Tom 7 Radar: Artbus: Solidarity?

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Artbus: Solidarity? (01 Dec 2005 at 12:40)

Phew! Well, that took a long time, but here is my submission for the Pittsburgh "Art in Transit" project. Pittsburgh artists are having their work displayed in place of advertisements in buses around town. I'm not sure when they'll be displayed, but since I passed a qualifying round earlier, I understand that this is pretty much guaranteed to show up in buses around pittsburgh. Please let me know if you see it!

Click on the image for a bigger (but still not very big) version. If you want to zoom way in, you can also try this 7.7 mb TIFF (16,800 x 6,600), which will probably crash your computer or this 53kb flash file which looks better anyway.

(PS. Hint I'd like to send back to myself at 2:00am last night: Photoshop has dithering enabled by default when converting between color spaces. Dithered files are huge, and take a lot of memory! Turn it off under the advanced color management settings. Wow, look how you don't run out of memory and hard drive space any more, keeping you up all night!)

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mike (robot.me.cmu.edu) – 12.01.05 12:58:48

I like how you made the black guy smoking something, and the other one looks confused about how to operate a cellphone. Real PC man.

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Tom 7 (h-72-244-69-245.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 12.01.05 13:05:41

Man, way to make me feel bad. You know I spent like 10 hours on this, right? I don't think he looks confused. At least, he's not supposed to...

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Marc (h-68-166-233-189.cmbrmaor.dynamic.covad.net) – 12.01.05 13:09:06

No more confused than everyone else in there, in my opinion. I really like it, I think it's quite beautiful. I wish I would see it in the busses here!

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Tom 7 (h-72-244-69-245.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 12.01.05 13:12:58

Yeah, everybody (except the kids, who don't know any better) is supposed to have that vacant, detached expression. That is the whole point of the drawing. I'm glad you like it, Marc!

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ndm (pool-70-17-164-51.pitt.east.verizon.net) – 12.01.05 21:06:36

The cellphone guy doesn't look confused. The smokin'-tokin' black dude would probably garner more objections because of a potential pro-smoking message rather than percieved racial bias. (although he is noticiably blacker than the cellphone guy, suggesting the cellphone guy may actually be Indian which would again conform to racial stereotypes). If there's a sour point of this poster then it's definitely the woman: narcoleptic, frumpy, depressed, wearing an unflattering, androgynous sports jersey. I think that stereotype might hit a little too close to home for some people.

But if you ask me, the unhappy vibes of some people at the bus stop just make it more fun. If everyone was happy it would be just be more of that smiling propaganda people have to encounter everywhere. In ads everyone is always so goddamn happy -- that shit drives people crazy. When people are portrayed as middling, it makes everyone feel better.

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jcreed (pool-70-20-120-6.pitt.east.verizon.net) – 12.02.05 00:36:45

I have to dissent, neal. The frumptastic stillers fan is totally my favorite. Beautiful work, tom!

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Max (mheath.stu.wesleyan.edu) – 12.02.05 00:45:54

Neal, you have problems with narcoleptic things in general, huh?

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michaela (cpe-144-136-79-184.nsw.bigpond.net.au) – 12.02.05 06:32:47

http://www.randomshirts.com/productinfo/signlanguage.htm

hey tom 7! its miss jinx from downUnder™! just popping by to say "g'day" :P

I saw the above t-shirt on randomshits.com and i immediate recognised the tombats hand :D nice... pity the slogan aint that good :P i might have bought it if they hadn't ruined it with words! How dare they :D

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Anonymous (pcp01935919pcs.hamden01.ct.comcast.net) – 12.02.05 06:39:52

Very attractive artwork. PC problems are a real stretch of imagination. But the people who represent Spring will probably be contacting you for equal time.

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Tom 7 (h-72-244-69-245.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 12.02.05 10:20:16

I was going to do spring but (a) I ran out of space and (b) I hate spring now that I have allergies.

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Tom 7 (h-72-244-69-245.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 12.02.05 11:55:04

G'day Miki! How you doin these days? Nice work spotting the tombats hand! Actually, my fonts show up in at least one other shirt on that site... I love playing that game.

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allison (cee-arharris.ce.cmu.edu) – 12.02.05 12:12:09

HOT!

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mike (robot_mobile.wv.cc.cmu.edu) – 12.02.05 12:23:16

That Stillers chick is HOT!

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Tom 7 (gs82.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 12.02.05 15:12:22

New IM screen name candidate: frumpophilia

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jcreed (wittgenstein.wv.cc.cmu.edu) – 12.02.05 15:54:17

DO IT

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Don (acs-24-154-50-225.zoominternet.net) – 12.02.05 17:55:20

i heart phillip morris

WHOOPS--I mean this is awesome! if i am ever on a bus with it i will bus hug it

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jcreed (c-67-186-35-18.hsd1.pa.comcast.net) – 12.02.05 18:10:42

What is up with associating something appearing in an image with supporting it or approving of it? Maybe Tom is trying with this image to express the contrary sentiment that if you smoke, then bad things will happen, like YOUR BUS WILL NEVER COME.

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jcreed (c-67-186-35-18.hsd1.pa.comcast.net) – 12.02.05 18:11:31

Similarly, if you wear a dapper blue overcoat and are in love, YOUR BUS WILL NEVER COME.

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ndm (pool-70-17-164-51.pitt.east.verizon.net) – 12.02.05 23:20:33

when I suggested the Steeler's girl with the atrocious posture might be "sour" I wasn't saying I disliked her; I was only saying that a person might interprete her as a negative stereotype.

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Don (acs-24-154-50-225.zoominternet.net) – 12.03.05 07:31:03

what is up with associating something appearing in words with supporting it or approving of it or evem believing it true?

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Don (acs-24-154-50-225.zoominternet.net) – 12.03.05 10:44:48

not since comic067 and comic099 have I seen such a vast big tobacco snow job shill

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Tom 7 (h-72-244-69-245.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 12.03.05 14:03:49

lofl, Don. Good to have you at radar.

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jcreed (wittgenstein.wv.cc.cmu.edu) – 12.04.05 15:45:57

Sorry if I misinterpreted you, neal. I just want to voice my support of her no-frills no-facial-expression lifestyle.

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Max (dssstudentsxp.deans.wesleyan.edu) – 12.06.05 11:15:57

Smoking conversation ends without incident.

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Gerry (l3-202-89-185-198.arach.net.au) – 12.06.05 21:59:30

Hey tom how did you make these? Did you hand draw them and then go over it in Illustrator or something?

They look great.

----
As for the rest of you, I can't say I understand your jokes, but I think I want to.

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Tom 7 (h-72-244-69-245.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 12.06.05 22:32:16

Gerry: I drew them in Flash, which is my favorite program for doing the actual drawing. I use a drawing tablet, so it's 100% computer. I would have loved to do the layout afterwards in Illustrator, but there is some weird color problem that I have when exporting from Flash to Illustrator that I was not willing to try to solve at 2:00 in the morning. So once I had the drawings I just exported high-resolution bitmaps and did the rest in Photoshop. Thanks for your comments!

Tom 7 Radar is like in-joke central, so it may be a bit tough to catch up.. ;)

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Gerry (l3-202-89-184-96.arach.net.au) – 12.14.05 22:40:29

Thanks for the response.

Yeah I've got to get a tablet one of these days.... just waiting till these come down in price:

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/peripherals/input/wacom-cintiq-21ux-touch-screen-flatpanel-033025.php

=D Expensive, but frickin' amazing. The surface is easier to draw on than paper. You should try one, if you ever get the chance, even if it means pushing over a loved one.

> Tom 7 Radar is like in-joke central, so it may be a bit tough to catch up.. ;)

Ohh well the stuff I do get is hillarious, so I'll stick around.

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Nels (gs5048.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 03.08.10 17:18:40

I always liked this one...

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