The return of Rister & Rob cartoons

Drawn using:
Blue ballpoint pen
Black bappoint pen

Rhyming Raisin

When told to create a mockup of an imaginary e-commerce website homepage, I decided to go nuts. So much of my graphics work deals with such uninspiring names that it  leaves me feeling creatively stifled; out of the blue, I thought up the name "Rhyming Raisin" (as in "rhyme and reason"), and then immediately knew what the logo had to include--the Peanut Butter Jelly Time dancing banana, recolored to resemble a raisin. I took liberal inspiration from other sites for various other page elements, but it's the name that I'll forever cherish.

Drawn using:
Adobe Illustrator CS3

WebDesign Israel comic strip

Following up on my earlier ZDH Consulting strip, this comic's humor was born out of a conversation with my boss about the company that basically went the exact same way as depicted above (although of course not quite as comical).

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.5 mm pilot pen
Adobe Photoshop CS3

Today's J. Post cartoon

For the first time in recent memory, Israeli consumers have galvanized themselves into organizing a boycott against more-expensive-at-home-than-abroad cottage cheese, with similar campaigns against other exorbitantly overpriced products in the planning stages.

The biggest cottage cheese producer in Israel, Tnuva, also has the most recognizable and iconic product packaging symbol--the house, hills and tree depicted above being stormed by the fed-up torch- and pitchfork-wielding mob.
UPDATE: It worked! The dairy companies caved in and lowered their prices.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.5 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Today's jpost.com cartoons

The Post's online people finally got around to posting the cartoon I drew last week along with this week's.

Obama became the latest American president to reiterate loud and clear his refusal to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. Nothing new there, but it does get on my wick.

Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency (above: IAEA chief Yukiya Amano) continues on the whole to be blithely oblivious to Iran's true intentions vis a vis its nuclear ambitions.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.5 mm pilot pen
Serf PhotoPlus 6.0

Costume design in the DCnU

All right, so maybe it's not exactly what "piping" refers to, but just saying "lines" sounds redundant. However, the endpoint is unavoidable: Costumes in the new DCU look incredibly cluttered. Speaking as an artist, adding random lines everywhere does not make a character fun to draw. I'm not necessarily asking for oversimplified, completely smooth outfits (such as exhibited in the Timmverse cartoons), but all of these just take the concept way too far--and while on one character it may be understandable (if still annoying), when just about every other costume has it, it just becomes flat out laughably ridiculous. Check out some of the worst offenders:

Armor for Superman, lack of pants for Supergirl, Deathstroke's anime sword, even Batgirl walking at all--all of these are topics for another discussion (one that doesn't belong on this blog), while all I have eyes for are the lines, lines, willy-nilly lines, as far as the eye can see.

Drawn using:
Blue 0.5 mm needle tip pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Webinars 4 All

These are the two different-size versions of the web banner I created for Neil Lazarus's online seminars site.

Drawn using:
Adobe Illustrator CS3

Superman's marriage to break up?

There are strong rumors floating around that part of the upcoming DC Comics relaunch (dubbed the "DCnU") involves getting rid of the marriage of Lois Lane and Clark Kent, a.k.a. Superman.

Instead of like it was with the death of Lian Harper, when I got angry, this time I'm just sad. In both cases, I'm less affected by how well executed the stories around them are (it's One More Day! Only the Devil's not involved!) than by my emotional connection to the characters themselves. Little Lian was a bundle of joy that didn't deserve to die, and even less so in such a brutally stupid manner; Lois & Clark is one of the greatest comic book romances of all time--possible even the greatest--and are quite happily married. They don't deserve to be split up just for the sake of making Superman "more accessible" or goodness knows what.
UPDATE: The split has been confirmed, along with a whole host of other maddening details that are beyond the scope of this blog to comment on.
UPDATE 2: Reblogged by thehappysorceress and thence by numerous others on Tumblr. One thing that vexes me is that I am credited as "Ramat Beit Shemesh", when even the most cursory of glances would have shown my real name. Sigh...

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.5 mm pilot pen

Optimum SEO

Logo for a Search Engine Optimization company. They have a nice slogan.

Drawn using:
Adobe Illustrator CS3

Today's jpost.com cartoon

Drawn after Richard Stallman, the founder of Linux (whose mascot this is), caved in to pressure and cancelled a series of lectures in Israeli universities. Maybe it is a bit of an overreaction, but the visual was just too good to pass up.
UPDATE: Reblogged by Daniel Dagan, for the tenth time.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.5 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0