x-ray delta one photostream on FLickr: “Shopping by TV” from the Populuxe album.

Previously on Skandalon: Andy Rementer

About Charles Barsotti:

Charles Barsotti is a cartoonist based in the United States. He was the cartoon editor of the The Saturday Evening Post and has been a staff cartoonist at The New Yorker since 1970. His work has also appeared in Playboy and Fast Company, among other publications. A signature artist whose rounded, elegant, sparsely detailed style evokes both the traditional world of a James Thurber and the contemporary sensibility of a Roz Chast. (wikipedia)

Visit Charles Barsotti official website.

Previously on Skandalon

Techno Tuesday is a comic drawn by Andy Rementer:

Andy Rementer is a creative person based in Philadelphia. He received a bachelors degree from The University of the Arts in 2004. From 2005 to 2007 he worked for Fabrica, while living in Treviso, a small town in northern Italy. He currently divides his time between graphic design, cartooning and illustration. […] Aside from doodling Andy enjoys Italian meals, playing the banjo and drinking coffee. (more)

Check his personal website for more of his work.

About Mick Stevens:

“I began drawing while still a tiny person in Lake Grove, Oregon, and have continued to do so, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of the unlikelyhood of making a living. My first drawing was accepted at The New Yorker in 1979. I immediately moved from San Francisco, where I’d been experimenting with alternative lifestyles and underground comics, to New York. There, I gradually began selling more cartoons and ideas to The New Yorker and eventually received a contract with the magazine.” (more)

Visite Mick Stevens official website.

About Mona Kuhn:

“Mona Kuhn was born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1969, of German descent. She earned her degree in the United States from Ohio State University. Since 1998, she has been an independent studies scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. Her work has been exhibited, and is included in public and private collections, internationally and in the United States. Kuhn’s first monograph, Photographs, was debut by Steidl in 2004; immediately followed by, Evidence, published by Steidl and released in Spring 2007. The images appearing in Evidence were photographed entirely in France, where she resides each summer.” (more)

Interesting comments about Kuhn’s work by Joerg Colberg (from his Conscientious’ blog):

“It’s probably not surprising that this kind of photography looks just like advertizing (minus the clothes) and that it usually is described as bringing back “youth” and “freedom” to photography when it is “discovered”. (more)

Colberg is quoting Alexander Adams’ analysis of Ryan McGinley’s work:

“It is here, ever more specifically, that the work continues its travel into the collective Spectacle – the domain of Guy Debord’s societal criticism – it joins product advertising in creating the image of an unattainable lifestyle – the “world vision which has become objectified [17].” McGinley shoots thousands of rolls of film, creates elaborate situations, to attain what he expresses as “the life I wish I was living.” If even he – young, hip, white, famous, and increasingly wealthy – cannot actually attain this lifestyle, it is hard to comprehend it as existing for anyone outside of the shallow frame of his camera.” (much more)

In McGinley’s case, I think it’s really hard to say if this is a weakness or a quality : his work is a symptom of its time. I find the reflexive quality in Kuhn’s work to be less evocative. Some of McGinley’s photos could offer great illustrations for Bret Easton Ellis’ novels. Just like Terry Rogers decadent photorealist paintings.

Maybe. But the logic used in this argument is weak in at least two ways.

1) DSLR cameras, Point&Shoot cameras and Cameraphone are all compared here as devices capable of taking pictures and videos. How are desktop computers, laptops and iPads compared? As devices to surf the web? To do video editing? Graphic design? Reading eBooks? Writing a thesis?

2) Consider the latter : can an iPad replace the laptop for users who write a lot, and not just at home? I’d like to have more feedback about the iPad’s keyboard from someone who’s using it extensively (not just to write emails). I can’t help but think that somehow Gupta is suggesting that if you write a lot, you should stay home.

“Zachary Kanin (5’3), was the shortest ever President of the Harvard Lampoon. His cartoons and humor writing have appeared in The New Yorker, where he worked until recently. He is the author and illustrator of The Short Book, which is available in stores and online now. He has written for the children’s show Thumb Wrestling Federation, and was a contributing joke writer for Phil Angelides’ campaign for governor of California.” (The Huffington Post)

Kanin have a blog but it hasn’t been updated since June 30, 2008.