The Ping Awards 2016

Photo by LCL

Last night Pingprisen / The Ping Awards celebrated its fifth anniversary (this time around, it is an old award resumed today - and hooray to that!) and host of the evening and co-organizer Felix Rothstein marked the golden evening in style.

Thomas Thorhauge, The Martian, 2015.
"Ridley Scott; genius? craftsman? Martian?"

The award of special interest to this blog is the one dedicated to the cartoonist of the year, or as it is specified: The drawing journalist of the year, awarded to Thomas Thorhauge.

Thomas has an eye for transforming anything into imagery. His graphical outlines are clear-cut and strong, speaking in mega-formats into which he may incorporate the tiniest details, and usually loads of them, while still making both sing. We as beholders never lose the grand perspective of his picture planes, while digging into the corners of all he is unfolding to us.

The portrait of Ridley Scott is a case in point, a cover for the weekly film section of Politiken. Which title incidentally Thomas lets fade out beyond the milky way and the red dot of Mars, which in turn balances the full frontal portrait at the bottom of the picture plane. We are brought out of this world and into the magical sphere that movies are and sci fi's play with knowledge and the what if. There is no such thing as a solid color before us. The two colors at play are intersected by spots and lines, densely working in that face as the gate to the grand adventure.

Thomas Thorhauge, "Extra material: Freud", February 7, 2013.

Thomas was a student of film at university and has renewed the often tired genre of info graphics into his energy in sharing his treasured finds, laid out as a shouting of oh this is SO GOOD LOOK, LOOK AT THIS!

His spread on the Freudian influence on a century of movie making gets a shout out for a title how the old psychologist is to blame for clichés of a "un-be-lie-va-bly GORGEOUS!" nature. Onto his cloak are the shaping of aliens and the obsessions of Hitchcock ("EVERYTHING is his fault") literally unfolded. The cloak amasses the masses of information, unifying the detailing of texts on text with arrows and exclamation marks in between since it all boils down to ideas coming from one man. The cloak is well worn by now and with the final word on the bottom line that we as beholders might as well brace ourselves since Freud shall with a 100 % certainty still be haunting the film industry for many decades to come.

Thomas Thorhauge, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, December 10, 2015.

The film industry itself is very much in the eye of Thomas Thorhauge. It is a money making monster deciding how a scene is cut or insisting on removal of another, which is an integrated part of his science of film he is creating before us. The full page above is a masterpiece of his film-cartooning; this too at once solid and grand in scale, while the very universe pervades the whole picture plane.

Thomas is a unique capacity within Danish cartooning and comics alike. An open and constantly inquisitive mind forging new ways of doing cartoons with not a straight line in sight while proving the magnitude of possibilities of a page within a news paper, until we unwillingly reach the "you are now leaving Sin City" at the bottom right corner.

Thomas Thorhauge, July 27, 2015.

Thomas Thorhauge, 2016:
Quentin Tarantino; Blood, hatred and chamber pieces

Add to all of this how Thomas draws a mean portrait; a random snowflake turning into the pupil of Tarantino's eye.

Every Thursday the filmography comes alive, in particular drawing in the young on a journey of discovery. That is no mean feat and that is but one aside of what Thomas can and does. Congratulations on a much-deserved award, Thomas!










The cartoons shown are courtesy of Thomas Thorhauge and must not be reproduced without his permission.