Guys, I’m looking at the clock and the chances of me hitting my Friday deadline are beyond bleak. I got super busy/allergy fucked mid-week and the next strip, the last installment in the Johnny and Suzie Wedding arc, is very art intensive. It feels important to me that I spend the man hours at the drawing table necessary to make it look good, so I’m going to be posting it late (sometime this weekend, I think) as a result. Please pardon the delay and if you want to see the strip the very second I post it, consider following me via the Twitter (@cyrusmortazavi). Otherwise, see you guys next week.
What I’m Reading: Desolation Jones by: Warren Ellis and JH Williams III
What I’m Watching: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG
What I’m Listening to:”Gotta Get Away” (The Offspring)
The end of the year draws nigh and, if the ancient Mayans/John Cusack are to be believed, the end of the world is scheduled to follow shortly. But before that happens, and before the cold medicine I’m hopped up on wears off, it’s time for another Best of the Year list.
These are the 2011 Seno Awards. As always, I make no apologies.
Man of the Year: Dirk Nowitzki
After LeBron James made “The Decision” in June 2010 to take his talents to South Beach, joining Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh to form the nucleus of a veritable superteam, the forthcoming NBA championship was all but bestowed upon the Miami Heat by fans and pundits alike. D Wade, King James, and Chris Bosh (who, turns out, is in dire need of a cool nickname)? Who was going to be able to hang with that trio?
Enter Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks.
The Mavs were an unlikely candidate to play spoiler to be sure. Recent seasons had largely been characterized by play-off futility. The loss in the 2006 Finals to the self-same Heat, the epic collapse against Golden State in ’07, the inability to overtake the rival Spurs consistently, etc. But through it all, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban never gave up on Nowitzki, a good player who had earned (perhaps deservedly to that point) the dreaded label of being unable to win the big one.
The 2010-11 Dallas Mavericks, anchored by Nowitzki and defined by absurd depth and a commitment to team defense, entered the Western Conference playoffs as a three seed. After dispatching the Trailblazers 4-2 in Round 1, the Mavs followed with an oh-so glorious sweep of Team Evil in Round 2. Thanks to two late rallies in the Western Conference Finals, both keyed by Nowitzki, Dallas defeated the OKC Thunder in five, setting up a rematch of the 2006 Finals against the heavily favored Heat.
And early on, it looked like the Heat would indeed run away with the series, as the Mavericks would struggle as a unit for much of the first four games. But Nowitzki, who had been playing out of his mind for a good deal of the playoffs, continued to dominate and almost single-handedly kept the Mavericks alive. Come Game 5, the Mavs perimeter shooting heated back up, and the heretofore invincible Heat would go on to fall to Dallas in six. It was a hell of a championship run, sparked by a great competitor who finally got over the hump and helped a franchise that was seemingly always on the cusp earn its first title … and in so doing, became the second German athlete in a row to win my Man of the Year award.
Woman of the Year: Olivia Wilde
Dating back to last December’s Tron: Legacy, Wilde has served as eye candy in just about every other film I’ve seen. Which is good, because her presence helped make a number of stinkers bearable. But in all seriousness, it’s not often that one woman can look beautiful in as many different ways as Wilde can. And no matter what look she ends up rocking, she always bring those incredibly sexy eyes to the party leaving no doubt that the one and only Olivia Wilde is once more on the screen.
Movie of the Year: In Time
I was fairly surprised at the Internet’s reaction to this flick. Yes, the acting was a little rough, but most of the criticism didn’t cite that as a fault. I found it to be a well-executed action film based, like most good science fiction stories, on an intriguing metaphor for modern day civilization. Interesting premise, good enough acting, and a stylish interpretation of the near-future combined to make In Time my favorite movie in a year that was marked by a lot of “meh” level efforts from Hollywood.
Television Show of the Year: Game of Thrones
When I first began reading what would turn out to be my favorite novel series of all time, never in my wildest dreams would I have ever dared to hope that it would become the basis for an HBO series developed by the creators of Rome. And yet in 2011, that is exactly what happened. The cast was fantastic, the sets were sublime, and despite the fact that any time Benioff and Weiss made a creative call that I disagreed with caused me to subsequently lose my shit like the geekiest of fanboys, Game of Thrones proved to be just about everything I could’ve wanted out of an adaptation of George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. Can’t wait for Season 2 … and I really hope it takes the name of the second novel, or I will lose my shit again.
Comic Book of the Year: Morning Glories
Reading as much fiction as I do, it’s not too often that a new series leaves me completely baffled as to where it’s headed. Serial stories have tropes and at the risk of sound like a pompous ass, I’ve gotten pretty good at spotting them. But Nick Spencer and Joe Eisma’s on-going series centered around the lives of six students at the mysterious Morning Glory Academy is so blessedly out of left field that I get to enjoy the entire narrative ride like the authors intended. I mean, I have no idea where the hell they’re going with this thing, and I’m loving every page of it as a result. Which, actually, is another point in its favor: page count. At a time when most comic books are slimming down to 20 pages as a cost-cutting measure, Glories often goes over thirty at the same price point in order to ensure a satisfying and complete read in each and every issue. Singularly entertaining and economical and projected to last a hundred issues, Morning Glories is poised to be up for this award for years to come.
Webcomic of the Year: Lackadaisy
In the realm of online sequential artists, there is Tracy Butler, and then there’s everybody else. I don’t care that Lackadaisy hardly updates as it’s a veritable feast for the eyes when it does. Nor do I care that it’s a Prohibition-era story featuring lolcatz because it is so. damn. pretty. In summation, I like things that are pretty.
Music Single of the Year: “Lonely Boy” (The Black Keys)
This December release from one of last year’s best musical acts is a late entry but I’m also already listening to the hell out of it, so this one’s an easy call. Cementing the win is this music video in which The Carleton makes its glorious and overdue return into the collective social conscience:
Album of the Year: 21 (Adele)
There were a number of singles I dug this year, but only one album contained more than one of them. Adele performs a style of music that rarely does it for me, but her vocal virtuosity is undeniable.
Game of the Year: Portal 2
This was a really busy year for me, what with maintaining the strip, designing my first book, scouting cons, work that actually pays, etc. As a result, I didn’t play a single game that was released in 2011, and given the buzz that I was privy too, it’s probable that I missed out on some real winners. So I consulted with my esteemed colleague and immortal weapon-in-training A-Rod on the matter. Here’s what he had to say:
I think lots of sites, magazines, etc. have been raving about Skyrim. Some have already chosen it as game of the year. I haven’t played it, so I don’t really know how good it is. As far as games I’ve played, I think it’s a tough call between Portal 2 and Batman: Arkham City.
Portal 2 is just so much better than Portal 1 in my opinion. It was funnier, better written, and had more interesting voice work and brilliant characters.
Arkham City is well, it’s Batman. It’s pretty much the definitive Batman experience on any platform at this point. You can pour hours and hours into that game finding every trophy, clue, etc. Plus, if you ask me, the score for that game is mighty epic and the plot of the game itself is much more dark than it’s predecessor.
I think I had more fun playing Portal 2, but was more engrossed with the world built by Arkham City. Honestly, it’s hard to choose between the two.
Thanks for the cogent and thoughtful analysis, A-Rod. Moving forward, maybe I just outsource this whole damn column to my friends and take a day off for a change. Anyways, out of A-Rod’s two candidates, I’m going with Portal 2 on the grounds that I saw My New Best Friend and Lil G the Boy Wonder play the hell out of it over a couple of weekends and they seemed to have a good time of it.
And that brings this blog entry, and 2011, to a close. Hope you all had a great year and best wishes for 2012.
What I’m Reading: Fables: Rose Red by: Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham
What I’m Watching: Bleach Season 16
What I’m Listening to: “Lonely Boy” (The Black Keys)

So this was a fun meme I found while browsing other artist’s sites where one assembles a map of artistic influences. Per meme rule, these influences can come from anywhere, but I choose to go with the artists (and one writer) who I feel directly influenced the work I currently produce. The greater the influence on your work/style, the larger the entry on the map. My map key follows:
Carl Macek: The earliest influence entry on this map, and the only non-artist. I caught a random episode of Robotech (a multi-generational space opera that Macek and others cobbled together from stock footage from three separate and distinct anime series that had nothing to do with each other) as a young child and became immediately enthralled at the richness of both the characters and the over-arcing storyline. Robotech was my very first exposure to serial story-telling in cartoons and it left an indelible mark on how I write comics.
Matt Groening: It’s easy to forget now, almost twenty-five years later, how huge The Simpsons broke back in the day. But, man, that show was everywhere for awhile, and I caught the fever as bad anyone else. There was a period of a couple of years where I drew those characters constantly … and as a result, I got pretty good at ‘em. I still remember the surprise a classmate showed when I busted out Bart Simpson in less than a minute back in seventh grade. “You can just draw them like that?” he asked. “Yeah, I guess I can,” I responded, realizing for the first time that practice really did make perfect.
Larry Elmore: I’ve been hopelessly addicted to the fantasy genre ever since I read The Black Cauldron in third grade. That lead me to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and the highly skilled artists of TSR. I came to discover over time that the pieces I most admired were all pretty much the work of one guy, Mr. Larry Elmore. While we clearly share almost nothing in terms of style and ability, Elmore was the first artist I began following by name and it was his work that taught me the importance of the artist behind the art.
Glen Keane: When I sat down to create this map, I knew the animators behind the “Disney Renaissance” were going to figure prominently. After a bit of research, I was surprised to discover that much of the work I reveled in from that period could be attributed to a single animator, Glen Keane, son of the recently departed Bil Keane of The Family Circus fame. During this time, Walt Disney Pictures went a bit more realistic with their animation designs while retaining the energy in their final film products that made Disney feel like, well, Disney, and Glen Keane had a lot to do with that.
Jim Balent and Erik Larsen: When I first became interested in drawing more “realistic” looking stuff, I looked primarily to the work of these two gentlemen in the early 90s. At the time, the art they were producing sat at the crux of realism and caricature that I most prefer, so I studied anything of their’s I could get my hands on. That’s also why I drew absurdly huge breasts on women for the longest time; I didn’t know it then, but in an industry often ridiculed for hyper-sexualization of the female form, Balent and Larsen were far and away the worst offenders. (God Bless ‘em.)
J. Scott Campbell: The artist I wish was. The guy can literally draw anything and make it look great. I don’t know how to explain it any better than that.
Joe Madureira: While his influence rarely shows up in my OFF CAMPUS work, there’s a lot to love about Joe Mad. The guy’s a master of silhouette, character design, and panel layout; frankly, he gets so much motion and energy into static images it’s unreal. While he continues to produce the occasional sequential work these days, he’s largely moved on from comic books for video game design, and I think that’s a damn shame. I believe he represents the biggest innovator in American comic book art since Jack Kirby, and I don’t say that lightly.
Michael Turner: I continue to be amazed at how maligned the late, great Turner was. While I concede that Turner had some problems in his work, he also did a lot of things really well too. His backgrounds are absolutely sublime and he could render a quiet moment like few others in his profession. We lost him far too soon.
Frank Cho: The single most important influence in my career thus far. Liberty Meadows was an utter revelation to me when I chanced across it in … ’98, I think. I had never seen illustration of that quality in a comic strip, and the writing was the best I’d seen in that format since Watterson hung up his pen. And it wasn’t just that it was funny (although it certainly was funny); Cho proved that you could tell an on-going story with dramatic beats within the confines of a syndicated comic strip. It really changed the way I looked at the art form and inspired me to begin creating the characters and themes that would become OFF CAMPUS during the summer of 2000.
Terry Moore: Another big one. As I started getting more serious about improving the level of illustration in OFF CAMPUS, it was Moore and his Strangers in Paradise series that I often looked to for help/guidance. Like Cho, his art is characterized by clean and beautiful lines. However, what really gave me cause to study his work was his use of simple but effective backgrounds to really sell his storytelling. Indeed, and while I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, there’s a two year period in OFF CAMPUS where I’m clearly aping Moore’s style far too much.
Dean Yeagle: For my money, the best cheescake cartoonist going. Yeagle really manages to convey a lot of shape and energy with a minute number of well-constructed lines in his pieces.
Lar deSouza: I haven’t been following him for as long as compared to others on this map, but I’ve learned a bunch from watching “Lartist at Work” over on Ustream. deSouza’s a hell of a caricaturist for starters, and that’s something I very much want to improve upon. I already feel stronger about how I draw hands, though, and that’s from deSouza for sure, along with a whole slew of other tips and techniques on how to draw and color in Photoshop.
Adam Hughes: Very good at blending color and bold lines to manufacturer beautiful works of art. As I get more into working with color in both traditional and digital art, Hughes will doubtless continue to be the guy I look to for instruction. (I also love his artist signature; it’s wonderfully simple and awesome).
What I’m Reading: Action Comics by: Grant Morrison and Rags Morales
What I’m Watching: You Only Live Twice
What I’m Listening to: “Rehab” (Amy Winehouse)

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