Comic book round up

I've been eating up a few great graphic novels and comic strip collections lately. First up, I re-read Art Spiegelman's "Maus". Truly one of the finest graphic novels ever written. If you haven't read it: read it.

Oddly enough, I'd only read the second part to the story, and that was back in college around '91. I picked up the first book years ago and it kinda got lost on the book shelf. So while going through the tedious process of scanning the Angora Napkin comic, I took them off the shelf and read them both, I'm glad I did.

Charles Shultz created one of the best comic strips ever, it's sublime and brilliant. I learned to read with those soft cover Peanuts collections from the 70's which arranged the panels in a vertical layout.

This was another book that's been sitting on the shelf for too long unread (what, am I busy or sumthin?). I was given a nice box set of Vol 1 & 2 for Christmas a few years ago and I just finished the first one. I love seeing the evolution of Shultz characters, both in terms of the art and the refining of their personalities. Fantastic book and beautifully designed by Seth.

Eddie Campbell's a bit of an odd duck but I love is autobiographical work. I found this book, "The Fate of the Artist" to be a really great and charming study of the artistic quirks that make up the creative mind. Here Eddie has gone "missing" and his whereabouts are being tracked through interviews with his family and short comic bits where the character of Eddie Campbell is played by an actor. Clever and funny, and more accessible then some of his earlier books.

And finally this morning I started reading E.C. Segar's, "Popeye Vol. 2".


Before I get into this, let me caution you: Skip the forward by Donald Phelps. I was getting so irritated with this introduction I started scanning it, reading bits to see if they made any sense at all and found very little redeeming value in any of it. I don't like thinking "Hey, maybe I'm too dumb to get what he's trying to say". My instink (as Popeye might say) told me that much like my issue with my dismissal of Thomas Moore's "Utopia"; this guy just can't write to communicate. So I did a little search on Mr. Phelps and had my suspicion confirmed by animation kricket (again, as Popeye might say) Michael Barrier, who wrote:

Phelps has, indeed, done the work, but he is, alas, an undisciplined writer whose perceptions are buried in dense verbal undergrowth. If one word will not quite serve, he piles on others, in a pleonastic orgy—hoping, I suppose, that the right word will eventually turn up, or perhaps that the sheer bulk of a dozen not-quite-right words will fill the void left by the absence of the right one.

I'm not a big fan of Barrier, especially after the cheap shot he took at my pal Nick's film but he did hit the mark on his summation of Phelp's essay style of thesaurus writing.

So, skip the intro and get to the meat. I was laughing out loud on the first page. These Popeye books have been one of the best comic finds I've had in a long time. If you only know Popeye via cartoons or the Robin Williams movie, you have to read the original to truly appreciate what an amazing character he is.

Images from the "...And Other Stories" exhibit.

Art Gallery of the Confederation Center, September 2007 - November 2007

Curated by the estimable man from the Outback, Mr. Ihor Holubizky.
Special thanks to Jon Tupper and Siobhan Wiggans at the gallery for their support.

A nice Star Wars scrolling welcome was found on the floor at the entrance to the show.

Original artwork from Chiaroscuro #7 & #8 lined the outer walls!

Charmaine Wheatley's section. A sketchbook graphic novel done with watercolour.

This section featured original watercolour pieces by Seth from the book "Bannock, Beans and Black Tea", a P.E.I. memoir by his father John Gallant who grew up here during the depression.

Display containing original art and books by Robert Harris (1848-1919)


There was a 12 minute interview playing on a loop with myself for the first half and Charmaine on the second. I've attached a link to my half of the video from YouTube. Sorry about the quality, the back lit nature of the video makes everything a big on the dark side and the audio is a bit low.

Angora Napkin: Finished!

Here it is : almost two years of my life in a nice, neat little 11X14 stack. Started in March 2006 and completed January 2008.

Yep, there it is. Hooray for me! Now I have the ever-so-much-fun-job of scanning all the pages (twice) and then going back and adding the spot colour.

I had a lot of fun bringing these characters to life finally. Angora Napkin has been kicking around in binders since 1997 when it was created as an idea for an animated series. I can't wait to get the technical bit done and get the finished book out to the world!

"Yeah that's great and all dad, but have you seen my monkey?"

Ring in the New Year with AVP-R!

Just look at that! Wow! Classic rubber suits and all! And filmed in BC, so all the Aliens are Canadian!

I went to see this fine film last night with my pal Pat and I admit I enjoyed it. It was by no means a good movie (much better the the previous AVP at least) but anyone who knows me is aware of my fanboy addiction to the Alien franchise.

I've been waiting for a bunch of Aliens to get loose on Earth and just go about killing everything in sight and someone finally made that movie. It had a lot (maybe even too much) of homage to past Aliens and Predator movies in the music, sound and visuals. Lots of James Cameron bits in there for sure. At least they go it right for the most part, even the Predator looked and acted like the original instead of some bulky football player.

Still, it had many dumb points as you can imagine but at least there was no sign of The Newborn (Curse you Joss Whedon!).

Eh, what can I say? I'm an unabashed fanboy at times.

"Be happy in your work" Part 2

Yep. Too much of too much isn't a good thing and the clones I ordered from Kamino have yet to arrive. The day job, the post-day job (that didn't work out), the graphic novel promotion, the next graphic novel in progress, the hunt for the next post-day job and a myriad of other things I won't get into are driving me to distraction.

I'm not so much complaining as I am just venting. I'm very near completion of the Angora Napkin graphic novel and if memory serves me (which is a long shot) I got all wound up when I was near finishing Chiaroscuro Book 1. I guess while I'm working on a project I never really expect that I'll reach the end, so it comes as a surprised bout of nervous shock when I can see the final few pages drawing to a close. I'm anxious to draw but my mind is bouncing around to 40 other things simultaneously.

Also, it's that time of year when the world shows you just how fucking poor you really are. Jolly times indeed.
...And it doesn't help when you're reading a really crappy book (Demon Box by Ken Kesey) that you wish you could stop reading. I have a really hard time investing myself in a book and not seeing it through to the end. I know, it's stupid. Kesey's written 2 of my favorite books, Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion, so I had great hope for this but it turns out the publisher just culled together a bunch of really lousy unpublished short (some not short enough) pieces of journalism to make a buck and now I'm stuck reading it. It's so depressing when this happens, I must be more careful in the future.

Italian Spiderman

Launch photos

I dove right into the book signing and sketching shortly after 7pm and didn't stop until around 9:30! Had a great turn out and got to talk to lots of friends, family and met some new people too! I even found a few of the old Chiaroscuro T-shirts to sell as well as a couple of Meanwhile Studios coffee mugs.

As they say, I'm "Gettinerdone".

Check out some of the C-town glitterati. Can you pick out all the famous artists and animators in attendance?

The proud folks posing with the prodigal son. If only Norman Rockwell were alive to capture this glowing moment!

Thank you everyone who stopped by to see the show and wish me well, I had a great time!