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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle
@benzilla.bsky.social
2.8K followers 1.7K following 1.2K posts
Cartoonist, five-time Eisner nominee, programming co-chair Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC), adjunct prof of Comics @ CCAD, intergalactic trader & general nuisance. Four-Fisted Tales, Oyster War, etc. Clintonville - Columbus, OH (Comics City, USA!)
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 19h
It's time... for nautical comics adventuring!
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 2d
Indeed. It is, as the bottle says, savored by "two-fisted drinkers".
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 2d
And, ya know, for when you're traveling:
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 2d
Hahaha 🤮

Otoh:
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 2d
Retaliation for the tarifs, I assume. Still... seems unnecessarily cruel.
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 2d
Are you familiar with Malört?
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 2d
What is this Cursed Object™️ that's appeared in our fridge??
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 3d
Took me a minute to figure out what's going on here... but I assume that's white dot pattern zip over the ink drawing.
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 5d
I don't think dachshunds can do this?
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 5d
I just backed The Comics Courier, A Comics Criticism Journal [Issue 3] on @kickstarter.com www.kickstarter.com/projects/tif...
The Comics Courier, A Comics Criticism Journal [Issue 3]
A newspaper-format journal dedicated to in-depth comics criticism edited by Tiffany Babb
www.kickstarter.com
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 5d
Hey, hey... CCAD, where I currently teach comics as an adjunct, is looking for a chair of the comics dept. Full-time gig--health insurance, benefits, etc. Plus yr in Comics City, USA w. CXC, the Billy Ireland, and more cartoonists than you can shake a stick at.

ccad.applicantpro.com/jobs/3871453
Chair of Comics & Narrative Practice, Full-time Faculty (Open Rank) - Columbus, OH
Chair of Comics & Narrative Practice, Full-time Faculty (Open Rank) The Columbus College of Art & Design (CCAD) is seeking a dynamic and visionary faculty member to lead our Comics & Narrative Practic...
ccad.applicantpro.com
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Reposted by Ben Towle
comicsinthega.bsky.social
Comics in the Spooky Age 🧛🧟‍♀️👻 @comicsinthega.bsky.social · 7d
The first Peanuts strip by Charles M. Schulz was published on October 2, 1950.
Four black and white panels of a boy and girl sitting on steps. 1st panel: Charlie Brown is approaching and the boy says “Well! Here comes ol’ Charlie Brown!” 2nd panel: As Charlie Brown passes, he says “Good ol’ Charlie Brown…yes, sir!” 3rd panel: “Good ol’ Charlie Brown…” 4th panel: Once Charlie is gone, “How I hate him!”
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 8d
That was one of them anyway (apparently)!
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 8d
Also, I'm stunned that as ubiquitous as those little cartoons were on the back of baseball cards when we grew up, that until now (when I read those amazing posts) it never occurred to me--as a comics making adult--to wonder who actually drew them!
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 8d
Absolutely. Stunning research work from this guy. The venn diagram intersection of comics and baseball ppl is pretty big--think both appeal to our collective obsession with details, and trivial nonsense (which is actually really important, dammit!).
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 8d
Amazing! Links to the three parts of the article by White toward the bottom.
explodingarrow.bsky.social
Tiffany Babb @explodingarrow.bsky.social · 8d
Dr. Eric White is a top scholar on the Gutenberg Bible, but in his free time, he's been studying one of baseball’s biggest mysteries – Who are the unnamed artists behind the classic Topps baseball cartoons?

thefanfiles.com/articles/topps-baseball-cards-cartoons-comics-cartoonists
Who drew the comics on the back of Topps baseball cards?
Princeton University’s Dr. Eric White has used a canny eye to solve a decades-long mystery
thefanfiles.com
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 8d
Damn... this manga exhibit that just went up in SF looks amazing. Gonna have to figure out how to get to it. Probably catch the tail end of it once we're in Palm Springs for the winter!

www.famsf.org/exhibitions/...
Art of Manga
Manga — Japanese comics and graphic novels — have become a global phenomenon. Art of Manga showcases the world of manga from the 1970s to today.
www.famsf.org
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 9d
Me 24/7
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 9d
Not sure I've seen this before... Looks like some kinda Craftint-ish thing, but not duoshade? Dot pattern not lines, and just one %age value.

(If you can't tell, I've recently gotten the Neal Adams artists edition haha)
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 9d
Never noticed this before, but reasonably certain that Neal Adams must have gotten hand-drawing chops directly from Burne Hogarth's Drawing Dynamic Hands—look at those distinctive "upside-down heart" shapes on the fingers!
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 9d
So simple, but so effective... love how the stretched-out stars connote movement so well! (Since I co-curated that exhibit at the Billy Ireland I'm now on the lookout even more for movement stuff in comics lol.)
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 9d
In class today... Putting it all together: inking a page with brush, nibs, and tech pen. Among the choices for the assignment is this Kirby Kamandi page that I'm gonna demo with. (Also a good excuse for me to buy that book of side-by-side Kirby pencils with the inked versions!)
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 9d
Good thinking, Olive! If I were a telepath and trapped in a crashed hot air balloon, I too would reach out for help from a bowtie-wearing dachshund at the dog park rather than, say, the fire department, the police, a park ranger, etc. #MaryWorth
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 13d
More In-flight reading... Hahaha @sktchd.bsky.social
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benzilla.bsky.social
Ben Towle @benzilla.bsky.social · 14d
This video is great! And there's some snippets of Moebius concept art in it I don't think I've seen before.
jordancollver.bsky.social
Jordan Collver @jordancollver.bsky.social · 14d
Thanks to this Cinema Tyler video for introducing me to the extraordinary political cartoons of Ron Cobb, who was also the production designer for ALIEN! Some satire stays fresh for decades...

The Hidden Satire in ALIEN'S Production Design: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQWH...
Cartoon of an early hominid holding a bone, juxtaposed with a giant robot holding a human in a suit. Cartoon of a person wearing a gratuate's hat/robe and holding a diploma looking distressed as a militaristic looking robot labelled "automation" turns to him from a computer console and says "Oh... haven't you heard? The industrial revolution is over... we won..." Cartoon labelled "Man: victorious over nature" depicting an emaciated human in a wheeled life support system with their head suspended in an upright position in front of a screen with various tubes etc. The machinery is plugged into a socket by a single precarious wire, the socket on the floor of a vast and empty tiled surface extending into the horizon. Cartoon with the caption "Man demonstrating his superiority over animals" depicting a frog staring at a person pressing a detonator button as a nuclear explosion detonates his own head, which is a skull.
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