Dakota McFadzean

This ain’t your grandkid’s Facebook. The Center for Cartoon Studies Facebook is one of the first major projects undertaken by new students each year. The idea is simple: everyone creates a bio that can be reproduced on a photocopier, and a self-portrait in the form of a screen print. Then everything is bound together to make a book of memories and friendship that students will cherish into old age when they are impoverished and alone from a lifetime of underappreciated cartooning.

I volunteered to be on the design team, along with Bill Bedard, Melanie Gillman, Sean Knickerbocker, and Katie Moody. After much nerdy discussion, we decided to work with an arcade fighting game theme for this year’s Facebook. So, Street Fighter II is what I’m trying to say, I guess.

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└ Tags: books, Cartoonists, Center for Cartoon Studies, cover art, illustration, madness, school, video games

Planet S Gets Energetic

Posted In: Blog, Illustrations

IS ARCHIVE

I may be attending the most funnest school evar, but that doesn’t mean that the homework doesn’t get overwhelming sometimes.

A couple of weekends ago, I was swamped with work and only had time to eat, sleep and draw. When things get this busy, it’s important to take a break from all that work to keep from going crazy. So I did the only thing that made sense at the time: worked on a cover for Planet S.

The editor was putting together a feature on the dangers of energy drinks, and wanted a cover that was in the visual spirit of Rat Fink and Kustom Kulture. I’ve never tried to imitate that style before, and I’m being totally earnest when I say it was a fun way to spend a Saturday night!

Oh cross-hatching, let’s never fight again.

└ Tags: cover art, creepy, illustration, madness, medical

All Stripped Down

Posted In: Blog, Center for Cartoon Studies

IS ARCHIVE

More insanity from my Cartooning Studio class. Each student in the class was assigned a collection of comic strips by an established cartoonist, and by the next week we had to turn in a series of autobiographical strips that mimic the style and working methods of the assigned cartoonist.

When a copy of Calvin & Hobbes: Revenge of the Baby-Sat was plopped down on my desk, my first thought was “All right! I love Calvin and Hobbes!” But when it came time to actually draw the strip, I quickly realized how difficult this assignment would be. Not only is Watterson’s strip so loved by everyone (especially at CCS), but the characters are so connected to the strip that it seemed impossible not to include them.

After much soul searching, I decided to have me appear as an incidental character in a kind of fan-fic version of the strip. You know, rather than having the comic be about me making a teleporter out of a cardboard box with the help of my stuffed ocelot.

This ends up being kind of weird because Calvin almost never directly interacts with other boys his age (Moe doesn’t count because he’s just a bully). There is something really off about this, but at least the Sunday strip gives me room to philosophize my self-doubt.

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└ Tags: Cartoonists, children, comics, madness, school