It appears that I'm the topic of the day over at newmediabuzz.com. Michael Leis, author of said blog, VP at Emerge Digital, and all-around man's man had this to say about Emerge Digital's latest acquisition (me):

A recent BFA graduate of the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, his portfolio and flickr collection are anything but collegiate. As our Creative Director Adam Stipanuk says, "His fantastic illustration and animation skills are what first caught my attention. His seemingly natural eye for design and attention to detail will make him very successful in the graphic and Web design community."

Go read the rest of the article.

I'm a little late in posting this (as I've been both ill and swamped with work), but I wanted to make a mention of the fine work I saw a few weeks ago in Milwaukee at MIAD's Senior Thesis Show. I was especially impressed with my former compatriot David Schuttenhelm's work from the Animation department: Sophie vs the Frog. Unfortunately it looks like the work of Jonathan Ralph (another compatriot and former co-worker) is unavailable, but I assure you it was great. I'm sure I'll wade through all of the promotional postcards and business cards and post some more links here in the near future, but for now go and watch David's piece.

A quick update to the unfolding discussion about the stolen illustrations: Luc Latulippe has posted an excellent recap of whats going on and why its wrong--and if you scroll down a bit past the ignorant comments early on, there is some really great discussion going on. Here is a gallery of photos of the book in question. If you're interested, my spread can be found here.

Personally this has hurt me as I've spent the last three years building the archive of Artist interviews on the LCS. But what has really made me angry is that all that work included in the book has been stolen from the illustrators involved with some of them even being credited for work that is not their own. I am sure some of them won't care much, but others will and will want retribution. Someone has made a lot of money from this book and it wasn't me or the unknowing contributors. So please do not buy it!

Obviously this kind of "theft" won't make it into mainstream news. Heck, it seemed like some of the comments welcomed the publicity. The fact remains, however, that the publishers of this book violated the copyright on hundreds of images and opened the door for additional violation or theft. Its just wrong.

Visit Darren's blog and join in on the discussion.

So roughly 45 days ago, unbeknownst to me, my "How to hack a DIEBOLD Voting Machine" poster showed up on Digg and Reddit (at one point being #4 there.)  I caught it a couple days after it happened, as my gmail inbox (which is associated to my flickr account) was flooded with messages.  Since then the flickr page for said poster has seen just about 105,000 individual views.  To put that into perspective for you, thats nearly 5,000 more than the entire population of Tonga!

Just a quick note to mention that I've spruced up the Very Short Stories page on the site, added some additional information and generally made things nicer. So go submit a story already! In gathering some links for the website, I came across the student galleries at MIAD where it looks like they took down a bunch of my older, outdated work and put up a some of my newer stuff. There isn't anything there that isn't already here, but its still nice to know they keep things up to date. P.S. Extra-perceptive blogaroos will take note at an altered color-scheme on the site. Red!

Wow. I guess I wasn't kidding when I said the site would be down for a bit. (Technically it wasn't down, but it wasn't being updated either.) Well, for what its worth, I'm back and this battle-station is fully operational. The site has seen a complete overhaul, a great deal of tidying up, and the addition of a TON of new content. Be sure to check out the portfolio as well as the Very Short Stories pages. Speaking of Very Short Stories, I'm now accepting submissions for six word stories! Head over to the Very Short Stories page for details. In the coming days, weeks, months, etc. I'll be continuing to add content to the site and keep up with this blog. For the moment, however, I need some sleep. Until next time, intrepid blogonauts! (P.S. You'll notice all of the old blog posts have been moved over to the new system and been filed under the "vintage" label. Feel free to browse.)

The site is going to be down for a bit while I update some things.  Some links may not (and probably won't) work, but should be at the very least be in working order later today.  Sorry for the inconvenience.