Thursday, March 31, 2011

31 march 2011


Well, it looks like animal week is not to be. It was, however, opening day for baseball, and so we got a nice little front page piece on our own Fernando Valenzuela. And, hey, the Dodgers won today as well!

30 march 2011


So our animal theme continues, albeit in text form only today. Is it too much to hope for a photo of a rhino on A1 tomorrow?

Also, pour a little on the curb for Farley Granger. Even if you don't know who he is, you can't deny that his name is awesome. And if you need another reason, watch "Strangers on a Train."

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

29 march 2011

Some days the front page is across-the-board grim (but not for you, Eduardo Souto de Moura!). Today was one of those days, the centerpiece being this story about the death of Empire, NV. Why do stories about whole towns disappearing feel so specifically American? It must happen elsewhere. Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe it's just my reaction to these stories--the dread, the feeling that it could happen to me no matter how big a town I live in--that is, at core, American.

Monday, March 28, 2011

28 march 2011


It's not always easy or practical or even advisable, but sometimes I do manage to incorporate elements from all of the A1 photos into the daily drawing.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

26 march 2011


In the spirit of Julie Makinen's Column One story about post-tsunami haiku production, I've cobbled together a haiku from fragments of today's headlines. I'm only sorry I wasn't able to get "Katie Couric" or "100,000" in there somehow.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

24 march 2011


As far as I'm concerned, if we're saying goodbye to Elizabeth Taylor she gets the entire page.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

23 march 2011


As soon as I figured out the title for this one, this song was cycling through my head the entire time i was drawing, and nothing else I listened to could knock it out of place.

22 march 2011



Monday, March 21, 2011

21 march 2011


And, with a bang, we're all caught up. For the time being A1 seems to have settled back into its more typical salad bar arrangement, offering the reader a wide range of news items to pick over. Still, it's a little strange to see the follow up on the two biggest stories rubbing elbows with more mundane fare.

20 march 2011


I don't want to get into the habit of qualifying what I post here, but possibly some reader(s) would find it interesting that this drawing was executed by candlelight during an all-night blackout here at casa de tecnica mixta diaria. I certainly found it interesting. And by "interesting," I mean "annoying." How the hell did medieval monks illuminate all those beautiful book pages under such crappy lighting conditions?

Anyway, my man Bijan put in an appearance this Sunday, and this time he brought along a Gulfstream Jet Aircraft and a Limited Edition Bugatti by Bijan. And he was wearing some sort of aviator's neckerchief, bless him. He described this impressive tableau thusly: "3 Fastest Growing Brands in the World!" Take that, Steve Jobs!

19 march 2011


And there you have it. Making its fourth appearance on the last day of the week, "fear" grabs the top spot in our nonexistent countdown of words that appear in A1 headlines. It's just been that kind of week.

That stain you see halfway down the pagealong the left edge is candle wax. Now how did that get there?

Programming Notes

All attempts to post this weekend were stymied by a variety of culprits (let's just call them "toddler-borne illness" and "power outage"), but things seem to be back on track now here at Mixed Media Daily Blog and Domestic Triage Center. This weekend's drawings (I did somehow manage to finish the drawings) will be posted tonight, along with whatever I draw today (it's looking to be another one of those "big plume of smoke central photo" days, which are always kind of fun). Sorry for the holdup, but delay could not be avoided in this case.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

18 march 2011

I think it's safe to say that "fear," with three appearances since Sunday, is officially the word of the week. It certainly does seem to have permeated many A1 stories this week, from the very real, justified fears of the people in Japan and Benghazi to the hysterical, all-too-human fear-based run on iodized salt in China. Oh, and the supermoon freakouts here in good old California. And there's still one more day of the week left! Will fear rear its ugly head on the front page tomorrow? And if it does, what the hell will I pair it with?

Thursday, March 17, 2011

17 march 2011


It has been a pretty intense week of news out of Japan, but these guys appeared on the front page for the first time in a little while so I decided to give them the spotlight; they're not out of the woods yet either.

16 march 2011

Sunday, March 13, 2011

13 march 2011


I trust we've all adjusted our time pieces by now, but if you haven't now's as good a time as any.

Friday, March 11, 2011

11 march 2011


I'm pretty sure this story will take over A1 tomorrow. I felt a kind of surreal news cycle lag while drawing tonight.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

9 march 2011


I decided to focus on the local stories that appeared on this front page: redistricting, voting in Bell, and, oh yes, the fishpocalypse in redondo beach. I guess I could've combined them all by drawing Robert Rizzo as a sardine wrapped in a newspaper laying on California's coastline, but that just felt too silly, even for me.

8 march 2011

A few things to note here: (1) I will never get tired of drawing the bigass smoke plumes that occasionally appear on A1, (2) I would never in a million years guess that I'd get to draw Mark Twain during this project, and (3) apparently UCLA is doing hand transplants now, which is both fascinating and kind of freaky.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

05 march 2011


I think this graph mostly sums up today's headlines and personalities. It left me with no room to include a proper header, but at least we now know that right after lime green, raw sienna plummeted.

Friday, March 4, 2011

04 march 2011


I was glad to finally get "Billions to Spend" into a drawing, as I've been reading Gale Holland and Michael Finnegan's chronicle the Los Angeles Community College District's sometimes inept handling of $5.7 billion in bond money with equal parts fascination, disgust, amusement, depression, indignation, confusion, and resignation. Which I guess makes it something of an emotional rollercoaster. A very local, very expensive emotional rollercoaster.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

03 march 2011


The front page was awash in Airline ads today, and I got so caught up in working them into the drawing that I forgot to include the teaser for an article about pop tarts. I had a chance to include a pop tart, and the endearingly goofy phrase "The Art of Pop Tarts," in my drawing and I blew it. Of course, pop tarts don't necessarily fit into the "vehicles and violence" theme that made up the rest of A1. Maybe next time, pop tarts. Maybe next time.