November 25, 2009
smug bastard
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Hugh MacLeod
I'm a cartoonist.
I sell limited-edition prints.
I wrote a book.
I'm CEO of Stormhoek USA, which markets South African wine in the States.
I also draw private commissions.
Prints |
Opening | Current |
|---|---|---|
NY NY |
$275 |
Archive for November, 2009
November 24, 2009
gallery profile: the 2007 techcrunch party print
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Back in Blogging’s glory days of 2007 (Man, that seems like a LONG time ago), my client, the Stormhoek winery was sponsoring the famous annual Techcrunch Party in Silicon Valley.
To add some fun to the event, we made up 1000 signed, limited edition commemorative prints, which we handed out free to the guests.
Of all the Techcrunch Party prints we made over the last four years, I probably have the most affection for this one. The image is of a map of the San Francisco area, with a blue “X” marking the exact spot in Menlo, CA. where the party took place.
I’ve always like maps, I’ve always liked the relationship between a 2-D, visual representation and the actual terrain. Bear in mind up to that point– Summer, 2007, I had never ventured to Silicon Valley before, I could only imagine what it must be like to be there. It gave the piece a rather fanciful intensity, I reckon.
Though we gave most of the prints to Mike Arrington and the Techcrunch crew for the party, I hung on to a few of them, thinking they might be valuable one day, or failing that, they’d a great little momento to a most remarkable time in Internet history.
Turns out I was right on both counts. Rock on.
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November 23, 2009
why yes, i’ve been busy lately…
This is what happens when you get rid of your Blackberry and start leaving your computer at the office overnight. You suddenly get far more creative and productive. At least, I do…
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November 22, 2009
i want to sing
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twenty years on [life is too short mk ii]
A week ago today it occurred to me, that date, the 15th November marked the twenty-year anniversary of me starting my first “real job” out of college i.e. as a junior copywriter for Leo Burnett, the big ad agency in Chicago.
It’s been a hell of a trip since then. Glad I ended up where I did; though damn, I wish it hadn’t taken me so frickin’ long.
Every day that I’m alive, the cartoon above gets truer and truer and truer…
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November 20, 2009
liberation
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coming through town
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i want to believe
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what people say
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it’s not a city
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t-shirt idea
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somebody save me
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shaving
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untitled 091120a
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untitled 091120
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soviet
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November 16, 2009
life isn’t fucked
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November 15, 2009
history of my blog
[Updated version of a 2007 cartoon.]
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with porn, all things are possible
[Originally published November 29, 2005:]
I was having a long conversation with a friend last night about “Business Porn”:
Business Porn is just like Ordinary Porn or Real Estate Porn, except instead of it being about the women we wished we could sleep with, or the houses we wish we owned, it’s about all those cool, lucrative, exciting jobs and businesses that we wish we had, instead of the normal, tedious, schleppy crap most of us end up doing to pay the bills.
Does your blog suffer from low traffic? It’s probably because there’s not enough porn on it. Sex Porn, Real Estate Porn, Wine Porn, Biz Porn, Emotional Porn, it doesn’t matter.
Porn = Traffic.
Porn = Marketing.
Porn = Sales.
With Porn, all things are possible.
So now you know.
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November 14, 2009
the killer app
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grim reaper
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inspired
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November 9, 2009
the miracle of creation
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untitled 091109
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so what’s your message
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November 8, 2009
faq’s
When I set up gapingvoid.com back in May, 2001, I drew this cartoon for the FAQ page.
As you can see, I still wasn’t quite over my crazy-ass New York life yet… even if that had ended over a year before.
I foresee my work getting quieter and more lyrical over the next few years. Less rock and roll, more Phillip Glass, to use a musical allegory.
Yes, I’m really looking forward to it. Can’t wait!
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fat dumb happy
I drew this cartoon this morning, while thinking about a conversation I had a couple of years ago:
I was on the phone to an old friend of mine, a guy in his late forties, who was born and bred in Michigan, and is living there now. He was telling me about his uncle, who, about four decades ago, got his highschool sweetheart pregnant. So instead of going off to college, he found himself with a new wife, a child on the way, and an assembly-line job at General Motors. But even though this situation clipped his wings considerably, he still ended up having a nice life in the end, with a home, a big yard, two cars, a steady paycheck, weekends fishing or hunting deer, and vacations in Hawaii every year or so. “The days where a blue collar guy like my uncle could have a nice life without doing much,” my friend said, “those days are gone. Gone forever.”
And in the back of my mind, I’m thinking the same is starting to happen to white collar guys more and more, as well. But it’s not quite out in the open yet. Society’s not quite ready to have that conversation.
I also heard a statistic a couple of weeks ago that there are at least thirty million children in China currently taking piano lessons. Thirty. Million.
We live in interesting times…
[Update: ]“Thousandists”: My long-time Spanish blog buddy, Nia left an interesting comment below:
That conversation about white-collar jobs is four years old in Spain.
This is the short version: The people who were in their 20-30s in the 1970s saw that a University degree made a big difference in your job and salary. They made their kids (anyone born 1970 – 1985) study, and that young generation believed for a while that we could do the same trick as our parents. Get a degree. The job will follow.
We now have a word for people of my generation with a handful of degrees: mileuristas. Thousandists. As in, someone who makes around 1,000 euros a month. There’s so many of us, no one’s willing to pay us more than a (barely) living wage.
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untitled 091108
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November 7, 2009
mod icon
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worship ye…
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November 6, 2009
lifestyle refugee
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creepy eel guy
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November 5, 2009
“random new york”, 1998
I drew this one in early 1998, during my first months of living in Manhattan.
I liked all those intense, late-night random conversations with all sorts of equally random Manhattan people– especially at first– but of course, after a while they all start to sound the same.
This is the kind of drawing one does sitting on a New York barstool, when one is not liking one’s day job nearly well enough. That was my situation at the time, anyway.
If today I met my younger self from back then, I’d say to him, “You’re just paying your dues, Kiddo. Frickin’ get over yourself…”
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life is too short
[Cartoon inspired by my friend, Mark Earls aka @herdmeister…]
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November 4, 2009
i wanted wings
Like I said in IGNORE EVERYBODY, “When your dream become reality, they are no longer your dreams.” This drawing is all about that…
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November 2, 2009
the daily beatings don’t stop. ever.
Mark has a fun post over on The Lateral Action Blog, “Lose Touch With Your Inner Whining Artist”:
Your Inner Whining Artist (IWA) is the part of you that tells you you’re a genius waiting to be discovered. If only the big bad world would sit up and recognise your talent, the IWA tells you, all your problems would be over. Audiences and critics would bow at your feet, agents would queue up to represent you, and all the people who’d ever rejected your work would be gorging themselves on humble pie. You just need to get your break, to be discovered. It can only be a matter of time …
It’s quite simple, really: People who spend a lot of time listening to their Inner Whining Artist get the shit beaten out of them by the world in general on a daily basis.
And as long as IWA plays a plays a significant role in your life, the daily beatings don’t stop. Ever.
Thank Christ for that.
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writer’s block
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apple store
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