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Robot Johnny on LiveJournal

Hey, whaddyerknow—someone created a LiveJournal feed of my site!  So all your LJers can add it to your friends page… (there’s also a Drawn! feed)…

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Comix Voyeurism

Last night while down the street at my my favourite local restaurant I noticed two familiar faces sitting at the next table.  Comic-creators Seth and Chester Brown (and two men I didn’t immediately recognize) were dining, chatting, and what looked like sharing new work with each other.

I kept trying to catch glimpses of the drawings being passed around, but at the risk of looking like an oggling fanboy, I turned my attention to my spinach lasagna and later drew this picture instead.

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The Hell?

Oh you have GOT to be kidding me...

And while we’re on the subject, I just watched Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House starring Cary Grant, and it has instantly become one of my favourite movies.  Watching it I though to myself, “I’m surprised Hollywood hasn’t tried to remake this.”

So of course I turn to IMDB, which informs me I’m wrong.  And starring Ice Cube… I love Ice Cube, but something tells me this is going to end up being a 90-minute episode of MTV Cribs.

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Illustration Friday… Sort Of

I haven’t been keeping up with Illustration Fridays, because I’ve been so busy.  I fully intended on participating this week, but I couldn’t get inspired by the theme ("Bloom").  Perhaps because while it’s technically spring here, you’d never know it by the snow.  So instead, here are two spot illustrations that I made for the pages of Drawn!.

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Things I Learned from Cable TV

I have lived without cable television for over 3 years now.  “But John,” you ask, “you work for a cable television station!” Yes, isn’t irony wonderful?

But I have recently given into the seductive lure of the coaxial devil and am currently surrounded by the sulphur and brimstone of 70+ demonic stations of sinful, sinful bliss.

Having been gone for so long, I had to reaquaint myself with the lay of the land.  Here are the things I’ve learned from my recent reassociation with cable television:

• Cleaning and beauty products are made from “the parts of the food you don’t eat” like orange oil and grape seeds.  I won’t be surprised if one day my shampoo boasts that it’s made with “100% real watermelon rind and pure chicken bone extract”.


• Women get made over, towns get hauled, and rides get pimped.


• Producers won’t stop until they finally deliver us the inevitable: Law & Order: CSI (alternately: CSI: Law & Order)


• If you don’t like the episode of the Simpsons that’s on, that’s okay; there are 2 different episodes playing on 2 different stations anyway.


• In the future, when meeting people, instead of asking, “what do you do?” we will ask, “what reality show were you on?” because sooner or later we will all have been on at least one.  I’m probably on one right now.
  Whatever you’re selling, I want it, and I need it NOW!!

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To Do

Okay, maybe I’m the last person to know about this site, but it’s super addictive and I’ve been making to-do lists all day of things I need to accomplish, movies I need to see, and books I need to read.

And, of course, useless lists as well.

And while we’re on the subject of underpants… I now have a new favourite Wikipedia entry.

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King of the Shill

<shameless plug>

Now, I’m usually not one to whore myself out like this, but I’ve just upgraded my webhosting because my host, Dreamhost, has a crazy sale on now until the 20th, in which they’re tripling their diskspace and bandwidth for as long as you keep your account, plus their third tier “Code Monster” hosting package is a nutty 50% off, so it’s only $20 a month.  And yesh, if you enter “martz” as your referer, I shamelessy get a deal on my own hosting, so think of it as a way to support your favourite robotty johnnyish blog.  They really are the coolest host…

</shameless plug>

Update:
The sale continues until April 24th…

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I Went Out Wanderin’…

The Wandering Moleskine project has over a dozen Moleskine sketchbooks wandering the globe from artist to artist, each one contributing a page.  The above comic is my contribution to book #15, and as you can tell, I had a tough time figuring just what to draw.

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Drawn Doesn’t Suck.  Who Knew!

I can’t tell what’s worse—people who blog about not blogging, or the people who say, “Now, I know I said I’d never blog about not blogging, but...”

So yes, it’s been dead here for the past week, and slightly sporadic prior to that.  Most of my attention has been at Drawn! the past few days, getting into the groove of having it run smoothly.  It’s turned out to be somewhat of a hit, picked up by Boing Boing and MetaFilter within hours of me posting about it, and then like a virus, kept on spreading, shot up the del.icio.us charts, until I had nearly a million hits on Wednesday.  It’s levelling out to a normal stream of traffic now, but still a heckuva lot more popular than this site!

Also, since Drawn! is powered by WordPress, which I have come to adore, it’s tough to come back to sluggish Movable Type (although, I think it’s a more stable, robust piece of software, I just looove the dynamic page building provided by WordPress).

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Introducing Drawn!

Hey look at the menu to your left there—you’ll see a new item.  Drawn! is my new pet project, a collaborative blog devoted to finding the best daily links and treasures related to illustration, art, and cartooning.  Gentlemen, start your bookmarks!

I’ve lined up 7 great artists/authors to join me on this site, so I think the site will be a great hub for illustrators, cartoonists, artists, and anyone who likes to draw.  Visit regularly, and spread the word!

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RoboType

Check out the robot I made over at RoboType. Of course, I chose delicious tasty Futura. (robots + typograhy = *swoon*!) You know the drill—post the URLs to your creations in the comments!

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Moneymoneymoneymonnnney.  Money!

Adina has just challenged me to join her in Spend Nothing Week.  Money goes through me like… something that goes through another thing really fast and easily, so I’m all for curbing my spending habits.

And I like that it’s strictly about managing personal finances and not an anti-consumerism bender.

Adina’s Rules:

1. Buy a week’s worth of bus tickets/tokens on Sunday night.
2. Spend $40 dollars on groceries ($60 per couple)
3. Bring lunches. Do not take cabs. Do not get your muckaluckachino at S*arB*cks.
4. If there must be an exception, note it in advance)

5 days without spending money?  I think it should be easy… it’s the weekends that are trickiest.  This at least gives me an extra reason to buy groceries this weekend!

Who else is in?

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Book-Signings and Boozehounds

Cartoonist Dave Coverly was in town last night to promote his new Speed Bump collection: Speed Bump : Cartoons for Idea People.  He was on Citytv’s Breakfast Television, but they didn’t even mention the booksigning.  I love Dave’s work so I have no problem pimping it here.  It’s a great cartoon, and I heartily recommend buying at least 7 copies per every member of your household.  And one for the dog.

A bunch of us cartoony folks met up with Dave after his signing and filled ourselves with beer.  And like most NCS events I’ve attended, I was met with a throbbing head the next morning.  Cartoonists can really pack it in.

Left to right are Patricia Storms, Jay Stephens, Sean Parkes, Dave Coverly, Paul Gilligan, Scott Cooper, Sandra Lundy (who also has a new book out), and Andrea Wayne von Königslöw.  I’d make the picture bigger, but Patricia would probably kill me.

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WordPress

I’ve been toying around with the recent 1.5 release of WordPress for a seeeecret project (shhhh), and I think I’ve fallen in love.  I’ve badmouthed WordPress before, but this latest release makes MovableType seem clunky and unwieldy.  So, next on the pipeline: a complete rehaul in WordPress (and redesign) for RobotJohnny.com.

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Lousy Smarch Weather!

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