http://www.drawger.com/neubecker/ Sat, 07 Jan 2012 09:35:48 EST FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://drawger.com/_images/drawger_leo_logo.gif http://www.drawger.com/neubecker http://www.drawger.com/neubecker/index.php?section=articles&article_id=12991 This is a quick deadline piece that I did for WSJ about Lego's introduction of all pink, girlie crap for girls. Girls are silly, forgetful, fluffy little creatures concerned only with makeup and shopping, didn't you know? That's Lego's actual pitch. I could have made it angrier, but keeping it subtle, more bemused, felt right. I have a book coming out this March called "What Little Boys are Made of" which has a companion book for girls, and the premise is that both books are very similar- nearly identical thematically- in that they are filled with adventure, discovery and action. Of course, whether the girls book comes out or not will depend on the first book's sales- the new normal.    I have a daughter that hasn't worn a dress since she was six and another who, though "girley" is tough as nails. My wife is an MD, and when there's blood on the ceiling, no one is more calm, competent and professional than she is, man or woman. So ladies, don't worry your pretty little heads, let's do our nails!





]]> Sat, 07 Jan 2012 14:35:48 EST http://www.drawger.com/neubecker/index.php?section=articles&article_id=12952 Here's the Christmas stuff. Spending a lot of time addressing articles about being Jewish in a sea of Christians during the holidays. A kid haunted by Santa, moving to a suburb surrounded by Christmas trees...so I've been going to Hanukka parties and eating all the food. I'm not officially Jewish myself, but a hopeful young lady once baked me a brisket.











]]> Fri, 23 Dec 2011 01:57:29 EST http://www.drawger.com/neubecker/index.php?section=articles&article_id=12787 Just an update of what's off the drawing table. I'm working with more texture lately although the idea is always the main focus. The chart guy is from earlier in the summer, but after what happened with Greece yesterday (that would be Greek Crisis #54, Nov. !st...I thought I'd include it.















]]> Wed, 02 Nov 2011 12:48:51 EST http://www.drawger.com/neubecker/index.php?section=articles&article_id=12668 For Slate.com today. The usual two hour deadline.The piece was about how Facebook just unashamedly copies it's rivals and that's how they prevail. I toyed with tracing, taking an impression like a rubbing, all too complicated. The F in the logo sure looks like a happy animal...







]]> Thu, 15 Sep 2011 21:28:58 EST http://www.drawger.com/neubecker/index.php?section=articles&article_id=12602 As the summer heat hits its peak, I'm thinking, of course, about ski design. Many of you don't or haven't skied in years, and revolutionary changes have taken place in the last fifteen years or so, inspired mainly by snowboarding. The first big breakthrough came in the early nineties with "shaped" skis, skis that followed a more hourglass shape. The theory was simple: skiing is all about turning. You turn the ski to control speed. With the older, skinny straight skis, in order to turn them, you had to first weight them to bend them into an arc, then roll them over on edge with knee and ankle pressure, then unweight them to release and complete the turn. This was difficult to do cleanly and mostly the reserve of expert skiers. With the ski pre shaped into a turning radius, shorter and wider, especially in the tip and tail, all you need do is tip them onto their sides and they literally turn themselves. The early versons, Elan's SCX and the S ski out of Colorado, were dismissed as learning crutches for beginners. Then an unknown kid from New Hampshire named Bodie Miller won the '96 Junior National Championships on a pair of shaped off- the-shelf  K2 Fours and the world took notice. Now virtually all skis are "shaped" to some degree. The technical term is sidecut, measuring the difference between the tip, waist and tail. More sidecut for smaller turning radius, less for longer. Sometimes very little or even reverse for powder.   The next big breakthrough, other than width, which has grown steadily, is rocker. Rocker works like a rocker on a rocking chair. It follows that when you tip a ski onto it's edge to turn it, if it's pre bent in the shape of the turn, or rockered, it will turn more easily, especially in deep powder snow. The late Shane McConky came up with this- he put ski bindings on water skis to ski powder on giant Alaskan peaks- then designed the Volant Spatula which had reverse camber (rocker) and reverse sidecut (shape). These were great in deep snow.  Just as an hourglass shape is less important in deep, soft snow, rocker is not always good on hard snow where you want some camber- a convex shape like a leaf spring so that when the center of the ski is weighted, the tip and tail are pressed into the snow. Few racing skis, meant to ski ice, employ any rocker at all. They do have a lot of sidecut though. The deeper the sidecut and shorter the ski, the tighter the turn as seen in competition slalom skis. The more shallow the sidecut and longer the ski the longer, faster, and more stable the turn, as in giant slalom.  Downhill skis- as in the Downhill event in World Cup and the Olympics- steep, technical, and very fast- are the biggest and baddest of all, being longer, with less sidecut, and very stiff. Lindsey Vonn borrowed a pair of Bodie's skis to win the Gold in Vancouver in 2010. Lindsey is said to reach speads of 85mph, Herman Meyer, the great Austrian racer now retired, up to 90.     But I digress. This is really about powder ski design, because that's what we do here in Utah. Today's powder skis are wide, softish and rockered. Very much like snowboards.



At the top is an ancient- 2002- giant Slalom ski used in racing. The tip, waist and tail dimensions are 102/65/88mm. A very thin ski by today's standards. Very stiff, built for speed. The Gold ski, the  much loved 2008 Volkl Gotama or "Chinese Goats" is an all- mountain twin tip at 133/105/124mm meant for powder skiing but a good ski all over the mountain. Sometimes they just get it perfect and produce a classic. This has no rocker, just traditional camber, is moderately stiff with a softer tail. You can ski it backwards. This years version has rocker tip to tall, some say they ruined it. The pretty wood veneer is the Ski Logik Howitzer, a boutique brand out of Colarado 137/110/130.(2010). Big, soft and rockered and not much use in anything but deep powder, where it shines. The Blue ski is a new design by Bertrand Krafft, the great French designer for Salomon. The BBR , new for 2012. I got #47 of 250 pairs that were pre- released last year. The dimensions are radical, combining a huge, soft shovel with a near racing ski stiff pin tail. Dimensions 147/88/111. It has 30 cm of early rise rocker in front for skiing powder with normal camber underfoot for hard snow performance. it's 186 cm long, but, due to the rocker, skis much shorter and is very nimble. This is a fantastic ski. The most versitile, fun, and easy to ski ski I've ever owned. Notice that it has curves like Jessica Rabbit (fig.2) It turns on a dime. Amazes the kids.   The big black ski is the Volkl Kuro- 185 cm long, 164/132/139. A very big ski for  big boys. This is my friend Tor's. It 's pretty much a snowboard.









































I was inspired to post this here because of a piece by Lou Brooks I saw several years ago on minature race cars he used to drive in competitions. It was a window into a whole new and unexpected world. Thanks, Lou.

]]> Sun, 28 Aug 2011 23:41:26 EST http://www.drawger.com/neubecker/index.php?section=articles&article_id=12526 These are debt ceiling images- the flag is for a Cornell Magazine piece on "Starving the Beast" debunking the idea that government is of no value and what might happen to society if it were abolished...  The second is for Slate.com about, well...  There was a taboo ever since the early 80's about using dollar signs and anthropomorphization in editorial illustration that originated at the New York Times, I believe- probably Heller- because it was done to death.(I helped.) Then Cristoph Niemann came along and having not been privy to this ban, made the world safe again for dollar signs and walking inanimate objects!













]]> Tue, 26 Jul 2011 14:33:37 EST