By Mark Kaufman
Well, George Bush told him to take off that uniform, and Pervez Musharraf finally did it. Can you help Dubya dress the ex-General in something more appropriate for a commander in chief? 

By Mark Kaufman

We’ve sent out blast e-mails, posted to the Vivitiv blog, and told people personally, and for those of you who don’t already know, Vivitiv and Drawmark will be closed for the month of December. We are taking a long vacation during a traditionally slow month for us. The clock is ticking and we have but one week before our trip, therefore I cannot take on any new assignments at this time. Ciao!

By Mark Kaufman
Wishing you a belated Happy Thanksgiving. I've been down with the flu, no blogging, just coughing. I'm back at it today setting the modern holiday table. Cheers. 

By Mark Kaufman
Here’s a recent piece I did for an article on Sound Transit. Realism it ain’t, but here was an instance where the art director asked for a simple drawing of a choo-choo train. No commentary, no opaque metaphors, no ax to grind. I feel like I cheated somehow. So with that in mind here’s a link to see Ozzy Ozbourne’s Crazy Train. Enjoy.

By Mark Kaufman
When W or any other President uses signing statements, he (or she) is basically showing us what they think of the Constitution. Good news off the campaign trail on this travesty though. John McCain was asked about George Bush’s use of signing statements, he is against the practice. Now if we can only get Democrats on the record opposing the use of signing statements…

By Mark Kaufman
Dick Wilson, the character actor who played Mr. Whipple the store manager that implored the world to not squeeze the Charmin died today at the ripe age of 91. Which brings me to those awful Charmin Bears. Normally I applaud cartoon characters over real-life human ones to shill the American dream, but in this case I vote for Whipple hands down. Rest in peace Mr. Wilson.

By Mark Kaufman
This is one of a series of Huffington Post posters by Rich Silverstein that clearly illustrates the seminal events, people and slogans of the Grand Old Party. Go to the site to see the others, weigh in on what's missing from the laundry list from hell, for this ongoing project. I wish we would be thinking of ways to get out in front of Republicans rather than always be fighting the last war, i.e We fight Willie Horton, while they're on Whitewater. We fight Whitewater, while they're Swifboating. The conservatives are already devising ways to frame the Democrats for 2008, while this is an impactful, well designed, well thought-out series of posters, they always have Gays, Guns and God on their side.

By Mark Kaufman

By Mark Kaufman
I don't normally pay much attention to children’s books except when I buy them for my nieces and nephews, but I do like when the Children's Books Special Section show up in The New York Times Book Review. I see things I am not readily familiar with which is always a good thing. In this past week’s edition there were a few things that caught my eye, in particular a book by Peter Sis, The Wall, Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain. The illustration style struck my fancy, the subject matter was of interest, so I looked up the author on the internets. Turns out that being a DJ/designer/artist/writer is nothing new. Go to the Times site for the book review, and check out the DJs Portal site for an interview with Mr. Sis about his Cold War DJ days in the Czech Republic. I will definitely check out this book!

By Mark Kaufman
I was frantically searching my desk for something (which I didn't find) and found this small booklet of collages that I did a while back at the AIGA Seattle Into the Woods conference. I always loved collage, the work of John Heartfield has certainly inspired the political bent to my work. After the conference I promised myself that I would experiment with the form some more. And I didn’t. But after seeing this, I will. I promise… 

By Mark Kaufman
Norman Mailer passed away on Saturday at the age of 84. A true American original, I first heard of him when I was 8 or 9 years old when he was running for Mayor of New York with Jimmy Breslin back in 1969. I didn't know he was a writer. I knew Breslin was a writer though because I hadn't learned to turn over the Daily News yet and I only read the sports pages. Love him or hate him, Mailer is a true literary giant who presaged our current fascination with fame and celebrity. I suppose if he published the Naked and the Dead today instead of in 1948, he probably wouldn’t have become the towering figure that he was. Fame and respect today seems only reserved for film stars, corporate titans and the Paris Hiltons of the world. He did like to fight and drink and stab and spout off in addition to write so maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Mailer WAS made for these time after all.

By Mark Kaufman
In preparation for my upcoming trip to Italy, I was looking at Bruno Bozzetto’s site. Do check it out, he is an Italian animator and cartoonist. Close to 50 years of sweet, funny, clever characters and films and an instantly recognizable illustration style. However, when I clicked on a link to check out a Signor Rossi t-shirt, I stumbled upon a Logosh!rt a German apparel site with plenty of European pop culture merchandise. If you are like me and are blasé when it comes to hipster t-shirts, you may want to check out Logosh!rt for items that the American, fashion forward, bearded, pipe smoking hipster on your block hasn't ruined with his post-modern, post-ironic, post 70's/80s, post-zeitgeist ways.

By Mark Kaufman

By Mark Kaufman
As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I had the distinct pleasure of attending a lecture by Kim Deitch, the cartoonist, illustrator and all around cooler guy than you or I in Las Vegas over the weekend. Mr. Deitch spoke at the Vegas Valley Bookfest and he was awesome. Kim has a very low key way of speaking, but is a wonderful storyteller, so much so that it was a riveting 90 minutes. He spoke about his childhood as the son of creative parents, growing up in New York, LA and back to NY where his father ran the UPA animation studio by day and churned out a daily comic strip at night. He told tales about attending Pratt in Brooklyn for a short time before taking a series of jobs that included going out to sea on a Norwegian tramp steamer, working the night shift at what he termed a “posh nut house” in New York, working at an orphanage, being a dope dealer and struggling cartoonist. Like I said much cooler than either you or I. That was all before he even started talking about the work which is intricately crafted, well designed, and densley populated with interesting characters, strange situations and riffs on historical fact and American mythology. One quote that I can decifer from my chicken scratch notes which I found interesting; “Comics are a dynamic delivery system for words and pictures”. And Kim Deitch is a dynamic (if low key) practitioner of that system.

By Mark Kaufman
Cover illustration I just completed for The Isthmus newspaper on outsourcing and it's effect on the people of Wisconsin and it's  economy.