Chican@ Art Magazine is cool. The premiere issue has an awesome cover by the amazing Jaime Germs Zacarias, and a Nacho Libre review by Keith Rainville (which you can read here). Like everybody else these days, they also have a myspace page.  

On a different topic; ever noticed how Mel Gibson is referred to as being ‘Australian’ whenever he screws up?  He may have studied in Australia, but America, he’s all yours…

     Blessing Of The Cars

 An annual LA event at Hansen Dam Park that is getting bigger each year.  Bring your pre-’68 vehicle along and get it blessed by a real live priest…

Grandpa Munster’s rod — the original Dragula by George Barris

This old school scooter caught my eye

Blessed are the cars…

Encounter

Last week was a dinner organized by Lili at the iconic ‘Encounter’ restaurant at LAX.  This place will always be a tantalizing glimpse of a future that was promised, but never happened…

 

 

 

 

So this year’s San Diego Comic-Con  was super short and sweet for me. And I went straight to my favorite areas (Art Toy section, “Artists’ Alley” & bookstores ) instead of walking through the entire floor of 5000+ booths. With the trains running late all weekend, and the extra millions of people pushing and shoving through the convention center in the stifling heat….  I am so glad to be home!

As always, it was fun to catch up with people I haven’t seen in ages and to make new contacts and put faces to names. Thank you to everyone who showed up at the Mimoco booth for the Ginchy postcard signing on Saturday. (Sorry  if I seemed distracted and cranky… I blame Amtrak!!!!! ) The Ginchy series mimobots will be launched in October.

I wanted to travel light this year, so my purchases were limited to posters, prints and magazines. Here are some favorites:

Hi Fructose (special Mark Ryden & Viewmaster edition) and Animation Blast #9 .(So bummed that I missed out on Amid’s Cartoon Modern book @ Chronicle)

In the process of reorganizing my apartment (living and working) space and finally getting around to framing prints and posters that have been sitting in my closet for way too long, I have been  inspired to seek out new prints to hang on the walls. Check out these wonderful Braniff Airline posters (via World of Kane). They are way too expensive for my current home-furnishing budget so saved jpegs will have to do for now…

Also came across some  “La Grivoise” playing card sets not long ago.($2 each in a sale bin!) Groovy and saucy illustrations!

After lusting after the Wacom Cintiq for six years or more… we finally bought us some! And can I tell you how much I love this thing. The Cintiq 21UX is so so cool. I am wasting less time tweaking every single freakin’ brushstroke in Flash as you do. My lines are smoother when drawing directly on the monitor. I am doing more roughs directly in the computer = less paper/scanning time! I can even rotate the Cintiq to get nicer curves. This thing is just too awesome. Highly recommended and worth every cent.

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Mucha Lucha spot animated by Sam Leyja for Cartoon Network. (Sam also animated this one.)

… Because you all keep asking us about Nacho Libre, check these out:-

Boston.com’s article on Lucha Libre’s mass appeal (which includes an interview with our Los Campeones writer – Keith Rainville ) And also this not-too- promising review on Slate.com. Hmmm. Is it another Napoleon Dynamite with “Mexicans”? Yes, I am going to put aside my cynical reservations, see the movie this weekend and decide…