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!

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.

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.

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

Some more 2-colour album doodles…

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

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!