Transcripts Completed

We have transcribed about 120 pages of summaries and excerpts from the artists interviews conducted over the last 3 years.  It also features logged footage from events such as The Seattle Comic Con, Short Run, The Projects, Cartoonists Northwest, and other groups and festivals. More things will certainly be filmed over the next month or so, and that information will be added to the transcript.

We can safely say: Let the editing the begin.

New Kickstarter Video

Thanks so much to the generous contributions from comic fans, friends, and family the Kickstart campaign is going well. With 13 days left we are almost 75% complete with the Kickstarter goal. This is good by most any Kickstarter standard.

We recently updated the home page video at Kickstarter. It goes into much more detail about the film, and showcases excerpts of interviews with Brian Basset (creator of Red and Rover), Roberta Gregory (creator of Bitchy Bitch), Ellen Forney (author of Marbles), and Shary Flenniken (former cartoonist and editor of National Lampoon Magazine). The first video was fun, but the new one has important information about our budget and samples from the film. You can view the new video, and more information about our film, at the Bezango Kickstarter site.  I've also posted both the new KS video and the first one below. We hope this helps put us over the set financial goal. Thank you for sharing the link and/or your financial contributions to the film (both are much appreciated!).

New video posted at Kickstarter, November 18th, 2012.



Original video at Kickstarter site posted October 22nd, 2012.

Brian Basset Interview

Today we interviewed Seattle cartoonist Brian Basset about his syndicated comic strip Red and Rover. He also talked about the other cartoon work he has created over the years.  It was especially awesome to film him walking though the creation of his daily comic strip. 

Brian was very generous with his time and during the interview we had the opportunity to ask him about his work with NASA (excerpt below).

Ron: “Tell us about the work you’ve done with NASA”

Brian: “Early on in doing the strip I had this connection with NASA. They involved me in a number of fund raising activities. They put on a show of my space themed work at their headquarters about seven or eight years ago, which was a big honor. I was the first cartoonist to have their own show at NASA headquarters.”

Brian:  “NASA asked if I would be interest in doing the commemorative poster for the end of the Shuttle program. They weren’t paying, but just asking was payment enough. So, talk about putting pressure on one’s self (laughs).  It was probably the most pressure packed drawing I’ve ever done in my life. But it went really well and it was well received. They had me down to Cape Kennedy twice both for the launch and the landing of Atlantis to sign posters. So it doesn’t get much better than that.”

Red and Rover appears in about 200 newspapers including the Seattle Times. It is also on various web sites including:  http://www.gocomics.com/redandrover/

During the interview Brian's cat, Atlas, found a comfortable spot to sleep while Ron was asking questions.

Penstuff

The cover for the first issue of Penstuff.  Penstuff is  Cartoonist Northwest's monthly newspaper distributed to group members. Cartoonists Northwest (CNW) is a local cartooning organization that has been around for over 31 years and has been meeting pretty much every month during that time.  http://www.cartoonistsnorthwest.com/  The group is located in Seattle, WA. While most members live in the Northwest, the group is open to anyone, being professional or amateur cartoonists.

Syndicated cartoonist Brian Basset (Red and Rover and Adam@home) drew the cover for the first issue of the group's newspaper in 1981. Note: at that time the group called themselves the Pacific Northwest Cartoonist Society. The name was changed within a few years. Brian Basset's  current cartoon strip Red and Rover:  http://www.gocomics.com/redandrover/