July 2009

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli - Worth the 16-Year Wait!

Asterios Polyp and Rubber Blanket by David Mazzucchelli

David Mazzucchelli is one of my favorite cartoonists from the late-eighties and early nineties, but he seemed to drop off the face of the Earth after creating three issues of his “Rubber Blanket” comic, and adapting Paul Auster’s City of Glass. Finally...

...after sixteen years
of hoping and waiting,
he has released his first new original book since 1993's Rubber Blanket #3 -- Asterios Polyp …
is David Mazzucchelli’s new full-color 344-page magnum opus…

definitely worth waiting for!

I just spent the weekend reading this marvelous and engaging and challenging and inspiring graphic novel. It’s huge, sprawling, lovely, multi-layered, melancholy, beautiful…can you tell I loved it?

I was sad that I finished it, but I will probably start from the beginning again very soon.

I’m not going to attempt to describe the plot or characters…you’ll want to discover all that for yourself. Anyway. this gorgeous book is published by Pantheon Books, so it should be available at regular bookstores or better comic shops. If you can't find it there, you can always find it (at a discount) at Amazon.com. ENJOY!

And if you've already read it, I'd love to chat
about it through the comments section below.

More SpongeBob Drawings for The Village Voice

I've been posting a series of illustrations that I did for a special SpongeBob issue of New York's Village Voice magazine. If you missed the last post, you can check it out right here: SpongeBob illustrations for the Village Voice.

SpongeBob Gary the Snail and Jellyfish in Bikini Bottom Village Voice Best of NYC cartoon animated drawing by Sherm Cohen

In case you're wondering why there's so much empty space in the drawing above, it's because this was the table of contents for the special "Best of New York City" issue.

I drew SpongeBob writing on top of a jellyfish because I wanted to get him high up in the composition. I added Gary the snail in the lower left-hand corner because I knew that Gary is such a fan favorite.

SpongeBob and Squidward painting and drawing sculpture art artists Village Voice cartoon animated drawing by Sherm Cohen

This is my favorite picture in the entire series -- it illustrated the article on "The Best Art in New York City."

It was fun to draw the diametrically opposed attitudes toward art expressed by Squidward and SpongeBob. Squidward is all uptight and pretentious about his artwork, put SpongeBob just expresses himself for the pure joy of it.

SpongeBob blowing bubble floating over traffic cars boats Bikini Bottom Village Voice cartoon animated drawing by Sherm Cohen

Here's the cover from the issue -- I was trying to create a very congested busy version of Bikini Bottom to represent New York City. As usual, SpongeBob is "above it all" and just having a good time despite all of the stressed-out people stuck in traffic below.

SpongeBob and Patrick acting silly in Bikini Bottom with Mermaid man and Barnacle Boy and Sandy Cheeks Village Voice cartoon animated drawing by Sherm Cohen

Finally, this last oddball drawing is illustrating an article on the best pastimes in New York City. This was definitely the most vague topic in the bunch, so I just tried to show a bunch of characters engaging in all kinds of nonsense.

I hadn't posted these images before because I had no idea where to find them. Luckily, I came across some folders of scanned artwork recently while I was trying to clear out some room in my hard drives. The good news is that I found a whole bunch of stuff that I'll be posting in the near future. Stay tuned!

Drawing and Inking by Sherm Cohen
Color and Painting by Peter Bennett

SpongeBob © 2009 Viacom International Inc. All rights reserved. NICKELODEON, SpongeBob SquarePants, and all related titles, logos, and characters are trademarks of Viacom International Inc. SpongeBob Created by Stephen Hillenburg.

SpongeBob Illustration Art for The Village Voice Magazine’s "Best of NYC" Issue

SpongeBob playing the ukulele in Hawaiian grass skirt Village Voice cartoon animated drawing by Sherm Cohen

A few years ago, the Village Voice decided to use a SpongeBob theme for their year-end "Best of New York" issue. I got the opportunity to create the cover and eight full-page illustrations for the inside.

The editors at the Village Voice gave me almost zero input, so I really had an incredible amount of creative freedom on this job!

Each one of the SpongeBob illustrations is for a specific topic...The Hawaiian-themed page at the top was for an article on the best live music in New York City.

SpongeBob Gary the Snail and Snelly Village Voice love hearts cartoon animated drawing by Sherm Cohen

This illustration with Gary the snail and his girlfriend Snelly was definitely the hardest concept to come up with -- believe it or not, the topic of this section was the best sex in New York City (The Village Voice used the term "bodily pleasures" to sound better).

I'm pretty amazed that Nickelodeon gave the Village Voice permission to use SpongeBob throughout the body of that Village Voice issue, but having the SpongeBob characters associated with hot topics like sex was really surprising!