American Architecture

This comic was inspired by Kate Wagner's hilarious website, McMansion Hell. I walk through a neighborhood over my lunch break and pass by a house that looks just like the one in the final panel.

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Designer Chairs

Story Structures

You can get a poster of this and many other fine literary comics at my Poster Shop.

Sketchbooks of the Pros

Keeping a sketchbook is essential for the working cartoonist or illustrator. It's a place to draw freely without the fear that someone will see your poor rendering of a bicycle. It's a place to return for reference about what a bicycle (sort of) looks like. It's a place to stow away underdeveloped or misguided ideas, in hopes they'll someday amount to something. It's a place to search madly for usable ideas when faced with a serious creative block. A visual artist who doesn't keep a sketchbook is like an author who can't find the time to read: they may be able to get the work done, but they won't have near as much fun doing it. 

Suburban Planning

I didn't feel like sitting at my drawing table for this week's comic. I decided to walk outside and sketch my neighborhood!

Dancing about Architecture

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." 

- Famous saying of indeterminate origins

"Dancing about architecture is awesome."

- Not-so-famous saying

You can get a poster here for your architecture/dance studio.

Architectural Criticism Translated

This comic was inspired in part by this great Opinionator column on architecture writing by Allison Arieff. As always, you can order a print at my poster shop. I sketched these strange and wonderful buildings on a spring afternoon in downtown Denver, Colorado. All four structures - the Denver Public Library, the old and new wings of the Denver Art Museum, and the new Clyfford Still Museum - sit within a convenient two-block radius. 

Iconic Houses

In an earlier draft of this comic, it appeared the Farnsworth house was being gnawed by ordinary beavers. My architect brother informed me that Mies van der Rohe was known for his innovations in steel and glass, not wood. So just to clarify: those are MUTANT beavers. 

By popular demand, you can order a poster of this comic here. If you'd like, I'll include a footnote about the beavers.

Check out some past Incidental Comics about architecture:
The New Building. The World-Famous Architect. 

The World-Famous Architect

The New Building

The new building, for non-local readers, is the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. It's scheduled to open this September. If you're a fan of architect Moshe Safdie or the Kansas City skyline (or if you just like buildings with personality), you can order a print at http://www.flickr.com/photos/incidentalcomics.

Château for a Cartoonist

When I've drawn my millionth cartoon, published my memoirs, and sold the movie rights, I should have the financial resources to make the blueprints for this home a reality. I'll have to find an architect equally versed in escalators and observatories. I'll need a landscaper with a thorough knowledge of truffula trees. And a decent zookeeper or ex-lion tamer for my collection of exotic pets. 

The murals and sculptures will all be created by the original artists. This will require some scientific advances in order bring back the late George Herriman (1880-1944). It won't be cheap to fund research in the long-neglected field of corpse reanimation, but the result will be worth it. If you can name all the artists I reference in this drawing, I will give you a job tending the koi ponds.

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