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Wizzytinkle: The Superest

Behold the mighty Wizzytinkle! He’s my entry as guest artist for Kevin Cornell and Matthew Sutter’s always-awesome The Superest. Wizzy here defeats the snooty Margo Hirsch, neighbourhood association president.

Way to go, Wiz!

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IE6 denial message for Momentile.com

I’ve been happily using Momentile since the new year to document my life in pictures on a daily basis (when I don’t forget to upload a picture, that is). I was particularly pleased, then, to hear from the site’s creator, Derek Balmer who asked if I’d be interested in illustrating a cheeky image to greet users visiting the site with the buggy and outdated Internet Explorer 6.

Derek knew just what he wanted—icons of all the major browsers having a party and not inviting IE6.  He also suggested a treehouse might be a good idea, and I agreed; the height of the treehouse made for a easy-to-read visual cue that IE6 was not where he wanted to be.

I did a quick doodle in my sketchbook, and though it usually takes me a few tries to find an ideal layout, I knew right away this one was going to work.

So here’s the refined sketch that I showed the client:

And then, the final piece, which you can see at a higher resolution over at Flickr:

It was an incredibly fun job to work on, and having experienced the difficulties firsthand of trying to build a website that renders properly in all browsers, I hope no one ever has to see it.

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My first (and last) illustration for Nick Mag

I completed this spot illustration recently for Nickelodeon Magazine. I supplied a number of colour variations, and I’m not sure which they chose, but you can take a peek over on Flickr at the different options. SBD stands for Splat Bird Dropping Service, and it is pure serendipity that it shares its acronym with silent but deadly.

This was my first piece for Nick Mag, and sadly it will be my last. The news of the magazine’s demise hit the Internet earlier today.  I was thrilled to be asked to contribute to the magazine; it had a reputation of hiring the best illustrators and cartoonists, and their comics-only issues were just the best sampling of kids comics on the newsstand.

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Nixon Waits in Memphis

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Flood and Theft

Now I can’t stop… I’m also collecting these over on Flickr for convenience.

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Hawaiian Style Thriller

Some more 2-colour album doodles…

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Red-Headed Monster Soul

Just playing around with using a limited palette, and started browsing my music collection for inspiration. I’ll probably do more of these.

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The TCAF, it is a-comin’

I’ll be at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival this weekend, Saturday May 9th and Sunday May 10th.

I’ll have a new mini-comic in tow, entitled It’s Snowing, We Should Go For a Walk. The short autobiographical story of this year’s first snowstorm will be available in my online shop after the weekend.  As will a collaborative mini with Zach Worton and Aaron Costain. We have compiled a 40+ page collection of jam comics under the name Team Society League. Here’s the cover for It’s Snowing:

I’ll have proper previews of all the new stuff soon, but wanted to draw attention first to the two appearances I’ll be making away from my tablespace at the festival, which is at the Toronto Reference Library.

Sunday, May 10th
1:00pm-2:30pm: Newspapers, Comic Books, and The Internet.
Learning Centre 1

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past few years, you know that newspapers—and especially editorial cartoonists and daily comic strips—are undergoing a radical change thanks to the Internet. Comic books are facing this sea-change as well, and everyone wants to know what’s going to happen. What’s next? Luckily, we’ve got the answer. We’ve assembled a crack team of panelists to discuss the future of newspapers, the future of comics, and their possible future on the internet.

On the panel is R. Stevens, the creator of the webcomic Diesel Sweeties. He entered into a deal with United Features Syndicate to distribute his comic in newspapers, and ultimately left that deal to concentrate on his web efforts. Joining him will be: Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics and the controversial futurist text Reinventing Comics; Stuart Immonen, an accomplished “mainstream” comics artist on Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man, and also a self-publisher who prints his own books and comics, and serializes work online; Brendan Buford, Comics Editor for King Features Syndicate, and a cartoonist, publisher, and someone who works with mainstream book publishers; and John Martz, co-creator of Drawn.ca and Chair of the Canadian Chapter of The National Cartoonist Society. The panel will be moderated by Steven Murray, writer, illustrator, self-publisher, webcomics artist, and cartoonist and journalist for Canada’s National Post newspaper.

And for kids:

Sunday, May 10th
3:30pm-4:30pm: Kids Draw!
Owlkids Day Gallery Space

Do you wanna learn how to draw? Join a fantastic lineup of kids’ cartoonists as they teach kids the basics of cartooning! Cartoonists include Frank Cammuso (Knights of the Lunch Table), Tom Fowler (MAD Magazine), John Martz (Drawn.ca, Kayak magazine) and Kean Soo (Jellaby). Moderated by Naseem Hrab of the Canadian Children’s Book Centre.

Check out torontocomics.com for the full line-up of panels and events.

Finally, the one-page comic Zach and I contributed to Comics Festival can be seen in its entirety here. Whew!

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Cloudy Collection - Earth Day Promo

It’s Earth Day, so an extra $10 from each Cloudy Collection print set purchased today (April 22nd, 2009) will be donated to the Nature Conservancy, an international organization devoted to saving wild, untouched, and rehabilitated natural places for future generations. That’s in addition to the $250 we are already sending them.

The Cloudy Collection is proudly enviro-friendly. The printer, Boxcar Press is run on 100% wind power, uses vegetable-based inks, and our prints are on paper made from bamboo.

As of yesterday there were only 15 print sets left, but I should have a few extras at TCAF if you’re going to be there.  I’ve already posted pictures of mine, so the ones shown here are from the lovely Meg Hunt and Amy Crehore.

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The Cloudy Collection - 7 prints for $35

One sale today: The first Cloudy Collection series of prints. Edition 1, Cloudy Characters, features seven letterpress prints with art by Meg Hunt, Bill Fick, John Martz, Amy Crehore, Tom Kaczynski, Steven Weissman, and David Huyck. A portion of the sales will go to The Nature Conservancy. The set of all seven prints is just $35, and shipping to the US and Canada is free! (International shipping is just $10.)

I’m thrilled to be participating in a project with some of my favourite artists, and the prints look great. The series is limited to 100 sets. Get ‘em while they’re hot! Here’s a closer look at mine:

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Drawing perspective in Manga Studio

I’ve been quiet around these parts, but I’m knee-deep in working on a kids’ graphic novel with my friend Zach Worton. It’s called Barbarian for Hire, and a preview will be in Comics Festival, one of the free titles available in comic stores on Free Comic Book Day this year (May 2, 2009). Chris Butcher’s blog has the full line-up, and it’s mighty impressive.

One thing I hate drawing is perspective.  It’s not particularly difficult, but it’s time-consuming, and frankly, I’m lazy. Ultimately drawing should be fun, and the more it feels like work, the less I’m going to want to do it. But there are times I can’t avoid it, and this particular scene in the book necessitated a nice wide angle.  And drawing this traditionally, would’ve meant positioning a vanishing point so far off the page, I would’ve needed another drawing table.

Enter Manga Studio.  I’ve been drawing the book completely digitally in Manga Studio, and today I finally took the application’s perspective tools for a spin. It’s really as simple as positioning your vanishing points and then when you draw on the canvas, your lines automatically follow the right perspective.  It’s kind of like magic.  I was able to take this rough doodle:

And in just a few minutes, create this sketch:

I think it may have taken me longer to write this blog post than it did to draw that barroom. Awesome.

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A walk in the snow

Here’s the first panel of a minicomic I’ve made for TCAF.  I’ll share the entire thing eventually, but for now here’s a teaser.

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Canned

I am currently engaged in a fight-to-the-death with Brian ”Etherbrian” Brasher. Over at Veer’s site, the two of us are battling it out for glory and honour in their latest Lightboxing bout.

Lightboxing duels present each fighter with the same set of elements culled from Veer’s vast collection of stock photos and type. The participants then construct an image using only these elements, and the public votes.  The theme of this bout is Canned, and this is what I came up with using the given ingredients.

Check out the fight, and vote for your, ahem, favourite.

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The tools artists use

I was interviewed over at The Tools Artists Use. The site is a growing collection of interviews with various artists and illustrators, all sharing their favourite pens, brushes, and other tools.  Fun. 

Above, a quick drawing I did after a marathon viewing of one of the Pee-Wee’s Playhouse DVD sets recently. I KNOW YOU ARE, BUT WHAT AM I?

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Moose spot

Here’s a spot illustration I did for Kayak Magazine about the lengths gone to ensure delivery of the mail in Canada’s history. I love any job in which I can draw a purple moose.

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