NCS Reuben Awards, Boston, 2011

Well, it's Wednesday and I've started to catch up from an extended weekend in Boston where I was a guest of Michael Jantze at the 65th annual National Cartoonists Society Reuben Awards. I was there from Thursday morning to Sunday afternoon, which seems like a long time, but there is so much to do and see, and so many people to talk to that it really goes by quickly.

Regardless, we were able to squeeze in a tour of historic Fenway Park on Friday morning before the seminars started.

The start of the tour at Gate D. (If I remember correctly, this is the oldest section of Fenway that goes all the way back to the original 1919 building, but I could be wrong. Sounds cool, though.)

Me along with the tireless, talented Tom Fishburne and Michael Jantze, baseball fans extraordinaire.

Fenway seems to have nothing but good seats. The fact that it was a fantastically beautiful day could've skewed my judgment, however.

Fenway seating.

If all goes as planned, we'll be seeing a game here later this summer. Picking out where to sit... hmmm...

Michael and Tom in the pressbox.

The only manually operated scoreboard in MLB. Apparently the waiting list for a job running it is around 25 years. There's three guys in there, two of them are 25 year veterans, and a new guy. The new guy's been there 10 years. You can just make out the outline of the access door just to the left of the at-bat indicator (far bottom left of the picture).

R.O. Blechman gave an awesome talk Saturday afternoon about his career in animation and illustration. Sitting companionably just in front of me was David Silverman and the legendary Sergio Aragones.

A lot did happen over the weekend that I didn't get pictures of - I've gotten to a point where I've decided to leave the camera behind more often than not, the downside being I miss out on a lot of great photo ops. Regardless, here we are at the Reuben Awards dinner during intermission.

"Off the Mark" cartoonist Mark Parisi and Michael Jantze

Best Book Illustration divisional award winner ("The Butt Book") and table mates Mike Lester and his lovely wife.

The fantastic Mr. Richard Thompson, creator of the comic strip "Cul de Sac", which if you're not reading, you should be.

Some other fun things from the weekend:

A picture of the bronze statue in Boston Public Garden after the story Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey.

A bar-napkin sketch Michael did of me while we were whetting our whistles.

A sketch of Sheldon by the friendly and talented Dave Kellett who also has a comic-journal version of the weekend here. Dave trusted me enough to gently hold the Little Mermaid sketch that Glen Keane did for him while he drew Sheldon for me. Unfortunately, Dave managed to tweak his back while sketching, so I fear that for Dave I'll always be associated as a pain.

On a purely selfish level, one of the most exciting parts of the weekend for me (besides talking with tons of artists who's work I admire greatly (including Glen Keane, animator exemplar of the first order)) was a letter waiting for me when I returned home notifying me that I, Kelly McNutt, had been accepted as a member of the National Cartoonists Society. My most humble and sincere thanks to both Michael Jantze and Tom Richmond for sponsoring me, and to the NCS for having me.

Good luck!

-K