Balloon Man

So you posted that you'd been seeing a lot of word balloons around lately, and I got to thinking about where I'd seen some. I think I'd mostly seen them on the "Talk to Chuck" campaign, but then my mind just blanked (tee hee). Lo and behold, what do I get in my email?

An invite to The Artist as Author, complete with a word balloon. Although, I suppose, used in its classic context. And a new word...Paintoonist!

Details for the Symposium (looks really interesting; we're big fans of Ben Katchor around here!):

The Illustration Program at Parsons The New School for Design presents
The Artist as Author—a symposium on self-illustrated texts in history and contemporary practice.
Saturday, March 27, 2010 from 3–8:30pm
The New School, Wollman Hall, 5th Floor, 66 West 12th Street, NYC
Free and open to the public

Patrica Mainardi (CUNY Graduate Center) on Popular Prints and Comics.
Emily Lauer, (MA MPhil CUNY) on William Thackeray's Vanity Fair illustrations.
David Kurnick (Rutgers University) on The Theatrical Impulse and the Illustrated Novel.
Ben Katchor (Parsons The New School) on Picture-recitation.
Jerry Moriarty (School of Visual Arts) presents his latest project: Whatsa Paintoonist?