Above is a quick comic I did for N+1′s #ows gazette, Occupy! It’s edited by my friend Astra, and she asked me to do a comic, about pretty much anything. Life here in New York as the Occupy madness gets bigger and badder is surreal; suddenly, idealistic rhetoric is plastered on telephones and on the front of tabloids. It’s a heady time, and I tried to reflect that.

You can see a bigger one here.

The esteemable blog HiLoBrow (voted one of Time Magazine’s Best Blog of 2010) has asked 25 writers and artists, from Douglas Rushkoff to Annie Nocenti, to wax philosophic on one panel of their choice drawn my the immortal Jack Kirby. I was lucky enough to be one of the 25 asked – go check out my entry on Kirby’s run helming Black Panther.

I had the great fortune of being interviewed by Benjamen Walker for his WFMU show, “Too Much Information”, about my Cablegate Comix project at HiLoBrow. Benjamen is an incredible interviewer and mind, and I was really honored to be invited on. I’m mostly on point, though I do say “Chechnya” when I mean “Dagestan”. Drat.

My part starts at 13:40, but the whole show is terrific: I share the sir with the likes of Daniel Ellsburg, Evgeny Morozov, and others. Wow!

Listen here!

I’m extremely pleased to announce that my comic story We Wuz Robbed is in the newest German comic anthology, Mogo Mobo. The latest anthology is titled ‘Nacktscanner’, which, in the words of editor Thomas Gronle-Legron,

loosely translates into “Moga Mobos Body Scanner” (Body Scanners are the “Nude” scanners at airports). The theme of the book is the safety of our personal data, especially, but not only, on the internet.

I met Thomas when we were both invited to speak at the Seoul International Comics and Animation Festival, and he’s an incredible artist, animator, and game designer. You can see some of his rad stuff here, here, and at his website (be sure to check out his microfiche game in the animation section.) He also knows a bunch of amazing European, Japanese, and yes, American artists that make up the Mogo Mobo crew. I’m really proud to be a part of it now.

Moga Mobo’s Nacktscanner will be released at the German Comic Book Fair, the “Comicsalon Erlangen” , 3-6. June 2010. After that, it’s available all over Germany. Go! Pick one up! Now! I’ll wait.

]]> http://joealterio.com/2010/06/moga-mobo-mojo/feed/ 0 http://joealterio.com/2010/04/out-like-a-lamb/ http://joealterio.com/2010/04/out-like-a-lamb/#comments Sun, 11 Apr 2010 04:02:14 +0000 Joe http://joealterio.com/?p=612

So I thought I’d give a quick run down of March, now that it’s gone, because it was SO FREAKING crazy.

My show, the aforementioned Landscapes of Quarantine show, was a rousing success, I would say almost too much so; the place was so rammed with tight-clothed young people that the art was definitely secondary to the scene. Which isn’t to say that’s a totally bad thing; I suspect the copious amount of FREE BEER might have had something to do with it, but all in all, a fantastic time was had. You can check out the photos of the event here. The rest of night after the opening was a blur, but I do know at once point, we closed down a Cuban restaurant in Soho, after which the very nice waitress flicked the lights on and off so we would leave. Sorry, mystery waitress! I had like 37 whiskeys, my bad.

You can see the full 8 pieces, generously published on HiLoBrow here.

In other totally amazing news, the show actually got written up as a Critic Pick in Art Forum, with yours truly being name dropped. Oh, dang!

I awoke the next morning after the show, hangover in tow, to find that I had a bunch of work to do for a freelance job, in between which I packed, spent some time with my lovely and patient wife, and then HIT THE ROAD to Austin the next morning.

South by Southwest was a blast, and the panel was a raging success, judging by the tweet feed that was the result.

Best comment: “Best panel ever.”
Worst comment: “Disappointed by #incol panel – too unfocussed! ”

Make what you will of that.

You can see images of the panel and SXSW here, which is kind of a condensed version of the full photo album I have. Friends and relatives, check out my personal blog for whole shebang.

The SXSW trip was amazing and fun, I saw all sorts of cool stuff, as expected, and there’s plenty of great places to check it all out. It was also rather watershed for me, though, and for something that concerns SXSW – or the trip at all – only tangentally. After the end of the panel, halfway into my second beer, I started to feel very ill; unnamed, nice bizdev woman taking to me, I apologize for abruptly leaving midway through our conversation, I had to run and upchuck in the bathroom. The rest of the afternoon was a blur, and it was only through the generosity of my friends and fellow panelists that I got home to where I was staying. and promptly passed out for the rest of the day and evening.

There’s a lot of prosaic explanations for this sort of thing – food poisoning, 24-hour-bug, or what have you. However, in my traditional fashion, I like to ascribe it to a more goof-ball reason: I think my body was telling me I was spread too thin and pursuing things in wrong fashion. Over the past nine months, I have been involved in a workshop with peer crit reviews every week, running Robots + Monsters, planning for the SXSW panel, acting as Creative Director for a small boutique web firm, and handling all of my big illustration projects. I think it’s time I pare down, and focus on the one big thing that I’ve been avoiding forever.

That’s right: building my Death Ray. Finally!

New comic by yours truly, for no other reason than it seemed like a good idea at the time. I like probably more than I should. Click here for larger size.

Since being lucky enough to get a lot of work lately, I’ve been finding I actually have more time to spend on personal projects, which is strange. It turns out that a lot more time is spent hustling than I realize, I guess. Up next: long awaited Untitled Gallery Project finally goes into preproduction! W00t!

The Thames 1,2,3 Comic, on the inside cover of the new BLDGBLOG book.

The new BLDGBLOG book, with comics by yours truly, is to be released soon. Sweet!