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Infusion

Keri Smith just posted 10 Ways to Infuse Your Work With Your Personality from one of her talks.

What I love about Keri’s advice (all her advice, not just this post) is that she always emphasizes personality.  According to her, creative work should be about the creator.  Sounds like a no-brainer, I know, but there have been too many times when I’ve sat down to work with the mindset of “what will other people like?” Sometimes I need a little reminder that I create because it’s what I love to do, not because it’s what I have to do.

Keri shares a quote in this interview from Joseph Campbell that echoes the effort to infuse one’s work with one’s personality:

“When you are on your path, and it is truly your path, doors will open for you where there were no doors for someone else.”

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McSweeney’s Does Comics

I’m increasingly growing disenchanted with McSweeney’s, but the latest issue, guest-edited by Chris Ware is the exception.

The result of Ware’s butt in the driver’s seat of the ‘Quarterly Concern’ is a gorgeous hardcover volume overflowing with work from the hottest names in depressing oft-autobiographical alternative comics (Ware, Seth, Joe Matt, Ivan Brunetti, Chester Brown, R. Crumb, Jeffrey Brown, Art Spiegelman, Lynda Barry… the list goes on...)

I haven’t had the chance to read it in its entirety yet, but just holding the book in one’s hands is an experience in itself.  The dustjacket folds out (much like the dustjacket to Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan) into a big old-timey comics page with gold foil stamping and a Ware’s-eye attention to detail.  Some of the included material is reprinted from other sources, but most seems to be new.  If anything it serves as a great primer to this school of graphic novels.

The real treats: close-ups of original artwork and sketches by Bud Fisher, George Herriman, and Charles Schulz.

Also worth noting are an essay on comics by John Updike, and an introduction by This American Life host Ira Glass.  And speaking of Ira Glass and Chris Ware: yesterday I stumpled upon an 80-page PDF of a transcription of an interview Glass conducted with Ware.  Download and give it a read to see why Chris Ware is the world’s most lovable sad sack since Charlie Brown (via Kempa.com)

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Less Non-Broken Bones and More Crushed Spirits

Citytv’s Mediatelevision just played a segment on the Brothers Chaps, the creators of Homestar Runner.

The brothers described the process of creating the cartoons, showed where they work, and then Matt showed off the recording studio where all of the voices and music are recorded.  He immediately broke into a two-way conversation between Homestar and Strong Bad, and to see those voices come out of a human head was surreal to say the least.  It was like Matt was channeling cartoon characters from the beyond—part Mel Blanc, and part Sibyl.

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Mind your language

A friend forwarded me this article about the results of a survey conducted by Merriam-Webster: Top 10 Favourite Words.

She also dared me to use them all in one sentence.

Well, as serendipity would have it, juxtaposed with a plethora of other kerfuffles, such a feat does not discombobulate me and when I’m done, the only onomatopoeia that pernickety flibbertigibbet will be hearing will be the sound of me defenestrating her callipygian butt.

See also: dasypygal.

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Swimsuits and Robots

Two pieces of work online to show off today.

First off, I’ve got an illustration in the gallery section of Toronto Illustrators.

Secondly, thanks to a heads up from D, you can see a promo for Space that I worked on.  I merely did the 3-second animation at the end, but the rest of the spot is pretty damned cool (it features ROBOTS!!).  Check out Cold Lamping (RealVideo).

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The New Face of RobotJohnny.com

If you’re a regular visitor, you probably notice things look a little different around here.  After many late nights, this blog is finally redesigned using CSS for positioning and no tables.  And, for the first time ever, I not only coded a site entirely by hand with no wysiwyg software, I’ve also created a site that validates!

It’s not perfect, and there are still a few bugs, but it looks the same on the few browsers I tested it on.  It looks good in Safari and Firefox, and it took some struggling, but it should also look fine on Internet Explorer 5+ in Windows.  (Funnily enough, after getting the site to look right in Explorer on the PC, it fails to look right in Explorer on the Mac, but I figure if you’re on a Mac and you’re using Explorer instead of Safari or Firefox then you’ve got bigger problems).

Obviously, I just finished redesigning the site right when all the brouhaha began surrounding MovableType.  I like using MT, and as a single user the pricing scheme doesn’t immediately affect me, so I’m continuing to use it, and this site is now powered by version 3.0.

So what’s new in this version of RobotJohnny.com?

* There are numerous banner graphics that load at random.  Design and usability snobs might say this is impractical, but for me this site’s about having fun and being creative.
* The main page now features a trendy “link-of-the-moment” section which gives me a place to post links that are worth sharing but don’t necessarily merit an entire post.
* Using KungTunes, the main page also now displays whatever song I’m currently listening to in iTunes.
* I’ve ditched AllConsuming, whose servers are as slow as hell, in favour of the MTAmazon plugin.
* The blogroll has been moved to its own links page where it shares company with various other non-blog links.
* Finally, I’ve enabled TrackBack for those of you other bloggers who want to take advantage of it.  TrackBack entries show up on the sidebar of an entry’s page, and that entry’s TrackBack URL can always be found at the bottom of the page below the comments.

I checked how the site looks on other browsers using a friend’s Windows laptop (Thanks, Mira!) and I also payed for an hour of BrowserCam (which didn’t last long).  But that being said, do let me know if you see any glaring problems ( The biggest cross-browser problem is that the sidebar didn’t always line up with the background graphic) and what platform/browser you’re using.  I’d obviously like to have the site look as nice as possible in every browser.

So welcome to RobotJohnny.com, version 6.0!  Kick your feet up, relax, and enjoy your stay.

Oh, and another thing: when I imported my entries from the previous site, some of the authored-on and comment dates had their time switched from AM to PM (and vice-versa).  Anyone able to shed some light on that?

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Gee… Mail

I managed to score myself a Gmail account invite yesterday.  For the unawares, Gmail is Google’s new email service that will offer a full gigabyte of email storage (with no banner ads) for free.

It’s also, for the moment, invite-only.  That means that all the good names are being gobbled up by the elite, in-the-know, precious greedy few… like me!  Invites are apparently such valuable commodities that people are making a modest profit on eBay from those poor saps who wanted but had to settle for .

There’s even a site where people can beg like dogs for invites.

So now that I have this magical Gmail account (with the username of my choice, thank-you very much), and I feel all special and privileged, I’ve got nothing to do with it since I use my own domains and hate web-based email.

But it sure is nice to have something that other people want!

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BookLust

While you’re eagerly awaiting the redesign of this site (I just know you’re on the edges of your seats; admit it), why not check out my friend Patricia’s new blog: BookLust.

Like me, she’s interested in design, books, typography, cartoons… gentlemen, start your bookmarks.

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My New Toy

I am writing this entry from the keyboard of a shiny new PowerMac G5 (with matching 17” flatscreen display). 

I had until now been using an aging G3 tower that’s been on its last legs.  I bought it 5 years ago, and it hasn’t aged well.  It sputters and coughs as it tries to keep up with OS X, so it was time to have it replaced.

I’m pretty happy to have a new machine because it means I can stop worrying about when my computer is going to crash and just concentrate on working and being creative.

I also picked up a juicy new 6x8 Wacom tablet to replace my 4x5 that wasn’t compatible with OS X.  Plus, since the G5 supports dual displays wihtout needing a second graphics card, my old VGA monitor has jsut doubled my screen real estate.

Now that I don’t have to worry about using my computer without it imploding on me, all that’s left to worry about is paying this puppy off.  Anyone have a couple thousand dollars just lying around?

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Malfunction

Leaving work today, I passed Janet Jackson and her entourage in the lobby.  All I could think of as I walked by was, “I’ve seen your boobie!”

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It’s Oh So Quiet

Just a quick note to say that activity here in the Robot Quadrant will be minimal over the next week as most of my computer time will be divided between redesigning this site (it’s almost done!) and of course, doing actual work at my job (Baywatch is coming to Drive-In… set those VCRs and TiVOs!).

Also, I’m off to Ottawa on Thursday night for 3 days of riotous fun.  I’ll be bringing my camera and hope to come back with another batch of found type—this time from our nation’s capital.

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