we're just trying to make pretty things and have fun

Hey Internet,
It's been a really long time since I posted, but here's one! It's a little more party anthem and a lot less principled than a lot of the posting I've done here. An exercise in manipulating type.
MEGA

carnivorous cloud concert poster

Here's a crazy poster I made. Rumblepack and I will be in both Puma and Flock. You can see that the png, #1, has handled colors better than the crazy jpeg below it. Party!!!
-mega

An Adorned Shell is a Symptom of Bourgeois Turtle Decadence that Must be Struggled Against

[cross-posted from moink.net]

Megacat was recently approached by Kusikia to create a poster to advertise the release concert for their new album, "TURTLE WARS". Megacat got on that, and produced awesome turtles of doom. The project was then referred (sub-contracted?) to me, and I produced the text and layout, vectorized the graphics, did the colors, etc.

I have to admit that working with color is absolutely terrifying. I've only touched color in an art medium (other than as a single tone on white or black) once before, and it was a disaster. It still does not seem "just right" to me, and that's mostly because of the colors. If I was limited to black, white, and even two tones, it would be easier to comprehend. The high-contrast and simplicity of monotone work makes it extremely high-impact without the need to struggle with a color palette.

All this to say: color freaks me out, black and white are hella awesome. Hope you like the poster.

Also! Come to the show! Starting at Shakabra's (6th Ave & Oakes, in Tacoma) at 7:30pm, starring Teeath, Palo Verde, The Nextdoor Neighbors and, of course, Kusikia! Free! All ages! !!! !!!!!!!!! !

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One of those reasons I can't sleep at night

I have made a poster this week, found below. It is a day late, but it was pretty involved, so be chill. Last week was as involved as this week, but in the end, the comic strip I had done posted looking like trash, so I took it down. Ultimate frustration, but I think this week's looks pretty good. I wanted to try one with black instead of all the jarring blue linework , but attempting this crashed illustrator twice and I took the computer's word that that it would look bad. I am working on a new style portraying people as all uniform, with really restricted and forced positions. They are more iconic stand-ins than actual people, that's the point. It's an odd and different poster/style.

About the poster:
COINTELPRO stands for "counter intelligence program" and was initiated by J. Edgar Hoover when he was director of the FBI (a position he held from May 1924 until May 1972). I have been reading a book by Jack Olsen called Last Man Standing, which is essentially a biography of (former?) black panther Geronimo Pratt. The book documents some of the actions the FBI took against the targets of the program; anyone Hoover deemed "subversive." Techniques were underhanded and deceitful, unconstitutional and unethical. Their goals included breaking up marriages, encouraging gang warfare, disintegrating social organizations, falsely labelling activists as police informers and driving leaders (namely Martin Luther King Jr) to suicide. Needless to say, all of the specific objectives were not met, but the scale of these actions was enormous and the people that were unjustly targeted suffered a lot because of what happened. I blame COINTELPRO for a lot of the trouble the United States has with race, though I understand race is a difficult issue for many societies everywhere to negotiate. COINTELPRO is one of those examples of what humans are capable of doing to each other that leaves me dumbfounded and depressed. That being said, learning about these things humanity does to itself is essential in dispelling our naivete and insuring that we are not caught off guard by its capacity for those things we'd rather not think about. It makes us better citizens.

Do you frequent your local public library? When I studied abroad, I got a real appreciation for them, because all of Oman has only one public library, which is in the state-run mosque in the capitol. Use it or lose it, you know? Anyway, I hope that you are all well.

I just want to say I am thankful for the police sometimes, but that guns just scare me generally, so cops do, too, and the FBI and CIA have a pretty frightening history. But thank you to the police that are well directed in their application of force!

Megacat


I wish I knew how to indent paragraphs in these posts. That would be awesome.

Party Time!

Hello readers,
I was writing some rhymes with my friend Joey today, and we discovered that we both have blogs that we actually update regularly. He is doubtlessly a better and more focused writer, but I know that's not what you're coming here for anyway, so I am not exactly worried about the competition. Here's Joey's blog. He's a smart guy who writes about Twin Cities politics, and he's who I'm reading.

The new image is one that I hoped would be accompanied by some well thought-out political commentary, but the deadline is upon me, and I guess I hope that you will be held over with some links about campaign finance and an understanding of my frustration with both presidential candidates' plans if they are elected. I think I'm partial to some sort of IRV alternative to our current situation. Here's a goofy poster.



Good luck to everybody representing down at Tacoma's port, regardless of intimidation tactics and abuse from the police, I hope you all do alright and that nobody is injured.
Charlie

You Can Never Go Home

There are a couple images here. They are the same thing, but I wanted to do a couple versions--what started as initially just doing a color remix ended up being a change in background, too, as the grid was hard to change, and I didn't want a solid color in the background. The darker fill in the type didn't stand well on a white ground, so the revamp got major. They are both supposed to fit on letter-sized paper in case somehow my posting this on the internet ends up with one of these hitting a printer.
I can't get my scanner (a gift from Andrew) to cooperate with my computer, but I don't know what more to do. Maybe later I will be able to post more pen & ink style stuff. For now I will keep my sketchbook to myself.
I will be better at responding to comments on here, from now on, I got blogspot emailing me about them (I think).
I hope this finds you well,
Charlie