Canzine 2013

Hey guys! Gonna be tabling at Canzine from 1pm to 7pm this Sunday! I'm gonna have all my recent comics, as well as an actual zine or two made special for the occasion. Should be fun times!

Post-SPX

 

So SPX happened, and it was a real fun time! Much was learned about comics, about ourselves, about the nature of FRIENDSHIP... And if you have any doubts, just look upon this picture of myself with my lovely tablemates, Chris and Marta. Revel in the friendship just streaming out of this sucker!

In all seriousness though, it really was an enjoyable show. Both the first print collection of Darcy Cheyne: Werewolf Hunter and my angsty teen comic Rage Forever made their debut and - with the exception of one minor snafu on the part of the print-on-demand company used for Darcy - I'm pretty pleased with how both books turned out. It was also really great catching up with some old friends and making some new ones as well, and just seeing folks and talking comics all weekend long. Comics, you guys! What's not to like? WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE??

In non-SPX news: a Spanish-language comic I did as part of a collaboration with the University of Iowa International Writing Program a few months back, El Equilibrista, is now online. Story by Angel Franco, art and layout by yours truly. The comic was partially inspired by the final performance of famous tightrope walker Karl Wallenda in San Juan. It's in Spanish of course, but as someone who does not speak the language, I think it still reads pretty well. You can also see some of the other comics done as part of this project over here.

SPX this Weekend!

Hey all! I'm gonna be at SPX in Bethesda, Maryland this weekend, on September 14th and 15th! I'll be selling copies of my newest book, "Rage Forever," which is about angry teenagers. I'll also be selling a small number of copies of part one of "Darcy Cheyne, Werewolf Hunter," the ongoing comic I've been posting on my tumblr as of late.

You'll be able to find me at table N6, along with my buddies Chris and Marta. Please stop by if you get the chance!

Europe Sketches, Part Three

And finally here are the last of my Europe sketches. Hope you all have
enjoyed the previous parts of the series so far. This last one focuses on my sketches from London, Paris, and a couple of different airplanes in between.

I think Paris was probably my favourite part of the trip overall. Above, you can see me livin' it up with some fresh bread, a glass of beer, a bowl of French onion soup and some escargot. Surely this is the best of all possible worlds! Then on the plane ride back we watched "The Lucky One." Which was, you know... horrible...



Overall Europe was a frickin' blast, and I definitely want to return to spend a bit more time at some of the places we visited some day. Because I am a huge nerd, however, I think at the end of the day one of the things I remained most excited about on the trip was the fact that it afforded me a chance to pick up a butt-ton of...



Like seriously, oh man you guys! I grabbed some Moebius, a couple of early collections of Blutch's work, a sketchbook collection of this guy Guillaume Guerse, and the third album of Christoph Blain's Gus and His Gang which hasn't been printed in English yet and is frickin' amazing! *drool* Never have I been so happy
to be bilingual than when walking through a beautiful French comic shop in the middle of Paris. So watch out Europe! I will return one day to raid your stores
of Franco-Belgian comics yet again!!

Europe Sketches, Part Two

Alright, Halloween's over so back to posting those Europe sketches from this past summer! These are more of the sketches I did while in Barcelona. They're primarily from the beach which - aside from all the architecture and the Segrada Familia - was one of my favourite parts of that city. Now that its started to get cold outside, I look at some of these sketches and want to go back IMMEDIATELY. Winter, why are you doing this to me?? Una cervesa, por favor!

Europe Sketches, Part One

Hey internet! How's shakes? I've been up to a whole bunch of stuff lately, the
most exciting of which being that I recently spent a bit of time in Europe this past summer! (In the below picture, imagine the terrifyingly large beer mug represents Europe, and the hapless lad in the plaid shirt represents our beloved protagonist)

I visited London, Barcelona and Paris with my good friend Allison, and it was preeeeetty rad overall. We saw a lot of sights, ate a lot of food, and I managed to fit in a fair bit of sketching while we were out and about. This first batch was all done while in Barcelona, where we spent the majority of our time.



More sketches to come!

Angst Man & Updates

Hey all! Here are a couple illustrations I recently did for an animation project pitch a couple friends are putting together. It's the story of "Angst Man," a 90s superhero throwback, and his beleaguered former sidekick with whom he moves in. It's a fun concept, and served as a nice little break from a lot of the other comics stuff I've been busy working on this last little while.





In other news: Its already been some time since, but TCAF was a total blast! It was awesome selling some comics, and seeing and catching up with old friends (and some new ones too!). My buddy Beth - who has been a wayyyy more prolific blogger than I've been as of late - did a kickass write-up about it over here. You can also read a brief interview I did for the Torontoist at the show over here.

Also! Cartoon College is finally out, and has begun screening at festivals! I haven't seen it myself yet, but the people I know who have have had nothing but good things to say about it. Which is pretty exciting stuff! I'll try to keep this blog updated as things continue to develop, but in the meanwhile you can follow it on facebook and see if it's going to be screening anywhere near you!

TCAF 2012

 
Sort of last minute, but I'm going to be at TCAF this Saturday and Sunday! I'll be tabling with Laura Terry and Jon Chad, and will have a mini preview version of "Darcy Cheyne: Werewolf Hunter" for sale. So if you happen to be in Toronto this weekend, come check us out!

Pancake Prevarication

I realize it's been awhile since I've put a full comic up on ye ol' blog-o-tron, so I figured why not rectify that, even if it is only a two-pager. This comic was originally done for the anthology Lies Grown-Ups Told Me, which is a pretty solid collection of comics if I do say so myself. As always, click the pages to view larger.

First the Drought, Then the Rain

Hey all! Sorry for the lack of updates this past month or so. I'm gonna level with you, I've been starting to delve a lot deeper into my work as of late. This might mean a slight decrease in the regularity of some of my posting for a little while (though hopefully not quite to the recent extent). Please don't take this as a sign of neglect! I still love you, Internet! I just need to ride this wave of recent creativity to its natural end before I can return in full force. In the meanwhile, here are a couple of quick things I've been up to this past month!

The above is a photo from a few weeks back, when I had a chance to speak to a couple of classes of grade 7 and 8 students at King Edward Public School. They recently completed a unit on comics, and had invited me in to talk about the craft, and what it's like to work on comics all day everyday (in brief: it's pretty awesome). It doesn't take much in general to get me excited about talking about comics with any age group, but these students came off as particularly bright and eager and were a real pleasure to talk to. Big thank you to Miss Venn for inviting me, and creating this opportunity.

Then secondly, because I have trouble bringing myself to put up a blog post without some actual drawing in it, here's an excerpt of some recent work I've been doing for the upcoming documentary Cartoon College. It's a documentary about the comics school I went to, as well as about cartooning in general, and is full of some exceptionally awesome people (including Chris Ware, Lynda Barry and Art Spiegelman, to name drop a few).

I'm in it as well - likely acting like a generally silly dude, as is my wont. I'm fairly proud of some of the drawing I recently completed for it though, which is perhaps a thing of note. Anyway, more on all that as the film approaches completion and release, but keep checking here for updates as time goes on.

Craig Thompson

So I went to see Craig Thompson talk at the Toronto Underground Cinema a couple days ago, after a friend reminded me about it last minute. This was possibly a bit of a deal for me.

Reading Thompson's "Blankets" for the first time was a big part of what originally got me thinking about making comics more seriously (I'd been producing my webcomic for about a year at that point, but had never considered pursuing comics as an actual career prior to then). So he's always been someone I've admired pretty strongly.

What struck me the most about seeing him talk, however, was less the impressive nature of his work (though there was certainly a great deal of that) than the relate-ability of it. This is someone who, historically, I've always put on a bit of a pedestal. I love his work, but it also always seemed so unattainable. So I was a little surprised to find myself nodding along to his talk about exertion and process, and the slog of working on a longer piece. "Yeah man, yeah... I know how it is."

Then afterward, met up with some friends to go see Dark Dark Dark and A Hawk and a Hacksaw, which was pretty rad as well.

Also! Something I forgot to mention in my last blog post! But my friend Bryan has just started putting a huge chunk of his old comics online these past couple months! If you like comics (as presumably you do) then these are some comics worth reading. Especially the Onion Head stuff. So you know, maybe go check it out!

Spider-Man Hates Weddings!

Saw this Spider-Man cover while bagging comics at work the other day, and instantly felt compelled to redraw it, if perhaps only for the pun. "With this ring, I do thee web?!" - hilarious! I'd submit it to the Covered blog, but it turns out they've already done this cover. Plus, I think my version kept a bit too close to the original. Oh well! Original cover by Gil Kane, who is a genius, and Spider-Man and all that stuff is owned by Marvel Comics, in case you didn't know.

I feel a bit bad for having fallen behind on the twice-a-month blogging schedule I'd had going for awhile, but I was away end of last month visiting Nick Patten, Ryland Ianelli and Beth Hetland! All three of whom are frickin' fantastic human beings, and who it was a total blast to see. It was fun having a chance to just wander around Chicago for a bit too. Beth even made a blog post about it! (I'm hiding in the dark in the picture at the bottom, 'cause that's what I do)

A couple other quick things: Steve Bissette recently posted a preview of his inks of my pencils for the N-Man collaboration we've been working on for the last little while. It's extremely exciting to watch this thing take shape - hopefully we'll have more for you some time soon. In the meanwhile, however, turns out SPX is this weekend! I won't be there physically, but I will be attending in spirit through my contribution to Lies Grown-Ups Told Me, which will be debuting at the show. Pick it up from Jen Vaughn, Nomi Kane or Caitlin M at table C6, if you're attending!

Some Things I'm In (Figuratively and Literally)

A couple quick things I've got/am going to have work in that I wanted to post about. First off is "Lies Grown-Ups Told Me," an anthology that the ever-lovely Nomi Kane, Jen Vaughn and Caitlin M. are putting together about the improbable things we are led to believe as children. I've got a two-pager in it called "Pancake Prevarication," about breakfasts and false expectations. I'll likely make another post as a reminder when it gets closer to release, but it looks like it's already shaping up to be a pretty serious anthology. So be sure to check it out when it debuts at SPX in September!

Secondly, I wanted to point out that "Panel to Panel: Exploring Words and Pictures" by John Rovnak is now available to order! I've mentioned this publication here a couple times before, as it's what my Public Domain Superhero drawings from awhile back were originally done for. Well now this 274 page monster is finally available for purchase, so you can hold it in your very own grubby little hands! In addition to illustrations by myself and a handful of other talented cartoonists, it features interviews with the likes of Alan Moore, Jim Woodring, Jaime Hernandez and Glen Danzig, among others, so definitely worth checking out if you have the cash.

Also, in real life news, I recently moved apartments! Which might account in part for the lack of updates as of late. You can see a brief photo-tour of my new set-up so far over on my tumblr. It's nice having a place all to myself, and having a room dedicated solely to drawing in. So yeah, that's kinda neat! We'll see how all that effects my productivity in the months to come.

CCS Awareness Week

Hey all, just wanted to make a quick shout out to the fact that this past week was CCS Awareness Week.

For those of you who maybe just recently stumbled onto this blog and aren't, perhaps, in the know, the Center for Cartoon Studies is a school focused entirely on the study and production of comics, and it's where I did my graduate studies for the past two years. I was, of course, making comics before going to CCS, and had I not gone there, there's still a chance that I might have continued to make them today. CCS is the place that got me militant about making comics though, the place that put my face to the wall and said, "Look! This is what comics are! This is what they're about, and this is what they demand of you!" And faced with said metaphorical wall, a young(ish) Josh, full of hopes and dreams, was forced to either embrace it or turn away. And so he embraced it. He embraced it, and he ingrained his ink-stained fingers into the coarse brick of it as hard as he could.

CCS also taught me about not being alone in this insane pursuit of this oddly specific artistic medium. There are others, just as dedicated, all pretty much universally amazing in their own unique ways, many of whom I can't now imagine not having in my life to some degree. CCS also gave me the tools to sustain all this, and to approach this art form with a far greater competency than what I'd possessed before. Essentially I'm trying to say that CCS was a pretty great place for me. And I've since graduated, and have started to move on towards that next big question mark on the horizon. And lord knows how that's gonna go. But I also know that I wouldn't be able to approach that horizon without nearly the same confidence I have now had it not been for CCS. So you know. Be aware.

Barbarian Dude

So I don't think I've ever mentioned this on this blog, but when I'm not busy drawing things I'm currently spending a chunk of my time working in the sci-fi/fantasy/comics section of a very large used bookstore. This means very often being surrounded by a large amount of Robert E. Howard. Which means my brain often feels a strange compulsion to poop out things like this.



I'm a product of my environment, what can I say.

Slightly Belated

Hey, it's 2011! Did anyone realize this? Sorry I haven't had as much of a chance to update this past month or so. This is because, in addition to the holidays, I've been busy moving into a new apartment! It is spacious and blue, and currently full of boxes, but it will eventually be beautiful. So please forgive my neglect in the meanwhile.

There have been a couple of Werewolf! reviews recently that I keep forgetting to link to, including one of the first volume on 365 Zines a Year and one of the third volume on the Comics Journal blog. I've also got a couple of half-written blog posts lined up for once things settle down a bit more, about projects new and old. I'm kind of excited, just so you know. For the moment however, just wanted to say a quick Happy New Year to everyone! And know that I'll always love you, baby.