Sring Show, Lollipops and Rainbows

A shockingly upbeat roundup of recent newbits:

I hope you all get to visit the Spring Show (on through the third week of June), which is housed for the first time in a single building. It's at 601 Brannan at Sixth, in a slick Academy Building with an atrium. On the ceiling of the atrium is a meandering track and a little mini-crane that runs along it-- a vestige, presumably, of whatever function the place formerly had.

Tyliea's, Celeste's and Rahsan's work all made the cut. On the opening night, Department's Director Chuck gave his remarks, announcing the awards. Our guy Rahsan won second prize in the Comics category. Chuck mentioned proudly that Rahsan was already working. The word "superstar" may have been used. First prize went to a talented guy in Dan Cooney's class, Ron Anderson, though I of course felt it should have gone to Rahsan. The painted cover of Celeste's book-in-progress book was on exhibit too, huge and great-looking.

The Illustration Department as a whole came off wonderfully again.

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My buddy Eric, who was one of the judges, recently showed me a booklet of Student Contest winners from the Society of illustrators. I saw a lot of work I recognized -- because it was from Academy students! The Academy appeared to me to be more represented than any other single school, including Pratt, Parsons, and SVA.

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I went to Super-Con in San Jose this weekend. Former ILL193 students Tony and Corey came by to say hi. Corey won the art contest. I think I talked the talented and super-affable Mick Gray into doing an inking seminar for ILL193!

On Saturday night I went out for dinner with a big group of people including our pal Steve Leialoha and Groo writer Mark Evanier, who was an assistant to Jack Kirby long ago, and is a terrific storyteller with an encyclopedic knowledge of comics history. Mark knows everybody in showbiz and comics and has a story about most of them. I was sorry when we broke out and went back to the hotel.

Mark's blog is highly recommended: http://www.newsfromme.com Look for the mention of your dutiful teacher and a nice plug for Dan Cooney's Valentine!

JH


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Maximizing your results when printing out pages to ink!