HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

Best Wishes For Everyone in 2008

and congratulations to our new chapter representatives!
I'm sure you guys will beat Bill's ball and chain and that 9/11 guy in Iowa!

Happy New Year, North Central Chapter!!!

Get any cool cartoon related presents?

Did anyone get any fun cartoon related presents for Christmas?

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Here's wishing everyone the happiest of holidays. Keep 'em safe.

My Christmas Card

This has been a super-duper-busy freelance season for me. So I'm "cheating" and recycling my Christmas card from last year. Which was recycled from a freelance illustration I did the year before that. I'm really hoping next Christmas I'll have time to create something fresh.

Maybe I'd better get started on it around the 4th of July.

Stressful Season

I absolutely love this time of year...but does anyone else feel like there's not enough hours in the day to get everything done that needs to be done? Between work, shopping, family and all the other seasonal activities...I'm frazzled. Let me know I'm not alone....

Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time-Holiday card

Almost my Christmas Card

How do you people find the time to do art for a Christmas card? I run out and buy all my Christmas presents on December 24th only because stores are closed on the morning of the 25th!

Email Holiday Greeting

Since Paul asked us to share our greeting cards...well, our family one is not back from the printer, yet...but I did do this one yesterday. It is not a mailer but stressly for email purposes. I emailed it to all my clients and some potential clients.
Kinda cute-z....not my usual.

Christmas Card

Here's my annual Christmas Card. Seems like every year I end up using Polar Bears in some form. Now friends and family expect to see my bears in their latest Christmas antics. Let's see some of your Christmas cards!

MAD #485

The newest issue of MAD hits comic book shops on the 12th and news stands on the 18th. This is the annual "MAD's 20 dumbest people, events and things of the Year" issue. I did a piece on the Sopranos finale. Check out my blog tomorrow (Tuesday) for a list of the contents.

Visual Experimentation

I've been playing around with customizing the look of the blog. Blogger is very restrictive when it comers to that, so this might be as good as it gets. A custom header and sidebar graphics are easy... after that it gets more complicated (or impossible). I think the cleaner look is better than all those dots, however.

Link to the chapter blog added to chapter website

I've posted a link to this blog on the chapter website:

http://northcentralchapter.com/news/news.html

I imagine this blog will eventually replace the chapter website. It's easier to add news and images here. Is it free no matter how much stuff we post? Or is there a price somewhere down the road? Nonetheless, it's going to be worth it. Thanks for setting it up, Tom. It looks terrific!

Ted

Recent work

I started a blog in early October. My goal - to create a daily cartoon, Monday - Friday. This strip is called BACK IN THE DAY. Thanks to all the helped with the meeting in Kansas City.

Happy Christmas

Tom,

Thanks for getting this set up. It can be a very cool resource for us, although I prefer the image of David Phipps slaving away while we just watch and admire. 

It's all so hi tech-I just tingle at the thought of it. 

I'm attaching my Christmas card front for you all. Please accept our very best to you and yours this season

Chapter Meeting Pics

Here's a few snapshots I took from our Chapter Meeting last month in Kansas City. If anyone else has any photos, go ahead and post 'em!


Bill Amend is awarded the Golden Slide Rule.


A few chapter members kick back and debate the deep social issues of our time such as “Which flavor of Pop Tarts is the best?” (I vote cherry.)


David Mowder gave a neat presentation discussing his licensing work for Hallmark.


Bucky Jones and Ken Alvine.


Chris Grine and Ted Goff.


Tom Richmond proudly displays a shirt he won at the raffle.

How To Bid Out A Project

Thanks for putting this blog together, Tom. It's going to be a great resource.

Over on my blog, I've just posted a two-part article titled "How To Bid Out A Project". It's mostly aimed at beginning freelancers, but I've been getting a lot of good feedback on it so I thought I'd post it here in case anyone is interested:

How To Bid Out A Project, Part 1

How To Bid Out A Project, Part 2

Links

If anyone wants to add their own website or blog link to the blogroll on the left, just e-mail me the URL and the title you want for the link. I am not sure if anyone but the admin can do that...

Recent Work

Well, I guess I can get things started. I wanted to try out the image uploader anyway.

If anyone has visited my blog recently they've seen this. It's a cover for Junior Scholastic magazine... a bit of a departure for me from my usual caricature-related stuff.

I uploaded this directly from my computer. It's the "large" selected size, so I guess it doesn't matter the size of your original file... it will resize it to suit. Just make sure the file you try to upload is either a JPEG or GIF.

On closer inspection, it looks like the image placed in the post is a link to the full sized image you uploaded, so still best to keep it about 500 pixels wide. If anybody wants assistance with posting, images or whatever, just e-mail me.

Welcome to the NCC Blog!

For several years NCCer David Phipps slaved away producing the "Tooner", our chapter newsletter. Despite the excellent pay (!), Dave finally decided to step down as newsletter editor, writer, producer, printer, designer and coffee boy. Go figure... all that glamor... Typically, after Dave stepped down, no one stepped up!

Enter the miracle of the free blog! This will be the source of community, news, sharing, caring and love for the greatest of all National Cartoonists Society chapters that include the state of Iowa: The North Central Chapter!

Yes, this is YOUR blog, members! Once you are registered as an author, you can log in and post your news, views and announcements, upload images to share your latest masterpiece, comment on the posts of others and mock and ridicule society at will.

This blog will be as successful as we decide to make it. If nobody ever posts it will be a boring place. So, upload your latest cartoon, fill us in on your new projects, share announcements and amusing anecdotes. If you can type you can create a post. It's so easy, even Bucky can do it.