Stowe's Co-Winning B-Movie Poster from the Open Swim

Brill's Co-Winning B-Movie Poster from the Open Swim

Other entries include:

Monlux's attempt at B-Movie Poster from the Open Swim

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RR’s “Aliens vs. Pet Detective vs. Predator”

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Debivan’s FREDO PLANET

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Space Invaders the Summer Blockbuster (winning entry by Mark Monlux)

Stowe – Second Place

Adam – Steam Punk Mario Brothers (Second Place)

Mark Brill -

McWars by Thorax -

Anique “Moby Dick and Monster Trucks”

SpeedRunner! (Junior Guest CLAW Cadets)

Jihadfield by RR

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Join the CLAW tonight at 7:30 PM at Mandolin Cafe’s back room! This week’s OPEN SWIM cartoonists game activity will be to REBOOT any intellectual property; making it appealing to today’s audiences with their cynical, post post modernist world views AND pitch the TV show/comic/movie to the group who votes on the best one.

ACTION STEPS:

1 . split into teams

2. pick your character franchise that could really use a reboot.

3. DRAW DRAW DRAW! (Transformer Babies? Lego Garfield Video Game? Family Circus with Zombies? Fraggle Emo?)

4. Make your pitch.  Sell it!

The winning entry in the Open Swim Game for 4-28-2010. By a gigantic margin of ONE vote, this brilliant creation of Thorax and RR causes side stitching-laughter… and stomach-pumping, should you eat it.

…and to think of what you miss when you don’t go to the Open Swim.

RR's MS Paint Parody of Far Side Cartoon Art

Remember the Far Side?

#9's Consept Art For The CLAW Flag

Here’s my idea for a flag for The CLAW!  I envision it made of nice, thick material with the design elements made of cut out and painted felt!  Ooooo.  It will be nice to have on display at events where CLAW is represented, and besides–we ca’t take over the world for Our Robot Overlords without a flag!  Just isn’t done!

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3RD 10 am – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4H 10 am
STOWE has challenged MARK MONLUX to a CARTOONIST’S DUEL TO THE DEATH.
Who will complete their 24 page comic book first? What will RR ANDERSON draw?
YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN A MORE THRILLING DISPLAY OF CARTOON STAMINA!

Comic book Ink has agreed to stay open for business 24 hours in solidarity with CLAW.

SPECTATORS will also have the opportunity to contribute
to CLAW’s YOUNG CARTOONIST OF THE FUTURE SCHOLARSHIP.

Comic Book Ink
1625 East 72nd and Portland ave. Suite 800
Tacoma, WA, 98404

The CLAW Team and entry in the Iron Artist Competition

The theme for the third annual Iron Artist competition was wearable art. Our masterful effort was titled “Angelic Herald of the Coming of the Robotic Overlords”. While our great visionary masterpiece did not win the competition, or come in second or third, we are confident it was a near miss. The team was composed of Electric Elliot, RR Anderson, Michael Shaudis, Mark Monlux, and Dawn Fortner who was a Stowe-Away. The CLAW is looking forward to entering and dominating next years’ contest.

• ASSOCIATE MEMBERSHIPS – memberships for people who aren’t cartoonists but still want to hang out with cartoonists, support amusing community art-stunts and most important wear a fez.
• HONORARY MEMBERSHIPS – would be like Mormon “baptism for the dead”… call people members even if they have no interest in joining.  Something you bestow on people.
• OUR NEWSLETTER AS A “ZINE” OR MINI COMIC – talked about newsletter names Elliot liked ‘claw and order’ each member would draw page numbers from a fez and be responsible for cartoon content on that page.  zines would be distributed to coffee shops and or stuffed into City Arts and other unsuspecting host publications. Think old-school mad magazine… comics and fake ads.
• NON-PROFIT STATUS – would allow us to apply for arts grants, etc.  drawback: can’t offer political endorsements.
• OPEN TO THE PUBLIC MEETINGS – second meeting of every month would be open to the pubic.  Come join us at Mandolin Cafe!
• STUDENT MEMBERSHIPS – NO REDUCED PRICE for students!  it’s to hard to keep track of who is actually a student and who is looking for a handout.
• SCHOLARSHIPS – need more members to build up scholarship funds!
• 24HR COMIC DAY MARATHON -  John from comic book ink and Warren from Tacoma Art Supply are onboard for corporate sponsorship!
• VIDEO MEMBER PROFILES – Electric Elliot thought it would be fun to do micro documentaries for each member on the website.
• WAYZGOOSE – We all agree to collaborate on group design and that 3×5 foot slab of linoleum is the way to go.

Subsequent Email Correspondence!

Dear James,

You missed two hours of sheer relaxing bliss last night.

One of the projects we want to work on is a mini-comic to distribute around in coffee houses. If you fold the mini-comic out the hidden section would be a clear description of the group and the scholarship. So, to start this project we each drew two numbers from a hat representing the pages we would work on. See the zine template here

You pulled: Cover & Page 2
Me: Page 1 & B
Elliott: Pages 3 & 4
RR: Pages 5 & 6

Keep in mind that we need to photocopy the art for mass production. This means that there should be a quarter inch space between the edge of the art and the live image space.

James job on the cover will be tough until we settle on a name for the Newsletter.

• Truth and CLAW
• CLAW-Marks
• CLAWtoons
• CLAWarts
• CLAW and Order
• CLAWful
• I Am the CLAW

Sorry Elliott, RR, but some of the names we came up with last night and which I thought I posted did not get on there. Please go in and add them.

Other than having the newsletter name and website address on the active section, it was agreed that there should be no rules governing content other than to be Pro-Claw. All the clear stuff can be on the hidden page your see when you fold it out. Guys please correct me if I have this wrong.

I will type up some minutes for posting. Most the time we sat doodling and working on our hats.

- Mark Monlux

Stowe says:

Man, I missed you guys last night. I didn’t leave work until near 9 and I am already back in here at 6am today. I needed some Washingtonian Absurdity. On the newsletter name front… has anyone come up with Claw and Punishment yet? I still have a CLAW check to give to someone (Mark?) and I would like to hand that off as soon as I can. My catalog ships to printer next Wednesday… after that I will need some serious cartoonist bonding. Mark, is there a bad movie coming out soon? Maybe something with zombies in it?

PHOTO: King's Books "Sweetpea" on a Steamroller (Tacoma)

Jessica Spring, master letterpress operator/artist has invited members of the CLAW to particpate in the media saturated event known to letterpress zealots as WAYZGOOSE .

“We should have materials to work with in late January. You’ll need to decide if you want to carve linoleum or plywood before we order materials. Linoleum is easier to carve, though Chris Sharp used some serious power tools on plywood last year and had good results. I bought myself some Flexcut tools from Woodcraft,”  Says Spring, “they worked really well compared to wimpy Speedball. I think we’re going with a maximum width of 3 x 4 but I have to confirm paper size. And finally, we try to get 3 or 4 prints for each plate–you guys can keep one (for the clubhouse?!) then we raffle them throughout the day and use another for the book arts auction. Finally, we’ve tried to keep the theme loosely based on Tacoma / books / printing but it’s not critical…”

“Sounds like fun to me. I’m down. ” – Electric Elliot.

“I’m all for it!” – Mark Monlux

“That sounds awesome… I’m in.” – Stowe

“Motion to resolution answering the call of the esteemed letterpress artist Jessica Spring has passed. The Cartoonist’s League of Absurd Washingtonians whereas known by CLAW, shall mobilize our respective creative talents to the glory of the cartooning craft. Robots are cool. Zombies must die.  Amen!”

Thus and so, The MYSTIC Council of the FOUR EYES has spoken.