ian d. marsden profile picture

ian d. marsden

crazy like a fox!

About Me


Hello and welcome to my MySpace page. Yes this is the official Ian D. Marsden MySpace page and amazingly, you have found it!
Here and only here is where you will get to converse, chat, laugh, cry and crawl around the floor of the bar on all fours with me. The main body of this page is hardly ever updated, however I do try to post the occasional blog and photo or drawing, so do come back occasionally. Or even better, why not subscribe to my blog? That way you can be assured to receive the inane drivel directly in your mailbox as I unleash it on an unsuspecting mankind. By the way, in this blog I write about all kinds of things that interest me, post music and youtube clips I enjoyed and generally have no overriding concept whatsoever. I have a blog on my website www.marsdencartoons.com which is dedicated solely to my drawings and work updates as well.So what is new? Well, there are many cool things happening at the moment. I just completed a book project called 'Willkommen im Kollegenzoo' for the German publishing house Droemer-Knaur. I am also currently working on a children's book which I have written and which revolves around a bunch of characters I invented. This will be published by Heartglow Publications toward the end of 2008. I finally got around to completely redesigning and restructuring my own website, and it is now available in English, German and French. There are all kinds of new features including a shop, cartoon gallery, illustration gallery, my other blog and also free wallpaper and MySpace graphics etc. Please have a look over at http://www.marsdencartoons.com or CLICK HERE TO VISIT MY LAIR OVER AT: MARSDEN CARTOONS
My name is Ian
I am a cartoonist, illustrator, animator, comic artist, graphic designer, character designer, humorist, children's book writer and illustrator and 'bon-vivant international swashbuckler.'©TM
SAVE the above image to view it large!
I guess my humor could be described as somewhat abstract with an ironic, sometimes but not always dark and possibly occasionally sarcastic touch.
Not all of my artwork is humorous. Sometimes I create serious illustrations as well and I also create large pop art canvases (well, I call them pop art anyway) as well.
For example: If you are ever in the Los Angeles area, drop by the historic Culver Hotel in Culver City. I designed Duke's Hideaway bar in the lobby of the hotel, including the trompe l'oeil around the bar and the large logo mural, and there are several of my ultra-large canvases (based on the history of the hotel - the previous ownership by John Wayne, the cast of Gone with the Wind who stayed there and the proximity to the Culver Studios etc. There is a rumored underground tunnel between the hotel and the Culver Studios, and the place is supposedly also haunted) on permanent display.
The hotel is located between the Sony Picture Studios and the Culver Studios, and it hosted the cast of 'Gone with the Wind' when they filmed that movie across the street.
The hotel was previously owned by John Wayne
Clark Gable was supposedly amongst the regular guests also.
In addition to the above listed I have also designed websites for various clients (as well as my own, of course)


I also design, program and animate flash multimedia for websites and other presentations.
To see some samples of my flash work, please visit my website at:
http://www.marsdencartoons.com

I had the distinct pleasure of being the first illustrator/cartoonist to create the logo modifications for www.google.com which occasionally appear on the site for special events or holidays. These graphics are called 'Google Doodles' .


Please note: My affiliation with Google was in the late nineties, early 2000s. I do no longer create these doodles and there is a full-time designer/art director at Google now who takes care of these world-wide.
CARTOON WALLPAPER DOWNLOAD


visit the WALLPAPER DOWNLOAD PAGE for free cartoon wallpaper downloads in 1600 x 1200 and 1280 x 1024 formats, from yours truly!

The URL is: http://www.marsdencartoons.com/english/downloads.htm

There is also a MYSPACE GRAPHIC DOWNLOAD PAGE of specially created MySpace cartoon graphics and animated GIFs for free download as well. Including 'Lunatic Glitter' as I call it. Glitter that really isn't glitter at all. A house specialty.

That URL is: http://www.marsdencartoons.com/english/download_myspace.htm
I will constantly be adding more to the collection, so please come back often.


I am originally from New York but I spent the last 10 years in Los Angeles working as an artist on many various projects and also as the creative director for the entertainment label www.jatail.com
In the summer of 2006 I decided to move to southern France. I have always enjoyed Europe very much - and I have always had a big attraction to France, French culture and of course French 'savoir vivre'. A while back I lived in Paris for a few years working as an art director and enjoying life in my tiny little flat in St. Germain, off the marché de Buci. Now I am settled into a lovely little house in Laguedoc-Roussillon. It is a LOT quieter than Los Angeles or New York, that much is for sure. Excellent! I love it!
I love to travel and to meet new and interesting people, I speak five languages and I very much enjoy good food and drinks in good company, especially together with intelligent conversation. I was born in New York city, but I spent many years in Zürich, Switzerland and also some in Paris and also in Barbados in the West Indies. I have family in England and Switzerland and Spain and Barbados and I have good friends and roots in many places. I would be very, very hard-pressed to say where I am actually 'from'. Luckily I don't really believe in borders and certainly not in 'nationalism'. I do strongly believe in 'planetarism' though, and I am very proud to be from planet Vupex 24. So all of you cats from Rigon 37 beware!
"Well, Ian, that all sounds just fine and dandy" you might be saying. "But, what are your dark sides? What sinister secret lurks underneath that wafer-thin mild-mannered cartoonist facade? Where are the dead hitch-hikers buried and why do they appear to be coated in a layer of mulligatawny soup?"
Well, let's see.....
I am always doodling. I like to cover the tablecloth in restaurants with doodles and then color them in with red wine or other condiments. I like to stay up all night (I am a total nightbird) and once I go out I never want to go home...'Closing Time' is not in my vocabulary. Then there is my weakness for fine coffee many many times a day and also for delicious chocolate such as Sprüngli Truffes du Jour or Teuscher Champagne Truffes or even a huge bar of Toblerone, for that matter. Furthermore I am an internationally notorious flirter. Wink! And finally, whenever somebody asks me 'not to peek' - I always do. Always.

If you feel like seeing some more of my cartoons check out my site at:
www.marsdencartoons.com
Un petit mot en français: Bonjour et soyez bienvenu! Je m'appelle Ian (même si on m'appelle plutôt 'Yann') et je suis un dessinateur humoristique et un illustrateur d'origine de New York.  Je habite en France (En Hérault, Languedoc Roussillon jusque un peu au nord de Montpellier) dans un village très sympa ou mes voisins produisent du très bon vin. J'aime le pays et les gens ici beaucoup et je trouve c'est un environnement assez créatif pour moi (pas seulement grace au vin!). J'écris ma page de Myspace en anglais, parce-que c'est quand même la langue de l'internet. J'espère que je vais trouver beaucoup des amis en France aussi sur MySpace et j'aimerais bien correspondre en Français avec vous aussi! Merci pour la visite et a bientôt!
Here is a little video of me scribbling away.
Voila un petit video avec un dessin assez vite...
Ian D. Marsden draws a frightfully unattractive fellow with some sort of skull-cap deficiency
..
Add to My Profile | More Videos

My Interests

Welcome to my little neck of myspace! Please come in, sit on the comfy chair, pour yourself a few fingers of Blue Label (or else there's a nice espresso machine over there) and make yourself at home. If the sound is annoying you, you can choose from a selection of favorites I placed in the little playlist below - or else you can just hit pause/stop.

I have many, many interests

Some of them include: art, movies, travel, books, music, good food & beverages, sex, krav maga (martial art), scuba diving, Apple computers, tech-gadgets and the internet (certainly not mandatorily in that order and sometimes combining several of the above). I also collect wristwatches - not necessarily expensive ones, but rather interesting pieces. As much as I love mechanical watches, my day-to-day watches have been digital for many years now (again that tech-gadget, James Bond stuff!). I mean, first of all they tell time more accurately, and then you have the compass, the altimeter, the espresso machine. Come on. It's a no brainer. My favorite at the moment is a Suunto X-Lander I received as a gift. It rocks! I have some Casios the size of a baby's head, which I enjoy also.

Groups:

PADI Divers Krav Maga Mensa International

I'd like to meet:

Who would I like to to meet?

On Myspace or in general?

On Myspace I want to meet: creative, freethinking people with wide horizons, unchained, unstoppable....people from all tribes of the solar system, who love life and want to live it to the full, and of course people who are interested in seeing my artwork, or who like to show me their artwork. People who enjoy some of the same things I like. Also very welcome: people who want to introduce me to new things.

It would be great to make connections all over the world, to stay in touch, and if I am ever in town for example for a comic festival or a book-signing or the octoberfest or whatever is going on in your corner of the world - maybe I am just on one of my exploratory and inspirational trips to wherever they may take me.

Maybe you can give me the inside local scoop and some great tips and suggestions. Or give me a pointer to the best pub in town?

Now if the question was meant more in terms of:

"If you could meet anybody, who would ite be?"

....well, let's see:

Maybe Albert Einstein...
Quincy Jones...
Cary Grant...
Hitchcock
Sofia Coppola.....

I actually have had the opportunity to meet quite a few celebrities in person and also some of my childhood heroes (mostly cartoonists), with mixed results. In some cases this has been quite or very disappointing indeed, in other cases they have lived up to be even greater than I could have imagined. Mr. Jack Davis for example. What a gentleman!

It's a shame, that in real life James Bond's tuxedo does get crinkled....and wearing one under a wetsuit or a drysuit: Forget it! I tried it!

It broke my drycleaner's heart to paraphrase 007. Basically this is my position: There is no celebrity I would absolutely like to meet. I prefer to enjoy their work and not care what they are 'really' like.

And let's face it: what the heck would I talk to Einstein about? "Hey Al, armwrestle for the next round?", "Say, did you see 'Wedding Crashers'?" or "What about that wacky 'string theory', eh, Al?"


Ironically I ignore celebrities in public and they act like they don't know me either. Works like a charm!

Don't forget to visit The Sophisticate's Diary While you are on MySpace!

Music:


I can rock out 'till the bars close and/or re-open again and I can also enjoy the silence. I have been spotted at CBGB's (RIP) and La Scala in Milano, The Blue Note jazz club and the Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

I love music, and my iPods and all my other musical gadgets. There is a very, very wide range of kinds of music I enjoy. It would be much easier to list what I don't like, because it would be a much shorter list. One example: (To quote an otherwise not very spectacular Bruce Willis movie)

Bad Guy: "But just once, I would like to hear you scream in pain..."

Bruce Willis: "Play some rap music."

From classical music to jazz, from hard rock to electronic to ambient to lounge to ambient to celtic to eighties to the twenties to now. I love Kraftwerk and I love Rammstein and I love Depeche Mode and I love Amy Winehouse and I love Godfrapp and I love Oscar Peterson and I love Level 42 and I love Smokey Robinson and I love Jango Reinhardt and I love Wally Badarou and I love Strauss and Delibes and Sibelius and Mozart and Beethoven and russian composers as well, I also love Sinatra and Dean Martin and even Robert Mitchum singing Calypso! I even like certain country music quite a lot, Johnny Cash, a lot of the older stuff (Spurs Jingling and Jangling and such) and of course: Go Dixie Chicks! - Unfortunately I have been majorly turned off by the genre, when the 'let's kill everybody and let Jesus sort them out' lunatics took over the scene. I have a very large vinyl collection, a decent CD collection and a ludicrously huge iTunes library.

I have also been in a few bands myself over the years, as lead singer and keyboards, but as they say in the industry: "Don't quit your day job!"

I do sometimes still record the voices and soundtracks to some of my Flash Animation and E-Cards myself

Movies:

I love movies.

A few that need to be mentioned: "Whithnail & I", Fight Club, Lost in Translation, Memento, Dr. Strangelove, Smilla's Sense of Snow, Casablanca, The Big Sleep, 'O Brother, where art thou?', The Big Lebowski, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Leaving Las Vegas, Snatch, Pulp Fiction, Blood Simple, many Hitchcock movies, a majority of Woody Allen movies, Chinatown, L.A. Confidential, The Spy who came in from the cold...and I love the movies and quiet comedy genius of Jacques Tati and let's face it: Peter Sellers IS chief inspector Jacques Clouseau!!.

Television:

For many years the TV would frequently be in on the background in my studios while I worked. For a while I enjoyed TV Land or Nick at Nite old shows as a backdrop, until I had seen (or shall we say 'heard') every episode one too many times. ("Luucy you got some splainin' too doo!") Last year I stopped this habit and although I occasionally watch DVDs or online video - podcasts mostly I am more often than not cranking my iTunes these days.

when I do watch TV or purchase TV content on DVD I like documentaries on all sorts of stuff. Second World War, select UFO material, select Cryptozoology material (not just every dickhead in a suit made of his mom's fur coat tabbing by in the background behind a park ranger mind you!) a lot of history documentaries - you name it. I also like to watch current news shows, although I tend to prefer Aljazeera and France 24 and other European and International news sources to the United States media, as unfortunately they simply do not report many events at all or else they will give you a sugarcoated, one-sided or simply delusional version of events. I used to love the BBC but, alas, even this trusted old pillar of character and integrity seems to have been infected by the slowly spreading dumbness, greed and 'new world order'. Of course I also get my news from the fantastic DAILY SHOW which is one of the few shows that makes me laugh out lout several times each show. I know they keep telling us it's FAKE news, but I still get a hundred times more information from them than I do from the real news. Ridiculous - but then again we live in ridiculous times!I also follow Keith Olberman on MSNBC very closely as he might very well be the last American journalist worth the title 'journalist'. Somebody with personal and professional integrity and a sense of decency. Yes, I know it's a far-fetched concept. He spells out very clearly what many people feel, but who are never given an outlet to voice their rage, embarrassment, shame or outright disgust. As far as shows, I like a lot of the old stuff on Nick at Nite and TV land. Recent shows I follow(ed) are/were: 30 Rock, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Sopranos, Deadwood, Scrubs, Arrested Development (they used to film scenes in the Culver Hotel where my studio was located in Los Angeles), NYPD Blue, The Amazing Race, The Closer and I don't miss any episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher (although I don't always agree with him I like his show a lot) - I also like a lot of European shows: Tatort (especially Schimanski), Kottan Ermittelt, Loriot - and a lot of the British shows like Blackadder, Absolutely Fabulous, Father Ted, Black Books, The Office, Fawlty Towers, Red Dwarf - Hilarious stuff! Genius! Also as a car aficionado I enjoy Top Gear very much.
As II m a night-bird I would have to mention Late Night TV of course. I used to love David Letterman when he first started out, and he still has some very strong moments, Craig Ferguson makes me laugh out loud sometimes as well (often because he himself can't believe how ridiculous the joke he just told was or how bad the accent or impersonation (and the make up disguise!!) were. As far as outrageous nonsense is concerned in Late Night I think these days Conan takes the cake

Books:

Mmmh. Yes. Books. Yummy books! I always have about 5 books going at the same time - one upstairs, one downstairs, one in the bedroom, one in the study etc...which is maddening to the few initiated who know about this crazy habit.

Right now I am reading Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky.

It is mindblowing and a blistering account of the incredible arrogance, greed and delusion of the clowns who think they are God's chosen few and would take the fate of humanity and the entire planet into their own hands. Speaking of delusional clowns: I just finished reading Richard Dawkins 'The God Delusion' - which is also simply wonderful in the way it sums up many of my own conclusions and then some. This should be mandatory reading in every classroom. Especially in those areas where they are trying to make Intelligent Design part of the curriculum also. It would be only fair after all, right?
Furthermore I frequently re-read the complete prose of Woody Allen. Now that is funny stuff. I hope my scribblings are half as nuts as some of his truly outstanding short pieces. I also adore S.J, Perelman, James Thurber and other humor writers. Groucho Marx wrote some very funny (and touching) books also. I love John Le Carré's work and of course I am an ardent Sherlock Holmes fan and collector of various volumes of Conan Doyles work and other S.H. trinkets. (I am not interested in new Holmes mysteries written by subsequent writers. A bit of a purist there).

Here is a random selection of what's stacked on my coffee table six feet high and otherwise lying around my studio at the moment. I didn't add Homer in the original greek and the collected Shakespeare volumes, as I assumed you would have already summised from the rest of my profile that I read those on a daily basis. Oh wait, in the interest of full disclosure I must also mention my small (large) collection of fine erotica (smut collection) in which I place not inconsiderable pride. Nudity is definitely not frowned upon around these parts.

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Heroes:


Steve Jobs, many if not most of the fine folks at Pixar, Tove Jansson, Bill Elder, Jack Davis, Dubout, Groucho Marx, Ronald Searle, René Fehr, Chas Addams, Edward Gorey, Sempé, Steinberg, Max Gabl, Alex Macartney, David Catrow, Stanley Kubrick, Ella Fitzgerald, Peter Sellers, Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, Count Basie, Oscar Peterson, Kraftwerk, Ian Fleming, Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart, Woody Allen, James Thurber, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, John le Carré and many of my personal friends and family


You have been marked on my profile map!

My Blog

AirJelly, the flying robot jellyfish

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Posted by ian d. marsden on Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:26:00 PST

Steve Ballmer Runs PowerPoint on&a Mac?

Steve Ballmer Runs PowerPoint on&a Mac?...
Posted by ian d. marsden on Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:47:00 PST

When it was still a requirement that statesmen be wise and diplomatic

Well. lookee here, seems we have one of tham thar Nobel Peace Prize Elitist lefty softy girlymen....plus he seems smart too....Let's tar and feather him and run him out of Dodge, boys!- - - - -Link>OP...
Posted by ian d. marsden on Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:52:00 PST

just jammin’ away...

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Posted by ian d. marsden on Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:06:00 PST

This guy did some good pioneer work before my arrival in France

As the local 'Sheriff' I must congratulate him. ...
Posted by ian d. marsden on Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:55:00 PST

This was commited by US!

How do you get out of a mess like this? How do you ever get into a mess like this?How could we ever fix something like this?- - -Link >Former Guantanamo prosecutor says trials taintedBy Jane SuttonMon...
Posted by ian d. marsden on Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:19:00 PST

Free electricity. For the whole world. Forever. Zero pollution.

Link>The same of course could easily be done in one of the US desert regions.Red Square on the left: Area of mirror driven power plants needed to supply the entire world with electricity,Middle Square...
Posted by ian d. marsden on Mon, 28 Apr 2008 01:33:00 PST

refreshing to hear

" While I'm a believer, I don't think religious folks have a monopoly on morality. "Barack Obama
Posted by ian d. marsden on Mon, 28 Apr 2008 06:13:00 PST

Give me the lesson without the spin

Link > Wonderful OP ED By High School tudent who has more balls than the rest of his school combinedGive me the lesson without the spinA high school student finds conservative bias in his American gov...
Posted by ian d. marsden on Sun, 27 Apr 2008 01:33:00 PST

More on rubbers

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Posted by ian d. marsden on Sun, 27 Apr 2008 04:02:00 PST