Saturday, April 30, 2011

30 april 2011

29 april 2011

That bespectacled fellow in the lower right is Amir Abo-Shaeer, a physics teacher who has created a small army of teenage robotics nerds out in Goleta. If you live in Goleta and you run into Amir at the supermarket, high five him for me.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

26 april 2011


Well the Bell scandal reared its ugly head on A1 once again, affording me another chance to sketch Robert Rizzo (this time with his partner in crime, Angela Spaccia). As crazy as that Bell scandal is, it wasn't the craziest story on the front page today. That honor goes to the story about the Afghan prison break. The article doesn't give details of how Prison officials discovered the giant tunnel in the middle of their prison, but I like to believe it went down like this.

25 april 2011

Saturday, April 23, 2011

23 april 2011


I was jazzed when I got a chance to draw Mark Twain a while back, and I'm equally surprised and pleased to have the chance today to draw Houdini, suspended upside down in his water torture chamber. Well, it's a Houdini/Yousuf Khawaldeh mashup, but they share an immigrant story and an obsession with escape, so it seemed fitting.

22 april 2011

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

19 april 2011


Congratulations to the LA Times for landing a couple of Pulitzers recently. Recipients Jeff Gottlieb, Ruben Vives, and Barbara Davidson celebrated by cracking open a few bottles of champagne of indeterminate value. And good for them, they deserve it. I do hope that, after the picture was taken, they shook up those bottles and sprayed them all over the newsroom. Because it's one thing to say you won a Pulitzer, and it's quite another to say that you hosed down your colleagues with champagne in the middle of a working day and that you got away with it because you won a Pulitzer.

Monday, April 18, 2011

18 april 2011

Those sneakers belong to Lakers point guard Derek Fisher. The eye belongs to a model who rented it out for a lasik ad. The destruction belongs to the tornadoes.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

16 april 2011


Special thanks to the Williams brothers, Pinky and Robin, for providing today's theme.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

14 april 2011


Voyager I is close to leaving the solar system. Well, close in spaceship time, at least; give it about ten years or so. Thanks, Ed Stone! And thanks for letting Carl Sagan stow that swanky gold record aboard the ship. That is one hell of a mixtape.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

13 april 2011


That is not a fabrication: Duran Duran did in fact lay claim to a small piece of real estate on A1 today (leading to a story in Calendar, but still). In honor of this unexpected event, let's see if they have any lyrics relevant to the mission of this blog...and they do! Here's a verse from "Ordinary World," which they really should play on Sunday: "Papers on the roadside/ tell of suffering and greed/ fear today, forgot tomorrow/ here beside the news/ of holy war and holy need/ ours is just a little sorrow talk" Thanks Simon!

Also, I used to love drawing the space shuttle when I was kid, so I couldn't resist. Besides, we're getting it, so it seemed fitting.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

12 april 2011


That down-on-their-luck couple is ousted Ivory Coast President Laurant Gbagbo, who decided a bloody civil war was preferable to losing an election, and his wife. So, you know, no sympathy required.

Monday, April 11, 2011

11 april 2011


Happy 50th anniversary to Yuri Gagarin; we used to fear you and now we love you. Progress!

Sunday, April 10, 2011

10 april 2011


At the same time that I pour a little on the curb for the brilliant Sidney Lumet, I also celebrate a personal milestone; today is the 100th drawing completed for Mixed Media Daily. It's not halfway there--hell, it's not even quite a third of the way there--but it is a nice round number, and, hey, any reason to throw a party, right?

As part of the festivities, I have compiled an informal list tallying some of the crap I've had to draw during this first almost-third of my magical mystical journey. It's not an exhaustive list, but it does paint a concise, somewhat surreal picture of what news has been fit to print for the past 100 days:

Egyptians, 78
Iranian Parliament members, 30
Libyans, 24
Jared Lee Loughner, 20
palm trees, 16
pie charts, 9
smoke plumes, 5
sardines, 5
Jerry Brown, 4
tanks, 4
Bijan, 4
President Obama, 4
baseball bats, 4
Vice-President Biden, 1.5
American Flags, 3
scientists, 3
Kadafi, 3
Arnold Schwartzenegger, 3
football helmets, 3
rocket propelled grenade launchers, 3
single family homes, 3
basketball players, 3
dogs, 2
guitars, 2 (1 acoustic, 1 electric)
refrigerators, 2
the Kumari of Nepal, 1
basketball coaches, 1
downed aircraft, 1
Lady Gaga, 1
camels, 1

Make of that what you will, dear reader/lurker. Note that I compiled this list very quickly late at night, so if my countin' is off somewhere, I apologize. Also note that if you've noticed that my sums are wrong, you spend way too much time on my blog and you should consider taking up a new hobby.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

6 april 2011


A whole lot of face on A1 today. A lot of furrowed brows and scowls and closeups of really nice tie knots. Really, those ties are nicely done! Do we know if they tie them themselves? I'm guessing that's a staff job, but I'd love to get a definitive answer.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

2 april 2011


Normally I like to find some new angle on the front page when I draw it. However, this edition of Mixed Media Daily is mostly just a flat restatement of this sad, troubling story, which is, at its core, the story of the globalization of stupidity.

I don't want to end on such a downer, so I've included a completely unveiled reference to this report about our own Mayor Villaraigosa being chided and mildly fined for accepting tickets to stuff and not reporting them as gifts. I sincerely hope that David Zahniser wins a Pulitzer or a Kids Choice Award or something for penning this: "Villaraigosa's lawyers...argued that the mayor went to expensive events such as the Academy Awards, the American Idol Finale and concerts by Shakira and the Spice Girls as the city's official representative." That's right, folks. Around here city hall considers it important to send a delegation to a Spice Girls concert.

On a side note, fitting "Villaraigosa" into the LAT header space was not easy, and for that reason alone I'm praying that Hizzoner can resist the seductive allure of free, semi-illegal Spice Girls concert tickets in the future.

1 april 2011


Those mutton chops on our cover model are no April Fool's Day joke: that's Burt Rutan, the pioneering aeronautical engineer who turned out an impressive array of functional and theoretical aircraft during a 45 year career. And he did it all in Mojave. Now he's retiring so that he can do something slightly less intense, like base jumping into active volcanoes. Thanks for all those crazy planes, Burt! I hope somebody played this song at your retirement party.