Yves St Laurent, Warhol Live, Watchmen, Stan Sakai, Brinkley Girls Museum shows!

This past weekend we made a trip to San Francisco to the Deyoung Museum to see the Yves St. Laurent & Warhol Live shows, and it was fantastic! I cannot give a higher recommendation, especially to the Yves St Laurent show which is only around for this week! I was really impressed seeing the "Haute Couture" clothing (which now I know what that means, it is clothing that is hand-made specifically for a person) that he had designed from the 1950's through the 2000's...Melissa wanted to see this show badly, and I probably ended up making us stay longer in the show because I found it to be so eye-opening on the process of fashion design! The Warhol Live exhibit was also fantastic, it was great to see some of his actual drawings (many from the 1950's), posters & films of his work with The Velvet Underground, examples of the record albums he did the artwork for, his "Club 54" memorabilia, etc!

I also made it to the Cartoon Art Museum (I have to stop every time I am in SF, there is always a great new show, and if not, their permanent collection warrants a revisit any time you are nearby)! They have a terrific "Watchmen" exhibit with artwork from the comic series as well as movie props (like a Rorschach costume, Nite Owl costume, Silk Spectre costume, etc! AND they have a show on my friend, the great Stan Sakai and Usagi Yojimbo that is not to be missed!!! There is also an exhibit there on "The Brinkley Girls" which I did not know of before, but it is terrific artwork from Nell Brinkley who at the time (1913-1940) was as known as the Gibson Girls! And finally, you have to at least visit the Cartoon Art Museum bookstore and chat with Heather Plunkett who runs the store)...it is now stocked with a wonderful variety of known & local artists' work, videos, import toys, prints (you will be amazed and buy something for sure...I bought a cool little Astro Boy toy before leaving)!

On another happy note, my webcomic, "Clumsy Love," was mentioned in the webcomicoverlook.com blog, where I am hoping that "El Santos" will give it a good review when he is back from a much needed vacation!

Thanks so much for visiting, and have a great day!

--Mike Gray
www.pencilforhire.com (portfolio)
www.clumsylove.net (my webcomic, please visit!)
www.cafepress.com/spacepussy

Wondercon 2009 + Charles Schulz Feb14 + Thom Cat, Goliath, Clumsy Love & Space Pus*y Vinyl Toy!

Just wanted to catch you up on what I have been up too! "Thom Cat" and "The Infinite Goliath" continue to pull in new fans at each festival they appear in (they were both shown with a great reception at the San Francisco Bay Area International Children's Film Festival on Sunday March 1st at 1pm, and I was able to talk about the cartoons after the screening...thank you Dan Bennett for putting together such a wonderful show!) and hopefully that will help lead to a series at some point (I hope!!)! I had a great time at Wondercon this past weekend, and as the Artist-in-Residence at the Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, CA on Feb 14 2009 where I was able to do sketches of "Thom" and "Goliath" for the museum guests and show the cartoons on a large screen tv (one of my favorite museums, you must go if you have a chance)! I heavily promoted my new webcomic, "Clumsy Love," which is updated every Mon-Wed-Fri at www.clumsylove.net, including giving out over 500 bookmarks to Wondercon guests! And I was able to premiere my toy prototype of "Space Pussy!" Please let me know what you think of any and all that I have listed here, and if you did catch the cartoons at any show recently please write in with your comments (especially if it is to demand that they become a series...haha!)!


Mike Gray
www.clumsylove.net
www.pencilforhire.com