Looking towards 2009 (again)

As I mentioned a short while back, I had the opportunity to help produce a 2009 calendar. (of you click the calendar image to the right, you'll be taken to a site where you will be able to purchase the calendar itself. It is way cool).

Well, just the other day, I acquired another 2008-2009 (5769) calendar (this time from my Father-in-Law) that contained artwork from a very good friend of mine. The calendar in question is Beit Chaverim Synagogue of Westport/Norwalk.



The calendar is for the Synagogue’s New Year, and the reason it is special to m,e is that the image on the cover, as well as for the month of November, features the artwork of my good pal, Arlen Schumer. Arlen if a fabulous commercial graphic artist, and fellow cartoonist. Personally, I love Arlen’s work and would highly recommend him

His character, Captain Israel is a character that he created some years ago and he lent the image to the Synagogue for use in the calendar. As can be expected, the rest of the months are also full of the art from other congregants.

(Captain Israel is © Arlen Schumer)

Easter Monday Blues

Well, I can tell that it is the Monday after Easter because I’m currently nursing a post-chocolate gorge-fest hangover. I have to tell you that you really have to hand it to the capitalists in this country who have managed to turn virtually every holiday into some sort of shopping fest. Easter isn’t about the resurrection of Christ, it is when the Easter Bunny comes by and passes out a metric ton of candy. Christmas isn’t his birth, but 1/4 of the take for the budget of 90% of the retail businesses in the Country. Ash Wednesday isn’t the first day of Lent, but the day after the conclusion of Madi Gras, a 40-day drunken orgy. Graduation day is about gift-giving, not the graduation itself. Halloween is about the candy.

Oh, and it isn’t just religious holidays The Fourth of July isn’t about our independence from tyranny, but a reason to go out and buy a new car (as are, of course the various President’s birthdays, same too with Memorial and Labor Days). Valentine’s day isn’t a lover’s holiday, but a reason to go out and buy flowers, candy, and cards; as are Mother’s and Father’s Days. St Pat’s is a drunken Beer fest (OK, wait, I do agree with that one). Even SuperBowl Sunday is all about the big-screen TV and the high-end concept commercials rather than the game itself.

Personally, I’m not entirely unconvinced that the cotton-growers of the deep South didn’t subsidize John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of President Lincoln so that 100 years hence they could have have White Sales on his birthday; not to mention that automotive dealers backed James Earl Ray’s assassination of Martin Luther King to sell cars on his birthday. (Yeah, I’m that far off the beaten path)

Anywho, the image is what I got in my Easter basket this year, it is followed by a Spider-Bear stuff-it-yourself-toy that I spotted in a craft store, and that is followed by a couple of images drawn by a buddy of mine named Arlen Schumer, who is a graphic artist, author, and funnybook fan.