Posts Tagged ‘gapingvoid classics’
February 22, 2013
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[Sign up here]
We’ve started an affiliate program!
As you know, we pay our bills by selling prints and tee shirts of our art (along with a lot of cool animation and corporate work). I wanted to let you know that we recently set up gapingvoid on the Linkshare network (an affiliate program) so that our friends with blogs and websites can actually benefit directly (by earning commissions) from helping to spread the gapingvoid word.
If you are already part of the Linkshare network you can easily search for “gapingvoid art” and request to be added as a publisher. If you are not yet part of Linkshare you can sign up here for free.
As you are a special friend of gapingvoid, we’d be happy to prepare any custom banners for you and your audience, or work with you to create a really special offer just for your community. Just let us know. In any event, it would be an honor and awesome to have you as a gapingvoid affiliate. If you want any additional info about the affiliate program, feel free to contact Jason or Jeff. Me? I’ll be drawing.
Rock on!
Hugh
February 21, 2013
No Comments
[More thoughts on The Rackspace Book…]
6. ROB LA GESSE
Rob La Gesse is the groovy cat who first hired gapingvoid at Rackspace.
He’s also the guy who hired my friend, Robert Scoble.
He’s a lot like me and Scoble, i.e. very much his own man, very much an individual.
I suppose that’s why we get along.
Above is a T-shirt design I’ve never showed Rob before– he’s seeing it for the first time here on the blog, the same as you and everyone else. He may like it, he may not.
That’s how Rob and I work together. Like I said in my last blog post, “he lets me just post stuff without getting pre-approval. We like doing that way because it lets him see the work for the first time in the wild, which keeps the thinking fresher, somehow.…”
The thing is, there’s a method to the madness. If the idea fails, hey, it’s just a wee cartoon on a blog post. We can quickly and easily try something else the same day. It’s not like we blew money on a Superbowl ad that ended up bombing…
But if the idea works, it works REALLY well. The idea gets emailed around, both inside and outside the company, to employees, shareholders, customers and non-customers alike. It suddenly takes on a life of its own, on its own merit.
In other words, it suddenly becomes a cultural object (i.e. a social object that articulates the company culture), as opposed to just a usual piece of commercial, “Here’s-why-you-should-give-us-your-money” messaging (You know, the kind that noboday actually cares about).
Rob and I never planned it this way, we just started talking and this is kinda how it evolved. That’s kinda how we both roll. Rock on.
February 15, 2013
1 Comment
“Live each day as if it were your last, for one day it will be.” Though Marcus Aurelius’ Third-Century advice sounds terrific, it’s probably the hardest piece of advice in the world to follow.
In Robert Altman’s 1992 movie, “The Player”, David Kahane, an unsuccessful screenwriter is randomly murdered. At his funeral, his friend Phil reads out the last words he ever wrote:
Blackness.
A mangy dog barks.
Garbage can lids are lifted as derelicts in the street… hunt for food.
Buzzing, as a cheap alarm clock goes off.
Interior. Flophouse room.
Early morning.
A tracking shot moves through the grimy room.
Light streams in through holes in yellowing window shades.
Moths dance in the beams of light.
Track down along the floor.
The frayed rug.
Stop on an old shoe. It’s empty.
That’s as far as he got, said Phil…
If David Kahane knew these words were goingto be the last ones he would ever write, do you think he would’ve have chosen them? No, of course not, he would’ve written something else, somethiong far more meaningful and timeless.
That’s what makes the scene so memorable, so tragic. Robert Altman knew what he was doing.
That scene always stuck with me. It told me, “Make every word you write count, Boy, for one day those words will be your last”.
The fact that I was watching the movie for the first time in a crowded cinema in West LA, made it seem even more tragi-comic than usual. A lot of other un-dead David-Kahane-types were in the audience, all laughing nervously at the in-joke.
It’s too easy to just laugh at all the in-jokes, isn’t it? It’s too easy to think one is immune, isn’t it?
February 5, 2013
7 Comments
[Diary entry, May 2008]
Though I started doing my “Cartoons drawn on the back of business cards” in December, 1997, it took me a few months to really get into it… as this photo from my old 1998 diary shows.
At first, I thought I should just do a few dozen of them for kicks and giggles, then move on to something else.
That I’d still be doing them 15 years later, didn’t even cross my tiny little mind.
But then it took on a life of its own. Its meaning, purpose and scope snowballed slowly over time.
The lesson here is, be careful of seeking out “The Big Moments” on purpose. Because when the big moments actually happen, they don’t seem very big at the time (like the one in the May, 2008 diary entry above). And too many moments that seem big at the time, often end up going nowhere (“The Failed Superbowl Ad Graveyard” is full of those).
Of course, the more you love your work, the less you need (or want) the “Big Moments” to sustain you. What you really end up needing (and wanting)is just to wake up fresh every morning, and get busy without a lot of fuss.
“Simple. Easy. Happy. Boring.” Exactly.
[So far I’ve drawn over 10,000 of the business card cartoons. You can see the latest ones on my Tumblr page etc.]
January 6, 2010
11 Comments
I drew the cartoon above over five years ago. It still applies.
Brian Clark and I were chatting on the phone yesterday about the end of the “Utopian” phase of blogging and social media.
Yes, all that talk about “Conversation”, “The Social Graph”, “End of Marketing”, “Advertising Is Dead”, “Authenticity”, “Transparency” and “Bypassing The Gatekeepers” had its place.
At the same time, I think we all collectively wasted a lot of time by endlessly yakking on about it. “Building Brand Advocates through Influencer Engagement” and similar corporate drivel.
I think 2010 will the year we all start actually being more TRANSPARENT about why we’re really here in the first place: To make money.
Speaking of which, anyone here fancy buying a gapingvoid fine art print? Rock on.
[About Hugh. Cartoon Archive. Commission Hugh. Sign up for Hugh’s “Daily Cartoon” Newsletter.]
December 27, 2009
2 Comments
From the gapingvoid Gallery:
I drew this when I was living in New York, in the late ‘nineties.
If you actually listen to me speak, if you actually read my prose writing, you’ll find I don’t swear very often. But somehow it works in cartoons. Especially ones created in New York.
This print is one of four prints in the “Portfolio Series Number Two”, but you may purchase it here individually.
[About Hugh. Cartoon Archive. Sign up for my “Daily Cartoon” Newsletter.]
November 22, 2009
10 Comments
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…
[About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Hire Hugh. Buy Hugh’s Art. Cartoon Archive.]
October 18, 2009
5 Comments
There’s been plenty of art made on the subject of business and capitalism, as this recent article in The Economist will attest.
Though as I was drawing this catoon earlier this morning I got thinking, the subject of The Entrepreneur? Far less coverage.
That might have to change. I might have to be the one to change it. Just sayin’…
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Work with Hugh. Twitter. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
October 16, 2009
10 Comments
[“Ignore Everybody”: Larger version here.]
[“New York”. Larger version here.]
[“We Need To Talk”. Larger version here.]
[“Corinthians”. Larger version here.]
[“Portfolio Number One”, hanging in a collector’s office in Germany.]
After the success of Portfolio Number One and Portfolio Number Two, we’ll be publishing Portfolio Number Three in about a month.
11“x14”, Rives-Arches French made paper, hand-printed, limited-edition serigraphs, hand-signed and numbered by me, i.e. the exact same format as before.
This portfolio will be smaller versions of prints we have already published on the gallery. People like the bigger prints (“Purple Cow”, for example, is 39“x28”), but small ones have their place, too (especially if you like hanging art in downstairs bathrooms etc.).
Also, with the Holiday Season coming up, these wee “Cube Grenades” will make a lovely gift for people. Because of their relatively small size, you don’t have to worry so much about where the person receiving it is going to find room to hang it etc.
You can buy the entire portfolio of four prints, framed, for $495 plus Shipping & Handling. Or you can buy them individually, framed, for $150 each, plus Shipping & Handling.
I’ll announce when the Portfolio is up on the gallery site and ready to go, or you can reserve yours now by clicking on one of the two PayPal Deposit buttons below (one for the portfolio of four, one for buying a print individually etc.), and we’ll put you first on the list. The other advantage of using the PayPal button instead of waiting for the offering to go live on the gallery website is, the earlier you place the deposit, the easier it is to reserve a certain number of an edition you may care to have.
The plan is to have these printed, signed and shipped out within the month, so plenty of time before Christmas and Hannuka.
I hope you like what you see, this going to be a great little series. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below. Thank You.
[TO PURCHASE PORTFOLIO #3 — $75.00 DEPOSIT]
[TO PURCHASE AN INDIVIDUAL “PORTFOLIO # 3″ PRINT — $50.00 DEPOSIT: Once the prints are up on the gallery site, we’ll e-mail you to confirm which one of the four you want specifically etc.]
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Work with Hugh. Twitter. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
September 30, 2009
4 Comments
[$50 PayPal Deposit Button etc.]
The “A Story [Blue]” print is now available as a pre-publication offer: $245.00
This print is different than the ones I’ve done to date. It has a sort of Abstract-Expressionist feel to it, as I felt that was more in keeping with the sentiment. It’s a beautiful thought, one of my favorites. “A story without Love is not worth telling.” Like Saint Paul wrote to The Corinthians, “Without Love, I am nothing.” The best stories are about things we care about, told to the people we care about. This is true whether we’re talking fiction, fact, people, ideas or yes, the story about the business you’re trying to get off the ground.
Love matters. People matter. Everything else is secondary. Amen to that.
With many people saying that small is beautiful, we will be editioning this in a slightly smaller format. Still a hand-pulled serigraph, by Master Printmaker, Jamie, printed on heavy French Rives Arche Paper. Hand-signed and numbered by me. We won’t know the actual size until we proof the image, but I’d estimate it will be 18“x24” or so.
The print will be posted on the gallery page soon enough, selling at $450.00, but for now, it’s only available here exclusively on my blog for the special pre-order price of $275.00.
Just click on the $50 PayPal Deposit button above to secure your order. We’ll invoice you for the rest once they’re printed and ready to ship, which should be late October.
We’re now also offering a lovely framing deal, where we frame it properly for you for an extra $125, so you can hang it right out of the box. We’ll post the details on the gallery once the print is up on there, and also e-mail you the details along with the invoice etc.
Anyway, I hope you like it. As always, I love receiving the pictures of the hanging art in people’s homes and offices, so please keep them coming, Thanks!
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Work with Hugh. Twitter. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
September 4, 2009
11 Comments
“Vanished”. This is one of the prints from “Portfolio Series Number Two”, and is now for sale individually on the gapingvoid gallery.
Its backstory is over on my bio page:
“Spring ’98. I was at a bar, it was late, I was kinda tipsy.
Suddenly I realized that my life hadn’t changed much in the last decade since leaving college. Work, bars, cartoons, random conversations of a big-city nature, second-hand bookshops and art films, the occasional bout of random or regular sex to tide things over etc etc.
It wasn’t as interesting as it used to be. But I hadn’t moved on, really. And I had no idea where to go next.
Welcome to New York.
The best cartoons are the ones that give you these amazing moments of clarity as you draw them. That’s the best thing about cartooning, really. Everything else seems rather secondary in comparison.”
This is one of all-time favorite cartoons. Though I wouldn’t call it “The story of my life” much these days, back in New York… Oh, yeah. Ouch.
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.]
August 17, 2009
2 Comments
[“Mistakenly”]
[“Nobody Cares”]
[“Vanished”]
[“CFA’}
[Click on images to enlarge etc.]
[UPDATE: These prints are now also for sale individually. Go check out gapingvoidgallery.com to see more.…]
After the very successful launch of Portfolio Series Number One, we’re happy to announce the launch of Portfolio Series Number Two.
After consulting with y’all recently about what designs to use, we narrowed it down to the four designs you see above.
Same deal as last time: They measure 11“x14”, and can be framed and hung, or kept in a portfolio to view or use for meetings and then put away etc. They are all hand-pulled serigraphs, and printed on Rives-Arches paper. All four are taken from cartoons that appeared in my book, IGNORE EVERYBODY.
You can pre-order them for $300 for the set of four, by just leaving a $50.00 deposit using the PayPal button below. We’ll send you an invoice for the remainder when they’re printed an ready to ship.
[$50.00 deposit/pre-order PayPal button etc.]
Portfolio One used black and red. This time we used mainly a black and blue theme. This group of cartoons I selected comes out of my New York days, when my tone was less about business– more personal– and more about being sardonic and hanging out in bars too much. Blue is the perfect color for that…
They came out looking well. I’m excited! Hope you like. Rock on.
August 10, 2009
14 Comments
[One of the cartoons from the book etc.…]
After the great success of the “Portfolio Number One” launch, we’ve decided to do another one i.e. Portfolio Number Two.
And like last time, all images chosen will be taken from my book, IGNORE EVERYBODY.
So if you’ve read the book already, I’d love to hear your feedback. Which cartoon(s) from the book do you think would make good “cube grenades”? Please feel free to leave a comment below, Thanks!
[Visit my print gallery here.]
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.]
August 5, 2009
No Comments
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
A couple of people emailed us, saying they were having trouble their PayPals, and needed some extra time to sort it out.
Besides that, as the original Monday night deadline came an went, people were still trickling in. It seemed a bit mean just to cut them off arbitrarily.
So with that in mind, we’re keeping the the IGNORE EVERYBODY print offer open for a while yet. We’ll see what happens.
Thanks to EVERYBODY for THE MOST SUCCESSFUL pre-order we’ve ever done! Seriously. Rock on.
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.]
July 27, 2009
1 Comment
The “Dinosaur” print is now for sale up on gapingvoidgallery…
Derived from the old maxim, “Never try to teach a pig to sing, it wastes your time and annoys the pig.“
Limited edition, signed and numbered, printed with the same high-quality inks and papers as the larger stuff etc.
A nice cube grenade for any office. Rock on.
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.“EVIL PLANS”.]
June 17, 2009
3 Comments
[The printer’s proofs. You can buy the entire 4-piece set here. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
[UPDATE: This offer is only valid for 48 hours, Thanks!]
[These are the PayPal buttons for an offer made exclusively for my CDF Newsletter subscribers. The offer is only open to them, Thanks.]
“DINOSAUR“
“HUGHTRAIN“
QUALITY
“ADVERTISING”
June 11, 2009
5 Comments
[The printer’s proofs. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
[“Dinosaur”]
[“Hughtrain”]
[“Quality”]
[“Talked”]
Last week I blogged about a series of small prints I was working on, based on the cartoons in the new book, “IGNORE EVERYBODY”, which as y’all know, launched today.
These cartoons above are some of the most viewed, and have collectively been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. I know they adorn lots of cube walls, been made into stickers and of course, blogcards.
These four reflect a lot about what I was feeling at the time I drew them, three or four years ago. How we all have a need to find “purpose”, and the stuff we do and the people we interact with each day, in order to find “it”.
So today, being a day that for me is a lot about finding my own purpose, I’ve decided that it would be a poignant moment to make these available for people to own. You can throw away your yellow’d download and own the real thing instead, signed and numbered by me. An edition of 100, sold as a set in a portfolio, for $300 [Plus Shipping & Handling]. In a few days we’ll be offering the individual prints for about $100 each.
These are smaller versions of what we have been doing up until now. They measure 11“x14”, and can be framed and hung, or kept in a portfolio to view or use for meetings and then put away etc.
They are all hand-pulled serigraphs, and printed on Rives-Arches paper. For those of you thinking about collecting the work long-term, this is a good, affordable, and fun place to start. I hope to be making lots more of these portfolio editions in the future. Thanks.
June 3, 2009
8 Comments
[“Dinosaur”]
[“Hughtrain”]
[“Quality”]
[“Talked”]
A week ago I wrote that we’d be producing some new prints based on some of the cartoons appearing in my book, IGNORE EVERYBODY.
After receiving a lot of feedback from y’all, we decided on the four designs above. Here are some notes:
1. They’ll be smaller. Approx 9.5“x14”, roughly the same dimensions as my Mac laptop.
2. They’ll be more affordable. Circa $125.00 US, $400.00 for the complete set of four.
3. They’ll be of the same high-quality. They’ll be silk-screened by hand. Old School. They’ll be signed and numbered by me. Because they are more affordable, they’ll be larger editions, say, 800 or so. We could have saved money if we used digital printing, but we decided against it — hand pulled serigraphs, still.
4. Finding Space: We realized that about 35% of each edition done so far is being purchased by the same group of people. Many of them are saying, we want to collect, but we are running out of wall space. So these images are of a size that can be framed and hung on a small wall, several at a time. Or maybe people will do what I do i.e. keep the images in a small portfolio, for taking out when they have meetings, or entertaining. In any case, it seems to me that making lower cost, true high-quality, limited editions, lots more people will be able to enjoy them. No worries for those with big walls, I am going to continue to do the larger images as well.
Over the next week, I’ll be working out all the details with this new size. Watch this space.
[More: About Hugh. Interview. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
May 15, 2009
10 Comments
One of my Twitter followers sent me the photograph above. It’s the “Create or Die” image, downloaded off my blog, printed out and stuck onto his cube wall. Classic “Cube Grenade” action.
If you fancy one of these for yourself, well, that’s easy enough. I’ve reposted the same image immediately below. Just click on the image, download the high-rez version, print it out, find a wall and some Scotch tape, et Voila! Instant Cube Grenade.
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
If you want the more upscale version, there’s the large, high-quality, signed, limited-edition print I’ve got for sale on the gallery website. And of course, if you are already a subscriber to my CDF Newsletter, the “hush-hush top secret” offer I made to y’all last week is still open.
I know that if I put enough good stuff out there, create enough interaction, my business model would emerge eventually. I like my print business and the idea behind it, but already I see it as a small subset of the much larger Cube Grenade idea.
We live in interesting times…
[P.S. If you have any of my Cube Grenades in your possession, please can you e-mail some photos of them to me? Thanks]
May 4, 2009
10 Comments
Dear God,
Do you mind if I call you that?
You gotta admit, “God” is bit of a silly name…
I guess it’s better than calling you “Fred”, “George”, “Larry” or whatever…
Just askin’…
Kindest Regards,
Hugh
April 24, 2009
3 Comments
[The “AgenciaClick” prints being signed and numbered…]
[The “Wolf vs Sheep” prints, freshly signed and numbered…]
I’m in Miami for the weekend, mainly here to sign some more prints and do some more drawing…
Drawn in Alpine, Texas. Printed in NYNY. Signed in Miami. Sold all over the world, via the Internet. A global microbrand, if ever there was one…
April 13, 2009
2 Comments
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Though this cartoon, “Create or Die” is less than a week old, it seemed to really resonate with people, and by the time the end of last week rolled around, the number of people emailing me about this image almost equaled those who voted for Wolf v. Sheep. So, being the kind of person that hates to disappoint, I decided to damn the torpedoes and go ahead and publish it, as it seems to make lots of people happy.
The cartoon was inspired by a dialog I had going with one of my clients, Dell Computers, just before Christmas. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this “creativity” thing isn’t just a Dell issue, it applies to all of us.
Like I said in my previous blog post:
In this globalized, hyper-linked, internet-enabled world, “Boring” has suddenly become a very expensive luxury.
[…]
I want to make limited-edition prints that somehow, even in a small, indirect way, helps make companies and individuals less afraid, and more willing to be CREATIVE, more willing to embrace the CREATIVITY that they already have. Because economically and spiritually, that is ultimately where our future lies, even if that idea sometimes terrifies us.
I can’t tell you what to make. I can’t tell you what your customers will find interesting or useful. I can’t tell you what’s going to knock their socks off. I can’t tell you what “Create” means to you or somebody else.
But I will tell you, I AM RIGHT about this one. Create or Die. That’s why I wanted to make this into a print. Something on the wall to serve as a steady reminder.
[The Small Print:]
1. It’ll be printed around the end of April, and will retail at $450.00. Not yet sure on the edition size, we’ll decide when it is going to print, all hand-signed and numbered by me. Using the Paypal button below to make a $100 deposit, you can own at the pre-publication price of $265.00. The pre-pub price will expire by Thursday. Any orders after that, but before the publication date can buy it for $350.00. The minute the image is printed, the price reverts back to $450.00.
[UPDATE: The PayPal Deposit has been removed.]
2. To secure your pre-order, please use the PayPal button above to make a $100 deposit. The PayPal form will ask you for all your details [including your preferred shipping address], which of course we’ll have for our records. Why are we asking for a deposit? To weed out the spammers, flakes and trolls out there [This is the Internet, after all], leaving only committed buyers in the mix. No other reason.
3. When asked for your details, please include your real name, not just your business name. The shipper won’t deliver it otherwise.
4. The print will be ready to ship in 4 – 6 weeks from today. We’ll email you another PayPal for the outstanding invoice once the artwork is printed and packed.
5. We’ll be printing these to the same high standards as last time i.e. top-of-the-line inks and paper, approx 24″ x 35″ in dimension. If for some reason, I don’t like the way the colors lay down when I am proofing it, I reserve the right to change the colors and if you don’t like the final image, you can have your deposit back, no questions asked.
6. Shipping & handling [approx $45 USA, $65 abroad] is not included in the price. The buyer is also responsible for any Customs & Excise outside the USA. We ship them flat, not rolled.
7. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me an email at gapingvoidprints@gmail.com, and either Laura or me will answer them.
Thanks, as always, for your love and support!
April 8, 2009
23 Comments
[“Wolf vs. Sheep”. Click on image to enlarge]
[UPDATE: Wolf vs Sheep $265 is now closed. The price is now $350 pre-order until the print ships, early May. Thanks for the support!!!!!]
“Wolf vs. Sheep” will be the next gapingvoid print.
<ahref=“http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/004906.html”>The votes are in, and it is always interesting to see which image wins, and what people have to say about why. We were betting that the winner was going to be “Love Begets Love”, but between the emails and comments, it was at least three-to-one for “Wolf vs Sheep”. [Which just proves that I still do not know why people like one cartoon over another]. Even though, fewer people voted for the other images, they were no less passionate about the ones they selected, and that started us thinking… as I will explain below.
I am always reminded that I need to spell out the ‘fine print’, as follows:
1. It’ll be printed around the end of April, and will retail at $450.00. It’ll be an edition of roughly 100, hand signed and numbered by me. The first 30 people who pre-order it by making a $100 deposit using the PayPal button below can have it at the pre-publication price of $265.00. Any orders after, but before the publication date can buy it for $350.00. The minute the print goes into production, the price reverts back to $450.00.
[UPDATE: PAYPAL BUTTON REMOVED, EASTER SUNDAY.]
2. To secure your pre-order, please use the PayPal button above to make a $100 deposit. The PayPal form will ask you for all your details [including your preferred shipping address], which of course we’ll have for our records. Why are we asking for a deposit? To weed out the spammers, flakes and trolls out there [This is the Internet, after all], leaving only committed buyers in the mix. No other reason.
3. The print will be ready to ship in 4 – 6 weeks. We’ll send you another PayPal for the outstanding invoice once the artwork is printed.
4. We’ll be printing these to the same high standards as last time i.e. top-of-the-line inks and paper, approx 24″ x 35″ in dimension. If for some reason, I don’t like the way the colors lay down when I am proofing it, I reserve the right to change the colors and if you don’t like the final image, you can have your deposit back, no questions asked.
5. Shipping & handling [approx $45 USA, $65 abroad] is not included in the price. The buyer is also responsible for any Customs & Excise outside the USA. We ship them flat, not rolled. When you give us your details, please remember to include your name, not just your company name. Otherwise the Post Office won’t accept it.
6. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me an email at gapingvoidprints@gmail.com, and either Laura or me will answer them.
Though “Wolf vs Sheep” was the clear winner, there was still a lot of PASSIONATE support for the two other contenders, “Create Or Die” and “Love Begets Love” [see the comments]. We’re looking at ways to make those available to you as well. I drafted a post earlier today that I’ll publish in a few days. In part, it says:
EVERY DAY now, I’m getting emails from people, requesting that I turn their favorite gapingvoid cartoon into a limited edition print. The good news is, in an ideal world, I would do it in a nanosecond. The bad news is, it is just not economically feasible. These sorts of print editions are really expensive to make, and without a critical mass of customers per edition, it simply doesn’t work
The funny thing about my work is, that because there is so much of it, so many different images mean so many different things to so many different people. On one level, I’ve been really blessed at being very prolific, but on another level, I struggle with deciding what to images to choose for production. Yes, there are obvious ones, like “The Bluetrain”, but many, like “Corinthians”, which proved to be really popular in the end, I could have just as easily not have chosen.
There HAS to be a better way. Somehow, I need to make the selection process more open to Everyone.…
So I’m thinking to myself, wouldn’t it be cool if people could SPONSOR their own limited edition? Seriously.
We’re looking into this idea where individuals can feasibly “sponsor” the production of their favorite cartoon into print form, and harnessing the power of the Internet to get other people to join their cause. We’ll either build or own website for that, or we’ll use something like Fundable.org.
[“Love Begets Love” and “Create or Die”.]
“Love Begets Love” and “Create or Die” will be the guinea pigs. It’ll be really interesting to see what happens. Please watch this space.
Thanks, as always, for your love and support!
April 7, 2009
78 Comments
[UPDATE: “Wolf vs Sheep” will be the next gapingvoid print. Details here.]
In case you haven’t been following, I have been updating a few images from my back catalogue [which numbers over 5,000 drawings, the last time I counted] and turning them into limited-edition silkscreens.
It has been a great experience. It’s allowed me to reacquaint myself with the images, that in some cases, I haven’t really thought about for years. It brings back some old memories, and puts my mind to work in a new medium: How to translate 2″ x 3 1/2″ business card-sized doodle into large, 2-or –3-foot images.
As I spend time with this, I can’t help thinking about that age-old, never-quite-answered question, “What is Art?” How is it different, how has our relationship changed with it from even say, a couple of decades ago? Especially with the Internet evolving our sense of “Media” at such a lightning pace?
I don’t have a definitive answer to this, but I do have a few thoughts on the subject:
The artist whose work best summed up for me the Modern, post-World War Two, 20th-Century world that most of us were born into, is the late, great Andy Warhol. A fantastic magazine illustrator in the 1950s, who got into the imagery of televised, mass media in the 1960s. VERY mass-media. Who appropriated the visual language of a mass-produced, top-down, broadcast, CORPORATE world. The visual language of Madison Avenue, the visual language of Kellog’s Corn Flakes, Heinz Ketchup and of course, Campbell’s Soup. And we look at his work with the same sort of detachment as a TV commercial, or a can of beans in the supermarket. And we NEED to remain detached, or else this rather loud, glamorous, oppressive, consumerist worldview would bury us, would turn our brains to corn syrup.
Then along comes the Internet. A place that doesn’t do shotgun-media,“Broadcast” well. A place where if what you’re saying isn’t engaging, isn’t hitting people on a intimate, human level, it doesn’t get seen, it doesn’t get shared, it doesn’t exist.
Which explains why, as a relatively dedicated citizen of the Internet, I am far more interested in what a piece of “Art” can do for you, once it is on your wall, than what I got out of creating it. What it can do as piece of communication between you and the people close to you, not as a piece of academic Art Theory. I like the “Social-bility” of the work. I like creating “Social Objects”. And this to me, of course, is what the Internet also runs on. This, to me, is also what the new internet-enabled, post-TV world is all about. Instant, Human Connection.
And where does this “Human Connection” come from? Easy– from talking about the world you and I actually live in, not the world the “Theory Police” live in. Yes, that one. The messy one. You know EXACTLY what I’m talking about…
And yes, that’s what cartoons have ALWAYS been about to me, long before the Internet was invented, long before I even knew what Art Theory was. As I’m fond of saying, “It isn’t rocket science”. Real, Human Connection never was.
So, with this brave new world in mind, we’re thinking of publishing one of the three following cartoons:
1. “Wolf vs Sheep”. This is a re-working is one of my historical favorites. I first drew it when I had just to moved to New York, in 1998. It was about what I saw as the choices that people are confronted with in the rat race. They were fascinating times and elicited other favorites of mine, like “Company Hierarchy”.
2. “Love Begets Love”. Virgil’s famous quote. I drew the cartoon as a contender for the Stormhoek Valentine’s wine in 2007. It never made it onto the bottle as a label in the end, but a lot of people loved the drawing.
3. “Create Or Die”. Though I only posted this cartoon for the first time a few hours ago, I’ve so far received about 20 emails from people expressing serious interest in it as a print. I never saw that coming, but what the heck, up it goes…
We’ll publish one of the three, depending on the feedback we get. If you have an opinion either way, please feel free to leave a comment below, ping me on Twitter, or if you think you’re in the actual market for buying one, send me an email. Thanks.
The silkscreen print will be roughly the same size [approx 24″ x 35″] and of the same high quality as “Corinthians” and “We Need To Talk”. The price and number of the edition will also be in the same ballpark.
Please let me know your thoughts. All very exciting. Thanks Again.
13 Comments
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
You either get it or you don’t. You either feel it in your bones, or you don’t. There’s nothing to explain.
[UPDATE:] Though only a few hours old, this cartoon is already in the running to become the next gapingvoid limited-edition print! Details here.]
April 4, 2009
1 Comment
Just stumbled across this photo from July, 2007. The Blue Monster made it to the SAP offices in Ra’anana, Israel. Rock on.
I’ve not been pushing The Blue Monster much in the last year. I’ve been busy with other things, and besides, like Microsoft’s Steve Clayton told me a while back, “It already has a life of its own, so there’s no need to…“
That being said, every now and then I’ll come across someone in the Microsoft ecosystem, either via email, Twitter or in person, who’ll tell me a funny story about it e.g. like how they were in somebody’s office on the other side of the planet, and there they saw it, hanging on the wall. Stuff like that makes my day. And it’s been happening quite a lot recently, for reasons unbeknownst to me. Which I suppose is why I’m writing about it now…
In retrospect, over two years since it made its debut, I’m quite relieved it never got officially sanctioned by the Microsoft marketing machine. “We’re Microsoft! We GET The Blue Monster! We’re cool!!!!” That would’ve gone down like a lead balloon.
My spies tell me that inside Microsoft, The Blue Monster is pretty divisive. Some people really resonate with it, a lot of people go, “Who the hell authorized this?!! This isn’t part of the branding!!!!” I consider them friends of mine, but I don’t work for Microsoft, nor are they currently clients of mine. So I’ll let them sort that one out for themselves. Heh.
I never envisioned it as part of “The Brand”. To me it was just a cartoon that articulated that demonic, creative passion, that sense of PURPOSE that ALL companies need to articulate, Microsoft or otherwise, software or otherwise, if they wish to remain interesting, if they wish to thrive long-term.
It’s not rocket science. Which is why it works.
[Link: The original Blue Monster blog post.]
April 1, 2009
4 Comments
Today was “Print Signing” Day. Spent most of the morning signing “Corinthians” and “We Need To Talk”. Rock on.
As you can see, “WNTT” is red & white. It was conceived as a purple & blue print, but as I e-mailed to people who had pre-ordered one:
As you will remember, it was envisioned as a mostly purple print, with some blue and black.
It looked good on the computer screen [i.e. lit from behind]. The trouble is, it didn’t look so good as a printed proof. It simply didn’t work. Somehow the purple didn’t gel with the other colors. It all looked kinda muddy.
So we messed around, as you can see in the second photo above. We took out the purple, just to see if that helped.
Then we changed the original blue to fire-engine red, we also tried orange-yellow.
And the red.… simply put.… looked SMOKING HOT! I’m writing this down in Miami. The WNTT edition [red] just arrived here in a wooden crate, and it looks utterly fabulous. Trust me; the photo doesn’t do it justice.
[The prints, 30 seconds after opening the crates…]
I know that the purple image above was what you planned on buying, and you may in fact have had your heart set on something purple. I totally understand that. Then again, Art is a work-in-progress. I didn’t know exactly HOW things were going to turn out until I was actually in the printing studio. C’est Le Guerre.
I’m signing the prints tomorrow and shipping them out this week. If you’re not happy about the new red color, I understand completely, and I will gladly refund your money in full, or credit you with a later print edition. It’s totally your call.
The vast majority of people were cool with this, a lot of them actually said they preferred the new red version. One person did have her heart set on purple, so we gave her a refund, fair enough. One other person agreed to take a “Corinthian” in its place. So it all turned out rather well, all things considered.
The prints are being shipped out tomorrow, so expect to see yours in the mail in the next few days. To be honest, I’m over the moon with how well these two editions turned out. These are very exciting times. Thanks, as always, for your love and support. Rock on.
December 22, 2008
1 Comment
December 19, 2008
2 Comments
[Yeah, well, I was messing around with my Tablet PC today.…]
December 16, 2008
4 Comments
December 27, 2007
29 Comments
I first learned how to play chess when I was about eight years old. I remember feeling quite frustrated, after my Uncle Donald had taken every one of my pieces except for my King, how the latter, as the last remaining of my pieces on the board, surrounded by Uncle Donald’s rooks and knights closing in for the kill, seemed so utterly impotent in the face of impending doom. My King was able to move in any direction, yet he was so unable to save his poor self from the final kill. If the King was so important, why did he not have more compelling powers at his disposal? For a poor eight-year old, it all seemed terribly unfair.
Then about the three years ago I learned the history of chess pieces, and why they move the way they do. It answered a lot of my questions. I wrote a blog post about it.
5. The Queen. The Queen’s entourage was always looked after by a small, elite, highly trained bodyguard. The imperative to protect the women and children was very strong. If trouble was afoot it needed to get the hell out of Dodge very quickly. Ergo the bodyguard was very mobile and very deadly. It needed to be.
6. The King, though powerful and free to choose any direction he wanted, was heavily laden with the apparatus of State. The King could not just drop everything and flee; he had the court, the treasury and the ministers weighing him down. So his movements were fairly limited.
The King, being the Head Honcho, could move in any direction he pleased. But because he had so much accumulated baggage, he couldn’t move very far. Unlike my opponent’s gallant rooks and knights surrounding him.
I often see parallels between the King chess piece, and a company I have not only have worked for in the past, but also have a great deal of affection for i.e. Microsoft. A market cap worth tens of billions, annual sales of tens of billions, a vast army of employees needing paid, a vast army of shareholders needing dividends, and and vast, vast, vast LEGION of smart, capable and equally ruthless folk who would like nothing better than to see them permanently fall on their faces. And how do they mange to keep all these wolves from the door? By arranging groups of ones and zeros into a particular order, and getting other people to pay for them. The logistics are are off the scale.
People often question my motives for working with Microsoft, which any cynic would say is not really that surprising. Quips of me being “Assimilated by The Borg”, or me being a “Shameless Blog Whore” are often thrown my way. Of course, what these people don’t realize [not that they’ve ever asked], is that I make a lot more money with my far less controversial small business projects– The money I’ve made from Microsoft in the last year would account for less than 10% of my total income. I could make a lot more money without Microsoft, I just choose not to.
Why? Because perhaps, just perhaps, the question, “How does a lone King stay alive, let alone win the game, when surrounded by so many opponent’s bloodthirsty rooks and knights?” is a topic that I find fundamentally interesting. As would any sane person who has been operating in the real world for more than six months. This is partly what The Blue Monster is all about. Rock on.
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