guest post by Violet Blue

photo by Scott Beale

In a completely non-ironic and potentially exciting move, KQED and the University of California, Berkeley School of Journalism have snatched $5 million in kindling to start the Bay Area News Project. The money is being fronted by the Hellman Family Foundation to create online (and sideline print) media outlets as a “nonprofit, nonpartisan publicly supported news organization.” The first post on their fledgling Twitter account (@bayareanewsproject) announces that they’ve joined forces with the New York Times and the rumor is that it’ll be basically a New York Times West. The veritable Grey Lady herself said — one day after the NYT’s involvement was announced — opines that it’ll be “the largest and most ambitious of dozens of similar local news operations that have cropped up around the country.”

The venture is set to launch next year, which is really just around the corner in old media time, and to get a good sense of what the various people involved have to say about the scope and intention of the next possible Chron/Gate/Examiner killer, there’s a lot to be gleaned in KQED’s roundtable audio interview from Friday. Forum’s recent episode with host Dave Iverson The Future of News? is worth a listen. The topic of local news coverage here in the heart of technology (and the Hollywood of tech) is nothing if not a morbid topic, and there have been many contenders for the title they’re going to be more than a few rounds in the ring for. They’re hiring for freelancers right now (email: jobs at bayareanewsproject dot org). Although on Iverson’s show, when directly asked by a caller self-identified as a journalist, they said there would be compensation but were not transparent about any pay scale. I guess we’ll have to wait until they choose a name for more details (BANP is a temporary title). But they do tell us that distribution will be through a website, mobile applications, KQED will funnel them through radio and television dissemination, and they’re “exploring” print options with the NYT.

On the show, guests (and members of BANP) include Carl Hall, former representative of the SF Chronicle’s newsroom and commercial departments; Jeff Clarke, president and CEO of KQED; Neil Henry, professor and dean of the UC Berkeley’s J-school and author of 2007’s “American Carnival: Journalism Under Siege in an Age of New Media”; Noelle Leca, chair of the board of directors of KQED; and Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. In all it looks to be a very exciting venture, and we’ve been waiting for that local news wake-up call for decades — after all, we really should be leading the world in a revolution for combining democratized reportage and cutting edge technology. But instead most of us just gnash our teeth, watch the lag, read SFist, SF Appeal and SFBG while going elsewhere for… everything else.

Bay Area News Project is nothing if not ambitious. Will they really be the shock troops for journalism’s revolution as they hope? I’m reminded of when GETV was invited as citizen journalists to the 2006 San Francisco International Film Festival in a groundbreaking step to incorporate indie media with mainstream media. Only to discover in our on-the-spot interview with Graham Leggat that while courting us — no: in fact, bloggers and web TV reporters like us were not going to be granted equal access. Bait and switch, or perhaps yet another case of misunderstanding the medium. In the KQED Forum show, they tell us that BANP wants to “engage, listen, communicate with one another… with professional heart for news gathering and dissemination.” While also bantering that unlike citizen journalism, “truth” is at the heart of professional journalism, hence their preference for pro over citizen reportage — a sentiment many of us might find dismaying, at odds with our experience, and simply old fashioned.

Well, we can take heart that KQED’s Noelle Leca can be quoted as saying (at 37:35, in case we need it later) that Bay Area News Project “is a risk taking venture.” We certainly hope so. And Lillian Hellman was a very interesting and cool woman. BANP, whatever it will be called, could be just the kick in the [body part] that is needed, not just locally but nationally or even internationally. And that would be something to finally be proud of, indeed.

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guest post by Josh Ellingson

Scores of craft-conscious San Franciscans made it down to Golden Gate Park’s County Fair Building this past weekend for the annual SF Zinefest. It was a breezy, cloudy weekend and a great reason to be indoors, cozying up to some handcrafted comics and magazines. I took a few photos and caught up with the some of the creators about their work.

Zinefest 2009 Special Guest Andy Hartzell had an interesting stereogram contraption that highlighted special 3D versions of characters from his “Foxy Bunny Funny” graphic novel. Andy is a Xeric Award winning cartoonist with acclaim for works published by the likes of Top Shelf and Fantagraphics.

I spoke briefly with “punkpunk” co-creator, Jing Bentley about the joys of DIY bookmaking. She had this to say:

“You know, there’s just such a big rush to share everything right away on the internet, where here it’s nice to be able to give something that you made by hand in person. It’s like a gift.”

“punkpunk” is a different format every issue, and features a range of topics, including comics and interviews.

Here are some more shots from my visit:

Rani Goel is Just Visiting.

Cartoonist Amy Martin has fist-fulls of cash.

Doctor Popular reveals the secret stash.

Cartoonist  Joseph Cotsirilos has a pretty good beard going for a high school student.

Artist Matt Delight is a lightspeed champion.

Artist Mark Todd prepares to sign my purchase.

There are more photos in my Flickr set.

photos by Josh Ellingson

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San Francisco Zine Fest, an annual conference focusing on independent and underground publishing, takes place August 22-23 at the SF County Fair Building.

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Stephen Colbert was the guest editor of the June 15th, 2009 issue of Newsweek.

So when Jon Meacham asked me to guest-edit NEWSWEEK, I jumped at the chance, particularly because my guest editorship at Mature -Honeys fell through. I guess my photo essay of sexy housewives reenacting the Battle of Fallujah was too “real” for them.

Of course, guest editing is more than just sitting around tanning myself by the gleam of Fareed Zakaria’s teeth. I set the editorial agenda, assigned stories and yelled at Peter Parker to get me more photos of that web-slinging vigilante, Spider-Man. He’s a menace!

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Hi-Fructose posted a preview of Volume 12 which will be out in early July and is now available for pre-order.

Features include an extensive interview by Kirsten Anderson on American Surrealist:Todd Schorr, a cover feature on the powerful paintings of Josh Keyes, Luke Chueh, Jingyoung Yu’s haunting sculptures, the brilliant meditations of painter Michael Hussar, survive a ride on Michael Page’s maelstrom, Fuco Ueda’s disturbing dreamscapes and Travis Lampe’s world of weeping pulps. Exposes on Mike Shine’s Art Shack, Scott Hove’s Cakeland plus toy exposes, Acquired Tastes and more.

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guest post by Burstein!

Some stories just have to be told, like this one about the prankster/writer L.J. Williamson and the SF Examiner. It all starts with the payment system at the Examiner. As L.J. explains:

You’re probably familiar with Examiner.com and other “pay per click” sites for writers. Even though the pay is dismal, I thought it might be useful in some way to be the “Los Angeles Family and Parenting” columnist for the site.

Yet after a short time, the whole setup began to grate on me and my (admittedly puny) sense of journalistic ethics, and it all just fed my outrage about the direction the world is going in. Is this really the future of journalism? There is no fact checking, no editing, no nothing except a regular series of emails from your “channel manager” imploring you to employ SEO and “viral marketing” to increase the number of hits your page gets, and writers are paid next to nothing. An example from one of their emails: “Examiners should avoid obscure references, no matter how ‘clever.’ Search engines don’t recognize cleverness.”

Mediabistro’s FishbowlLA has the full story, but the long and short of its that Ms. Williamson decided to increase page views by writing more and more controversial articles with less basis in reality to see if the Examiner would publish them. Soon, these articles became pure comic gold, like articles on “the need to ban peanuts” and “why panic is an appropriate response to the swine flu.”

These articles, for the moment, lost to the sands of the internet as they have been scrubbed from the Examiner.com site. Fortunately, through the magic of Google cache, you too can read one of her most awesome articles – why schools must ban the game of tag.

Finally, it is worth reading what Travis Henry, Director of Editorial at Examiner.com, had to say in an extended comment on LA Fishbowl. This is interesting either way. Is it too simplistic to look at it as an abuse of trust? Was it a breach of journalistic ethics? Or a failure of the Examiner.com to fact check supposed commentary on news?

Thanks to heathervescent for the tip!

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J. J. Abrams was the guest editor of the current issue of Wired Magazine (”The Mystery Issue) turning the magazine into a extensive puzzle most of which has been solved by Steven Bevacqua.

UPDATE: Wired has posted the answers to all of the puzzles in the issue.

via Fimoculous

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guest post by Hugh D’Andrade

I’ve been attending the Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair (and creating graphics for it) for at least five years now, and the thing I love about it is the sheer size and cacophony of the event. You step inside and find booth after booth full of books, pamphlets, and zines on every conceivable fringe-y subject — plus comics, music, t-shirts, an art show, and speakers on subjects ranging from how to compost to how to survive industrial collapse.

Here’s the poster I created for the event this year.

Here’s a list of items I’ve bought at past Anarchist Bookfairs:

• very rare Emma Goldman classic, “My Disillusionment in Russia”
• a bike zine on how to build your own cargo bike which I have never used but will some day
• actual (pre-Kool Aid) Jonestown pamphlet from 1977, all about the beautiful utopia being built in Guyana
• “Resistance is Fertile” t-shirt with cool woodcut graphics
• hard-to-find copy of “Mr. Block” cartoons from old IWW papers
• Ken Knabb’s excellent memoir, Public Secrets, describing 30+ years of political agitation in the Bay Area

You don’t have to agree with everyone there — in fact, that would be impossible, given the wide range of totally contradictory ideas on offer. You’ve heard about the marketplace of ideas? This is what it looks like.

This year’s speakers this year includes my friend Chris Carlsson, talking about his new book Nowtopia: How Pirate Programmers, Outlaw Bicyclists, and Vacant-Lot Gardeners are Inventing the Future Today.

Here are the details for the event:

Bound Together Books Presents:
The 4th Annual Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair
Saturday, March 14, 2009 (10am-6pm)
Sunday, March 15, 2009 (11am-5pm)

SF County Fair Building
Ninth Avenue and Lincoln Way
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
Valet bike parking and Kid/Family space provided
Free

And here’s a link to the CC-licensed Bookfair posters I’ve designed in years past.

poster by Hugh D’Andrade

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guest post by mikl-em

Congrats to San Francisco artist Josh Ellingson, a long-time friend of Laughing Squid, on being featured in the Fresh section of the Communication Arts website. CA is the largest international trade journal of visual communications.

Bay area art fans with their eyes open have probably noticed Josh’s work in recent years in local weeklies, major magazines, posters for parties and concerts, or galleries and stores in San Francisco and beyond. Josh has designed ads, posters, and postcards for Laughing Squid over the years, too. The image below was one of the first in the Laughing Squid postcard series.

Josh will be at the Wondercon convention this week in San Francisco at Moscone Center South, you’ll find him in Artists’ Alley. He’ll have some new prints, making their exclusive debut at the convention.

In Josh’s own words from the Communication Arts piece:

I’m influenced by popular culture, particularly television and movies, and I’ve also always been a fan of comic books and collectible toys. I’m enamored with science and scientific advancements and lately, astronomy has had a big impact on my work. There’s something about the scale of the cosmic level that makes my brain buzz.

Josh has had exciting things happening. In addition to the CA feature his work has recently appeared on TV, in art shows in Arizona & South Carolina (upcoming), on limited edition tequila bottles, and in outer space. So it seemed overdue to cover some of the cool stuff he’s been up to since Scott last posted about him in July ‘08.

First off, that art-in-space thing. The illustration below, featuring burlesque icon Dirty Martini was chosen to be included in the first ever art show at the International Space Station, which is in orbit around a small blue planet called Earth.

In the images below, you can see Josh’s piece, fittingly entitled “Dirty Martini and the Birth of the Space Program”, on a wall of the space station:

There it is, over the shoulder of the ‘naut on the far left. Possibly the first Dirty Martini in space. Not likely, but possible.

Last month back on Earth, fellow bay artist KRK Ryden curated a show called “The Panelists”, featuring art that celebrates the comic book panel. It happened at Pravus Gallery in Phoenix, Arizona, where Josh’s work appeared alongside pieces by KRK, Mark Mothersbaugh, Niagara, Mark George, and many others.

Josh wrote about his wild time in PHX and there’s a blog about the show & artists. Here’s a video that Josh shot while he was there that shows everyone’s killer art…

The next gallery show for Josh will feature his brand new series “Carrying Home”. It’s a solo show at South Carolina State University running from Mar 23-April 14. Here’s one of the pieces, Vice, that will be up:

Back to last year, Ellingson-on-television happened in a surprising meeting of Reality TV and a Great Old One. The TLC show LA Ink shot a scene in the offices of Boom-Studios who happened to have Josh’s artwork on their walls. In fact it’s the cover art Josh designed for a comic that Boom published called Cthulhu Tales: The Rising. The door-sized image hangs proudly in their conference room.

Josh heard about it on the night of the show, and quickly ballyhooed it up on Twitter.

Here’s the original illustration, unsullied by TLC watermark, UPC symbol, or Josh’s Kraftwerk imitation…

No slight on Josh, but it’s rather a handsome take on Cthulhu, don’t you think?

Saving the boozed for last (or penultimate anyway), last year Josh also got a high profile, high concept gig, when he and a few other artists were selected to design custom bottles of 1800 tequila. What results are some really stunning alcoholic vessels.

Josh has more pix on his flickr stream, including shots of the billboards and sneakers that 1800 made of his work. NOTCOT.org has a post with great pix of the collection.

The original artwork is entitled “Eagle with Baby Dragons” (below).

Finally, here’s a short selection of the great posters that Josh created last year and throughout history…

This April you can go check out the Ellingson atelier in person when the Spring 2009 Mission Open Studios is on. Josh works out of the bustling 1890 Bryant Street Studios where he shares a large space with several other great local artists and the granddaddy of internet radio stations SOMA FM. Together they call themselves Local 303 and next month marks their 3rd anniversary in the space. Here’s some pix of their work and play over the years.

Okay, Josh, don’t do anything else for a while, okay?

photos & illustrations by Joshua Ellingson

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The New York Times has released an article skimmer interface for their news articles providing a really great way to scan headlines similar to reading a physical paper. It’s part of their prototypes series for projects that are still in the testing phase.

See Previously: A Tour of The New York Times

via ReadWriteWeb

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JPG Magazine, an innovative photography publication and community, along with it’s parent company 8020 Media have announced that they are shutting down as of Monday, January 5th. Brad Stone covers the closure in the New York Times.

On the JPG blog they mention that there is a small chance that they will be acquired before they close, but they don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up. 15×100 has launched a Save JPG website to help prevent the JPG community from going away.

8020 has had a troubled history, in May 2007 JPG Magazine founders Derek Powazek and Heather Powazek Champ both left the company due to a “fundamental disagreement”.

See Previously:

- JPG Magazine Founders Leave 8020 Publishing

- JPG Magazine, An New Publication & Community For Photography

JPG Magazine submission photo by Scott Beale

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The 2nd issue of Fray is out, “Geek – True Stories of People Taking Things Too Seriously” and they have posted the first story “Windhammer” online.

Fray has also opened the call for submissions for issue #3 “Sex and Death”.

See Previously: Fray Issue 1: Busted!

cover illustration by Clark Wimberly

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