Get ready for the upcoming inaugural edition of “doughboy: Economical Quarterly.”

At the dawn of the 20th century, newspaper comics began as monoliths of design, taking up entire pages of Sunday sections and demanding attention. The beginning of the 21st century saw newspaper comics all but neutered, their formidable stature now relegated to tiny crevices and afterthoughts.

This is an attempt in reinventing the newspaper comic strip into something new, yet obviously familiar.

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The first “doughboy: Economical Quarterly” print edition is installed. You can see it at Isaac Hunter’s from March 5 - April 1st.

Isaac Hunter’s Oak City Tavern
112 Fayetteville Street
Raleigh, NC 27601
Phone: (919) 526-0060
Open Daily 4:30pm - 2:00am

Heavily inspired by the works of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, this diptych is the marriage of the Baroque style with tools and sentiment rooted in 21st century technological palette of machine-aided design.

Both pieces are currently on display at Isaac Hunter’s Oak City Tavern, not far from the Capitol in Raleigh, NC.

Visit: Doughboy - Tipeolo Diptych

Just like everyone to know that during football season, The Achillian Graphics Company takes a temporary backseat to Wolfpack Cartoons. This year, I’m pleased to announce that Wolfpack Cartoons has launched an all-new look and increased user interactivity. So head on down to Wolfpack Cartoons and browse around. Even if the football team don’t play all that well, we’ll still be there, plugging away for the next game.

All new Wolfpack desktop wallpapers for free at wolfpackcartoons.com!

It’s no secret that NC State University has seen some trying times recently.

But we’ve got to keep going, not only for the good of the school, but for North Carolina, the nation and the world.

In times of trouble, it’s important to recall the words of the great Wolfpack basketball legend Jimmy V.

And that’s how I arrived at the above cartoon.

“Don’t give up, don’t ever give up.”

In the meantime, we’ve been given a wonderful new Chancellor in Dr. Jim Woodward, and there’s no question that he knows exactly what it takes to get the job done.

The Old Lamp-Lighter (external link - mp3)
by Sammy Kaye and His Orchestra

For some reason I became obsessed with this song, “The Old Lamp-Lighter,” a couple of years ago while listening to a 1920-50s singers & standards station on iTunes radio. Well, the station has since vanished, but the song marches on. I have no idea why in the world the little nugget bounced back into my brain the other week, but for a couple of days I couldn’t stop singing it over and over (much to the frustration of my girlfriend, Robin, as we were on vacation in Old Wilmington.)

So I’ve decided to incorporate it into something that makes a little more sense (as much as anything makes sense in my imaginary world,) and use it as a set-off point for a chore of New Achillian’s night-shift patrol (General Gestalt and MekaØscar) to perform. Seems to me, the two people who have to man the graveyard shift’s first duty is to go around the populated areas of town and light all of the lanterns so that everything’s not completely dark.

Then they can get back to sitting by the alarm bell waiting for something to happen in the quiet, sleepy ruined-metropolis of New Achillia.

Hey everyone!

Although some of the indexing has slowed, rest assured, progress on the “Economical Quarterly” has not ceased. A Matajuro & Maxine story will be the centerpiece, and I’ll have some free desktop downloads as well as some sketchbook pages on how the whole thing was put together!

As far as the Achillian Graphics Company’s Master Index & Wire Service is concerned, I’ll keep updating my weekly editorial illustrations for Technician as well as the archive work for the “doughboy” cartoons from 1995-2008. I’ve still got some filing and organization to do in that left navigation over there, that’s for sure.

The biggest frustration I have about this site at the moment is that it loads slower than molasses in the cold of winter. I might have to change the way I present the thumbnails and simply suck it up and make ‘em smaller. I also might see if I can get my programming department to add more hamsters to the wheel, we’ll see.

On a footnote, I donated two postcards for sale to the Silent Auction during the NC State College of Design’s 60th Anniversary Celebration and Reunion Weekend during the weekend of 3-4 April 2009. All proceeds will benefit the Department of Art + Design excellence fund for students. Anyone who’s interested is invited to come on out and see the school.

Black Thursday in Research Triangle Park