Sunshine Superman

T-Shirt Of The Week #12: Comic City tee (3rd of a series)

This is my weekly feature on a favorite t-shirt that I own, number twelve. Comic City was a comic book store on Allen Street across from the old Pink. We designed the logo, advertisements and 3 different t-shirts (same design, different colors). This was the heather gray with ringed collar, Summer version. The other two were the white on dark blue and the dark blue on red which was supposed to be the Spiderman colors but the shirt color didn't quite match. There was also a rare reject tee-- that Comic City sold on the side-- which was a misprint of the red shirt where the art was printed backwards creating a reverse version.

The logo was a fun job as it was for a friend's shop. It consisted of the 3 dimensional masthead with the Buffalo cityscape floating behind it. I had originally designed the cityscape for another project (the cover of an infoTech Niagara membership guide) and recycled it for the CC logo. The store also had a mascot which is the hero featured on the shirt designs. Lovingly referred to as The Captain (or The Cap'n), this dude was based on Jack King Kirby's square-jawed Marvel characters with a extruded font dingbat for his emblem. Add a full moon shape rising over the city and a few sparkle stars... and you got yourself a cool t-shirt.

The comic book store was only open for a few years but it was a really cool location in Allentown. We sold our Where to Roam tees out in front during one of the Allentown West Art Festival one Summer. That was a blast! Unfortunately, as all good things must pass, the store eventually closed but I still have the tees- one of each- but this is my favorite.

Flying High in The Brooklyn Sky

I work in the electronics department of a fine local department store. My days are filled with "May I help you sir?" and the ever-popular "Thank you and have a nice day." I love my job. The hours fit my rock-n-roll lifestyle, the money is decent and I can share my vast knowledge of music with the general public, whether they deserve it or not.
excerpt from "MUZAK: Delightful Sounds or a New Voice of a Generation?" Strick's Corner

Slack issue #14- The Cartoon Issue" Dec. 1994
(published 11.23.94)

Today I'm standing on my corner listening to the Mission of Burma instrumental track "All World Cowboy Romance." It's a warm Fall day, the leaves are turning colors, the sun is shining and the breeze is light. I have on my I-probe music player and I am waiting for my daughter's bus. The drums rush over and under like water and I can really concentrate on the ebbs and flow of the the song since I am just standing there... Man, it doesn't get any better that this for a Wednesday afternoon. How often do you just get to stand there? The bus can be a little late and I won't mind today.

When the bus arrives and the kids get home the 1st thing they want to do is watch TV.... man, did I watch a lot of TV when I was a kid....

Slack numero 14, the issue devoted to comics and cartoons is a sensational mag with a crappy cover. Though one of the bullet points on the cover promotes:

• Typos (sorry...)

That text right over the Duck Dogers cover photo is painfully wrong. Though maybe I did that on purpose-- bad design for good reasons was creeping into my mind at the time. The thing is, the rest of the issues has some great, tight layout and the 'cartoons' theme was much appreciated by the staff. Articles include Cartoon Characters Posing As Real People (Michael Jackson, Ollie North, Rush Limbaugh, the Royal Family and Jesse Helms- hello, again 1994), Raisin Blowme's Welcome To My My Cartoon Life, Homer Simpson, My Hero by Dave Koch and this list of Cartoon and Comics Top Slackers:

• Bugs Bunny
• Road Runner
• Fred Flinstone and Barney Rubble
• George Jetson
• Pink Panther
• Snoopy
• Dagwood
• Beetle Baily
• Shaggy
• Jughead
• Daffy Duck
• Zonker
• Andy Capp
• Calvin (of "& Hobbs")
• Wimpy
• Ren and Stimpy
• Beavis and Butthead
• Homer J. Simpson

True slackers, all of them... it makes you start to realize all the Warner Brothers stars were some serious slackers! Some advertisements of note in this issues #14 include ads for Yeast West Bakery, a coming soon Concrete Cafe (it opened in Dec. 94), and the only Slack ad I have ever censored: the Das Boot condom man ad. I covered the lube tip of condom man's condom head and Bob at Das Boot was mad at me. Andre and I discussed it ... and well, we were all worried that it would get us in some sort of trouble or the scant few other advertisers wouldn't like it.. or the shops and bars would pull them from the shleves (and from the top of cigarette machines)... Oh, I don't know!?!?! What the hell? it all seems so stupid now, but this act enabled Das Boot to run that OJ ad without us even saying 'boo' later on down the road....

Download PDF here:
Slack Magazine n. 14, the Cartoon Issue (6.2 mg)

Don't forget these issues already up (6 more to go)!:
Slack Magazine n. 18, The Two-Year Anniversary! issue
Slack Magazine n. 13, The Food & Beverage Issue
Slack Magazine n. 12, The One-Year Anniversary Issue
Slack Magazine n. 11, The True Crime Issue
Slack Magazine n. 10, Summer Fun Issue
Slack Magazine n. 9, The Dead Rock Stars Issue
Slack Magazine n. 8, The Beer Issue
Slack Magazine n. 7, Slack Goes to The Movies Issue
Slack Magazine n. 6, The Buffalo Issue
Slack Magazine n.5, The Slack TV Issue
Slack Magazine n. 4, SEX in the '90s Issue
Slack Magazine n. 3, The Politico Issue
Slack Magazine n. 2, The Travel Issue
Slack Magazine n. 1, The Debut Issue

Peaches & Creme

Pecha Kucha Review- Typecon Day 0

The TypeCon2008 edition of Pecha Kucha kicked of the conference with a bang! Though the actual Typecon begins today, last nights PK pre-opening event was great. J. and I presented (in slot number 4) following book cover designer Shasti O'Leary Soudant (who is a Photoshop master) and preceding Mark Brickey of Hero Design Studio-- who wrote his speech while us 1st four presenters were on!

The evening started with type guy Stephen Coles. Next was my friend, local artist Julian Montague, who reviewed a lot of his work , talked shopping carts and spiders and discussed type used throughout.

J. and I discussed our background in the pre-computer days of design and presented some behind the scenes looks at 4 different logo projects. We discussed our reasoning for using certain typefaces and went back and forth about our design process. J. and I have very different ways of designing- she is a meticulous planner and she equates my style as "driving with your eyes shut"- which isn't entirely true, but close.

Other presenters included Rick Griffith from Colorado who was crazy/fun and the AmpersandAmpersand kids from Hamilton, Mark Byk and Kristine Tortora who played a weird, old song (my friend Paul K would have loved this) and let their slideshow speak for itself. I also enjoyed local designer Greg Meadows who talked about his love of type and how it all began. I missed the last two presenters, Toronto's Brian Maloney, and Emily Luce, as I had to run to DJ the Book Arts after event party.

it is great to meet a lot of out-of-town designers that came to our fair city for this great event. What a way to get the creative juices flowing-- talking about design! The other thing that j. mentioned this AM was there is a lot of hands-on artists involved, screen printers especially. It is great to see a lot non-computer design.

I am really looking forward to seeing Sagmeister tonight at the Manuscript Museum in the heart of Allentown. FREE tickets still available. You all better be there!

Art School Girl

This weekend- Allentown Craft Fest!
June 14 & 15th, 2008

Pottery, jewelry, yarn things, things made out of wood, metal-molded crap for your garden... oil paintings, maybe?

I hate to be a critic (really) but is there ever going to be an Allentown Artfest poster that doesn't have the prerequisite paint brush in it? Lord knows, you can't say "art fest" without a paintbrush, eh? I know they have a contest every year to design the poster. I wonder if the rules state: "Must say Allentown Art Fest, must have the date and location, must have a paintbrush (?)"....

This year's poster makes me want to ask aloud, "Will there be a lot of Greek mythological statues available, or funny clown faces?" I need more of those in my life... except the clowns maybe, they scare me....

Click here for all the gory details.