.

It's only going on two weeks and it takes anywhere from a month or three for everything to settle in.
My brain is processing huge amounts of sensory input every moment of every day.
Plus my body has a lifetime of habits that are no longer functional.
There is no need to hunch over a book or drawing anymore.
But my body still wants to do it even though my eyes need to be at a different distance to see correctly.
I'm constantly discovering all the new distances and postures that will make seeing-sense from now on.
Particularly on the Cintiq.
The pic above is my first attempt to draw on it.
I think it looks like I drew it.
Hope so anyway.
I'm still not over how much larger everything appears on screen--particularly the desktop icons and the Photoshop palettes.
I wasn't expecting that.

Anyway, that's where I've been and what I'm doing after my cryptic post a few weeks ago,
Every day I learn something new about how to see.

My motto as voiced by Beanish above is:
One day at a time.
One step at a time.

Book Four?
Ready or not, here I come!

Sunday, November 13, 2011

I'll be off the grid for a bit....


...due to some ocular upgrading..
Be back before ya know it!.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Another Tantalizing Tuesday Teaser!




No, I'm not going to tell you WHAT's going on.
Or WHO that Bean might be.
Or WHY he's (or she) there.
But I can tell you WHAT this drawing is.

It's a layout for a big moment on the cusp of change
in Beanworld Book Four: Something More!

WHEN will it be published?
Not sure yet but I'm getting there, slowly but surely,


Friday, November 4, 2011

Goofy Service Doodles from the Beanworld Archives!



I've written before about the scribbles I've done on the job that I call "Goofy Service Doodles." In fact, there were at least two ashcan collections of them. One of my goals for next year's convention season is to recollect them with lots of previously unseen stuff.

I found this one today.

Gee, it's almost 20 years old. It's from my days at Marketing Director at Moondog's Comicland in Chicago, IL. From the looks of it we were at a meeting working on 1992 plans. And the stuff the Goofy Service Jerk said was true: at Moondog's we really did have the finest store managers in the comic book business. Some have their own stores nowadays and some I've lost track of but we all shared some mighty heady times.

I don't know what we thought was going to happen in retail in '92. I think we'd heard the rumblings of the immanent Image Comics revolution brewing on the west coast. I certainly didn't know on that date how much the Image Comics declaration of independence was going to change the entire comic book business and just how much I was going to get swept up into it myself.

In our world, you never really know what is going to happen next.
But something always does.