Imbolc

Frans Boukas just finished inking this sweet poster for us. Now Rebecca Sugar ( who has some amazing and hilarious animations on her livejournal) is taking over the color. Can't wait to print it!

Handmade Holiday

Hey everyone! This is really short notice, but tomorrow is the Handmade Holiday Craft Show at the Visual Arts Center. Its gonna be full of handmade items from local Richmond artists and crafters. Be there from 10am to 5pm. (That's Saturday the 13th of December). Oh yeah, and we'll be there, too!

Protect unique, original, and handmade

Matt Deans has been working on designing some screen printed toys for Team Eight and through his research he stumbled across the following:

http://www.handmadetoyalliance.org/

Remember the lead paint and choking hazard toy fiasco of last year? You know, the ones where all these large american toy companies imported toys that weren't exactly healthy for kids. Well, our legislators have come up with the CPSIA, which does a good job of setting high standards for toy manufacturing, but effectively makes it insanely expensive or illegal to sell original, small run, or unique handmade toys. Read about it at the link above. If you at all feel that its important to keep unique, original and handmade products, legal please notify your legislator. The Handmade Toy Alliance makes it very easy to do at their site.

Here's some of my favorite handmade toys I ran into in Baltimore this past year. They are all 100% unique and handmade with love from recycled clothes and linens. Check them out at cottonmonster.com

Meg's finished poster design

Meg is amazing. Read about her here
Not much to say except wow, I can't wait to hang this one when its done:

Announcing Loose Limbs

Its Loose Limbs first poster, a collaboration between its founders Brandon Peck and Spencer Hansen.
25in x 9.5in
Two colors on French True White

Loose Limbs is a project intended to supply Richmond with screen printed propaganda (read show posters) that features its own local talent. Check out looselimbspress.com for more details soon.

P.S. That beard had to go somewhere.

Ghost Beard

This is the first small snippet of what will hopefully become a large, long-term project. This particular tidbit belongs to a show poster I'm working on with Brandon Peck. I'll post more details when we're further along.

-Spencer

Top Secret Preview Pics of Meg's next Poster

Sssshhh! Our agents in the field have turned up an interesting piece of intel:

Turns out Meg has been working on a poster for Team Eight. Apparently, this is just the beginning, but as you can see its obviously gonna be sweet and chock full of malevolent ravens. I can't wait!

NYC RISK!

So I play a lot of RISK, the game of world domination, and I got tired of playing on the same map over and over again. With my spare time I redesigned the game based on the boroughs of New York City and east Jersey. (For those unfamiliar with the game the original board and cards are below as well). Also a different variable I added to the game is the bridge blowing card, which one could blow up bridges or tunnels to adjoining territories.

With naming and shaping the territories on the map I apologize in advance to all neighborhoods grossly misrepresented in shape or size or not included at all. But this is a game board not meant to be used as a accurate map of the NYC area, and it would be impossible to include all neighborhoods.

As for the cards, I used the movie, The Warriors, as inspiration. In order from left to right they represent (as from the original game) infantry, cavalry, and artillery. And below is the bridge blowing card and the wild card. Before I carried away and poorly describe all aspects of the game, go to the RISK wiki page for a full explanation the game and its rules.



Dorkly yours,

Barry

No worries! Though we were extremely late to do so, Team Eight has managed to donate quite a few of our posters to Donations for Creations. "These works will be traded at our event for food, clothes, and goods to go to the Daily Planet homeless shelter. Everyone benefits—artists and art students can get their work out to a wider audience, the public has a chance to collect art affordably, and the Daily Planet gets the supplies they desperately need this time of year." - esterknows.com

It only made sense since this event was organized by students in Noah's Design Rebels class. So get out there on Saturday and bring some extra clothes or food to trade for sweet art!

Alejandro Chavetta: SKull = Astronaut

After viewing Noah's "Skull a Day" project, I thought that many of you would interested in this guy's work. His name is Alejandro Chavetta and he works as the art director for San Francisco Magazine. Check out the rest of the images he did in this body of work and maybe some of his other stuff here. It's good...

Barry

Barry's Art @ Rumors Boutique

Apparently I make hipster art. No, just kidding. For I don't use stencils, like graffiti or draw deer and owls, but my work will be for sale on the walls of Rumors Boutique ("injecting the south with style") at 404 N Harrison St., Richmond, VA. If your unfamiliar with Rumors, it's an independent clothing/music/etc. store that also functions as a Venue for live music. It's a pretty interesting place to say in the least. Anywho, my work will be for sale until early Dec. so come by and check it out. Thanks Casey!

-Barry

www.barrybruner.com

2008 Isotope Award Contenders

Johanna Draper Carlson has recognized Mariya's mini, Howl Before Sunset as one of the top five runners up in the 2008 Isotope Awards for excellence in Mini Comics. Johanna wrote a great little review of the book here. Thanks Johanna, and Congratulations Mariya! Oh yeah, and you can get the mini here.

METRO MARKET at Metro Space Gallery

This market will feature many local artists and vendors and take place in the heart of First Friday on November 7th, 2008. We'll be there at 119 West Broad Street (across the street from Comfort Restaurant and Theater IV) Richmond, Virginia 23220-4214. So come and see us in time for the holidays. Proceeds will help benefit True Love Press, a local community screen printing shop being set up in conjunction with the gallery. Find out more about Metro Space here.

Our 44th President in Print

To Honor this exciting bit of history, here are a few of the many screen printed posters and shirts that were inspired during this past campaign:


The above was an offering by OBEYGIANT. This screenprint was 24 X 36, three colors and printed as an edition of 350. The proceeds went to fund a larger Obama poster campaign. I particularly love the OBAMA/OBEY logo on Obama's lapel.



This one above was by artist David Choe and later screen printed by Burlesque of Minneapolis as an eight color screen print at 19 x 24. Check out here for some amazing shots of the print process.



Above, this print by Half and Half is a five color screen print on 19x25 Cougar Natural. It features an interesting collage method.



This limited edition print can be found at the etsy store of misterpeach Dimensions are 15" wide by 21" tall. All prints are signed and numbered. The edition has been limited to 30 prints. 10% of the proceeds from this print will go to benefit the Obama campaign.



This one or "That One" rather was by Justin Hampton. A five color print in various shades of metallic silver ink on 100 lb acid free paper stock measuring 24"x24". Signed and numbered edition of only 200 copies.



This was a print by Leia Bell. 12x17 inches / 5-color screenprint / Edition of 120 / 2008



And our friend El Jefe

The following were all commissioned by Upper Playground as part of an amazing collaborative campaign linking artists with Burlesque to screen these amazing posters. The above David Choe print was part of this project.



This is by Cody Hudson.



This one is by Burlesque themselves.



This one is by Sam Flores.



This one is by Alex Pardee.

There's tons more out there but blogging doesn't pay the bills so I'm out.

Becky Cloonan's Rapunzel Print

Final Design, with stamp:


Sadly this was not a TEAM EIGHT print, but Becky put this together in time for it to run through the Team Eight studio and ship back to her for APE. Its four colors silkscreened on white 12.5 x 19 and you should be able to order one soon here.
Usually work that was printed for a client is not posted here, but Becky has done work with us before (calendar 2007) and we very much hope she will again. Plus, a lot of us at Team Eight are big fans, particularly of her poster work.
Becky is a very talented comic artist. She is currently in the middle of a lot of stuff that you can read about here. Check it out and let her know how much you love her work and how she should take a break from all that important stuff and do a print with us.
Oh and I can't wait to see it in person with the stamp.

Here's some process shots, ending with what we sent to Becky who made that sweet stamp to apply herself.

November 4th - you know what that means

GET OUT AND VOTE!!!!

And oh yeah we're now on deviantart. team8press.deviantart.com

Yeah!!!

Just a reminder to all those illustrators out there that the deadline for the Society of Illustrators Annual Competition, ILLUSTRATORS 51 is this Friday, Nov. 7th. To make things easier this is the first year that you can enter online. Here's the link below to all those interested:


http://www.soicompetitions.org/?section=competitions&competition_id=29

(The above illustration is by the amazing John Cuneo for the competition)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

We love halloween! Its been a little preoccupying this past week. Here's an invite I put together for the party tonight. Yes it is screen printed and yes that is silver ink. Its actually, silver, pink, and black on black French paper. I hope everyone enjoys my favorite holiday!

Second

I'm not quite sure whether this one is about intimacy, uncertainty, or just about how much I love hair.

FEVER

Giclee VS. Printmaking

Kelly Alder directed me to this post recently on the Fantagraphics Blog. It was written by Jacob Covey who has been organizing an all hand-made print show with art and related art from the book BEASTS!, which is a gorgeous book that Rawn and Meg Gandy shared with me earlier this past year.

The issue is that Mr. Covey has excluded digital prints including giclee prints from this show in favor of hand-made print such as letterpress, etchings, lithographs, and of course one of our favorites: screen prints. He makes a great point about the value of a digital print vs. any hand made print. Read his post to get his full opinion, but in my crass paraphrasing he is making the case that because digital prints can be so reliably executed at a moments notice, with very little human interaction they are worth little more than the paper and ink involved. That may seem harsh especially if you happen to be a digital artist and a giclee may be your only physical manifestation of your work, but I think Mr. Covey is really only referring to digital reproductions and the hollow posturing of the 'limited edition' print run of a digital print who's printing and reprinting is really not limited in any way.

Here's my take: A limited print run is supposed to reflect how the execution of a single handmade run will yield a finite number of prints that share the same preparations. For example, if it is screen printing, they will share the same batch of hand mixed inks, the same transparency preparations and screen exposures, as well as a similar state of environment they are printed under, possibly including the weather that day and the artist's mood, or how much their carpel tunnel was acting up (just ask Rawn or Meg about that one). On the flip side, a digital print could be printed on two different printers, on two different parts of the globe with the simple push of a button and reliably yield indistinguishable results.

The point is although a digital print can be a work of art and certainly there are variables to be creatively manipulated and unique ways of expression to be achieved, a digital reproduction is a rather effortless reflection of the original that does not hold any artistic value of its own. A handmade print, requiring the human hand and human consideration all throughout the process does yield its own original works of art, each one its own unique piece affected by the artist.

Jan Van Eyck's Cat's

This past weekend I was a groomsman in the wedding of my very good friends, Neal Iwan and Kristen Lowery. It was a ton of fun, I went golfing for the first time, and drank too much Maker's Mark at the reception. But the greatest part of all was making the bride cry for 30 minutes. No, I didn't ream her out for trying to steal my friend from me, and no I did not object to their union by feigning a seizure in the middle of the aisle. What I did do was give them a really good wedding present.

Neal and Kristen have two cats, Charlie and Kitten, who they both adore, so I decided to redo Jan Van Eyck's famous "The Arnolfini Marriage" with their cat's heads switched with the people's in the painting and Neal's with the dog's. Unbeknown to me that painting happened to be Kristen's all time favorite, so when she opened it, my altered version moved her quite a bit.

Apparently, Kitten didn't like it as much they did. Neal reported when they got home, he sat the framed illo on their kitchen counter, and Kitten jumped on it thus knocking it onto the floor, breaking the frame. Oh well... So here's the piece:

BARF COMICS # 1

Jim has finally put his mega awesome art book up for sale online. Its a full color, 48 page collection of short comics, record covers, and all sorts of other crap, in a limited print run of 250 copies. It also features the very same cover we used for his Barf Comics six color 25 inch poster. Buy the comic HERE for like ten smackers.

Plan 9 Anniversary T-Shirt... That wasn't

I did this a year or so ago, whenever Plan 9's 25th anniversary was. It was something I did pro-bono for Jim Bland, owner of Plan 9 Music, because he's one of the nicest guy's I know and he has one of the state's coolest music stores. I don't remember if he approached me or if I approached him? I guess it doesn't really matter, but for some reason he's never really made clear, he decided not to use it. On occasion I'll ask him if he intends to use it and he'll say "yes" he does. We'll see. Maybe one day I'll get around to doing something with it myself.

The color's are reduced to just 3 because the original use was to be a t-shirt and I wanted to keep it simple and inexpensive. If I were to make a silk screen poster I now know that I could add another 3 or 4 colors, could be fun, we'll see.

Frans Boukas!

Frans we met at Small Press Expo a few years ago. We met back up with him at the comic con in New York this past spring. Turns out he had been drawing like a maniac the whole time. On his blog you can check out Pumpkin Man, the Goon, Bogged Down At Bush Street story, some posters and hats and tons more. Of, course we had to beg him to do a silk screened poster with us, which hopefully will be previewing here soon, and I've overheard him and Matt Deans plotting some insanely large mash up poster project. Here's a taste:

People Have been Busy.

It seems that a few of the Team Eight regulars have eeked out enough downtime to toss some of their fevered drawlings up on their respective flickr pages. They missed that deadline to post them and they also skipped lunch, so you better appreciate it.

Matt Deans:



Matt has been working hard at his full time day job while also trying to keep his ink brush wet and the stream of gooey illustrations flowing. Oh yeah, and he's in this band that plays shows and practices two to three times a week. No time for whining.


And Mr. Callahan:




Jim likes puppy dogs and pizza and long rides on his skateboard at dusk. SDWP - ISO - GSOH

Richmond Zine Fest

Whew, third in row of summer/fall shows! Luckily, this one was in our home town of Richmond, VA and just down the street from T8 headquarters. Held at the GRRC, the Richmond Zine fest was a lot more laid back than the previous shows this month. We were actually able to have a conversation with just about everyone who came up to the table, so we met a lot of new friends most of which were from out of town. There were also a lot of great panels, including a great one on mini comics with comics creator Rob Ullman, publisher Sparkplug comics, and a representative from Team Eight who I think learned more than he provided.

New Review

I wrote a review for the new graphic novel sensation, 'The Alcoholic."  Check it out:

http://www.brickweekly.com/index.php/booksprint/article/comics_the_alcoholic/702

OMG Posters!

Just found this blog chock full of sweet sweet silk screened art and other stuff. Check it out:

http://omgposters.com/

..

ROB ULLMAN PRINTS!

Rob was able to finish this one up just in time for SPX. We nailed the printing all in one day, with perhaps the tightest registration of any poster we've yet done. Here's what Rob had to say about the print and the process:

"The setting is based on my local coffee shop (called Stir Crazy, 'natch), which is just around the corner from my house and sorta doubles as my office...before our daughter was born, it was a daily stop...and often still is. I've been wanting to do this project for a long time, and the rush I got finally seeing it in print and finished was fantastic, indeed.

"The printing itself was a true collaborative effort, the lion's share of the process ably handled by the talented Spencer Hansen of Team 8 Press (you can peep more of their spectacular work on their blog). Spencer's contributed to several screenprinted jobs I've done in the past, and he always does a swell job. However, this was the first time I'd been on-site for the process, actually pulling a good amount of two colors myself, and it was a lot of fun."

You can find Rob's print for sale here team8press.com/stircrazy or here rkullman.blogspot.com, along with more of Rob's work.