CFAAP: Drawings from the Notebook of Chris Grant, (episode three):

From Cavs: the Blog:


By Ryan + Nico.

CFAAP: Sports Hangovers...

From Bleacher Report:


By Ryan + Nico.

CFAAP: Drawings from the Notebook of Chris Grant, (episode two):

From Cavs: the Blog:

Hello again Cavs fans!

We're back again for week two of the imitable series, Drawings from the Notebook of Chris Grant, and this week I brought the goodies.

First off: A tribute to Nick Gilbert, whose exploits have been well-documented.

What’s not to like? Potentially that this is the second week in a row I’ve stuck a high profile Cav onto the preeminent staple of the LeBron advertising campaign…but I like to think that it’s an act of usurpation (I absolutely looked up that word) rather than remembrance.

Also, I wanted to try my hand at architectural and/or banner design. (Let’s just say that if I built it house it would fall, and if I designed a banner it would, um…go off the side of the page.)

We can argue semantics about the relative weakness of the draft (I think Mo and Kevin have been doing a good job of arguing to the contrary), but it is strong at the top (the very top), and that’s where we are.

Kyrie Irving is a player, and if we’re lucky, we’ll be able to land someone of note at number four as well. (And if we’re lucky lucky, maybe we can pop back in around 8 or 9 and land Leonard or Singleton too. I’m an optimist.) That’s an incredible start for a rebuilding franchise, and really, an incredible start in rebuilding the image of the Cavaliers into something more positive than “the team that LeBron left and whose owner subsequently flipped out.”

Tuesday night was a good night, and hopefully the foundation for many a good night to come.

Three more little trinkets before I’m off until next Sunday:

1. I was so totally won over by Nick Gilbert that I had my friend (the inimitable AJS, who colored everything I’m posting here today and who made the banner below) Photoshop together an actual Nick Gilbert “What’s Not To Like?” banner.

2. Should you be the type of person who likes to print out all your internet readings and compile them into some sort of self-manufactured book-type-binder…I made you a Drawings from the Notebook of Chris Grant bookmark. In no way was it a picture I messed up on width-wise and then converted into a bookmark.

3. I thought this was really cool. This was a candid photo taken by my brother’s girlfriend of my brother and me watching the lottery. It was taken between picks 4 and 1. We were both nervous, but apparently I’m the only one for whom that manifests itself in the stance of a six-year-old girl.

What can you do…

Thanks for reading everyone! See you next week!

By Ryan + Aron.

CFAAP: "What's not to like?"

From Bleacher Report:

NBA Draft Lottery: What’s Not To Like about Nick Gilbert and the Cleveland Cavaliers?

Welcome to week two of the Bleacher Retort, a.k.a. Ryan’s first foray into the world of architecture and banner design, a.a.k.a., unprecedented streak of employment.

It’s all very exciting.

Also exciting? What happened Tuesday night to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

As you may or may not have heard, three days ago now, the Cavaliers won the NBA draft lottery in a big way by scoring the numbers one and four picks, which is a pretty good haul.

Even better was that they did this on the back of one of the more likeable draft day representatives in recent memory—14-year-old Nick Gilbert—the owner’s son, the Ambassador for the Children’s Tumor Foundation, and the sole reason I chose to wear a bowtie while typing this entry.

“What’s not to like?”

Not much, Nick Gilbert. Not much.

Thanks to you, Kyrie Irving is heading to Cleveland, and someone else of note will not be far behind.

One addendum:

Probably should have asked this first, but…do you have any idea who Nick Gilbert is?

Take the poll! ---> (Editor's note: The pole is sadly unavailable on this site.)

It has recently come to my attention that the resulting and semi-well-chronicled Ryan Braun Cleveland bias may have again trickled its way into my work, in part contributing to the assumption that the Cavaliers winning the draft lottery was the seminal event of the week, and thus, the event most worthy of chronicling via cartoon.

Should you be one of the hopefully few/probably many who aren’t up to date on all things Cleveland, next week we’ll be a going a little more mainstream. Potentially even touching on something familiar to more than 10 percent of the population.

Ideally, I'd like to find a way to tie together LeBron James, Chris Nolan, Barack Obama and the Debt Ceiling, but nothing's come to mind yet.

It's a process.

Thanks for reading everyone!

And again, thanks to the inimitable colorist AJS, who did some pretty great work on this picture.

Signed,

Ryan “Kyrie Irving + Enes Kanter = Championship” Braun

PS -The actual picture is a bit larger then it appears on screen. I think you can drag it onto your desktop and it becomes bigger.

PPS - This (below) is a picture of my brother and me watching the lottery unfold, and I think it captures the feeling of the room quite nicely.

We were nervous.

(Photo credit: My brother’s girlfriend, Stefanie “Annie Leibovitz with an iPhone” Weisenburger, snapped it.)

PPPS – I actually sold one copy of last week’s cartoon. This is officially an enterprise.

PPPPS - It was my mom who bought the picture, and in case you were wondering, she bought the discounted autographed version.

By Ryan + Aron.

CFAAP: The New Kings of the NBA

From BleacherReport.com:

So, I’m Ryan, and this is kind of a pilot program of sorts; a test go-round to see what kind of response we get with a B/R cartoonist and a weekly strip.

The above is the inaugural entry in that weekly strip, which I’m thinking we’ll call—the Bleacher Retort.

I hope it goes well, for if it doesn’t I will be unemployed.

***

Now, if you’d allow me to put on my curator’s hat for a moment—the pictorial etymology of the subject matter is twofold:

One — As a lifelong Cleveland fan, it’s possible that I’m still dealing with some unresolved issues re: the Heat. Thus, I was looking for a way to encapsulate my feelings of betrayal, inadequacy and potentially misdirected all-encompassing hatred into what is hopefully a thoughtful and therapeutic piece of art.

Two—My editor told me to do it.

Both of those things contributed.

We used this picture—King LeBron, rookie year—as our jumping off point.

My friend, the enormously talented AJS helped me out/colored the thing in its entirety, and she is freaking amazing. As are, I begrudgingly admit, the Heat.

Thank you Aron, thank you Rollin, and thank you everyone else for reading.

Signed,

Ryan “Chicago Bulls fan by default” Braun

***

Editor’s notes:

- The actual picture is a little bigger, and was made with pencil, Photoshop, and vitriol.

- Should you want to purchase a print of the picture, you can get one shipped to your house for $15.00.

- Should you want to purchase an autographed print of the picture, you can get one shipped to your house for $14.95.

By Ryan + Aron.

CFAAP: Drawings from the Notebook of Chris Grant

The following is the first in a series of pictures for John Krolik's particularly awesome NBA site—Cavs: the Blog—profiling some of the potential James-ian replacements available to my favorite team.

This guy, Kyrie Irving, would perhaps be the most favorable.

Pencils by Chris Grant, colors by Aron Shay.

Episode Ten

Again...they're all coming soon.