The lines for the Fan Expo were crazy again this year with people not allowed in because they were at capacity on Saturday afternoon. They stayed open an hour extra just to try to appease people who entered much, much later than they had anticipated. For us on the inside it made for a chaotic, busy but fun environment.

When I’m not at my table, my signage starts to collapse.

More hideous caricatures. I wish I’d taken more photos of people who played along.

Zaphod Beeblebrox from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Shipwreck from GI Joe

Rogue from XMen and HellGirl

And, what’s his name…

Plastic Man meets She Hulk and Spider-Woman in the lowest selling DC/Marvel crossover since Bat Mite meets Cannonball and Jubilee.

Dark elf and crusader

Bebop and Shredder from TMNT.

Dr. Doom and Skeletor in best selling crossover since GI Joe vs Transformers

And cuties Catwoman, Gwen Stacy and Invisible Girl (now with visiblility!)

AndyB gets interviewed by Wonder Woman. I got interviewed for Sick Kids Hospital with probably the most thoughtful questions I’ve ever been asked in an interview.

And my favourite dollar bin find of the show a Christian blaxploitation comic.

This weekend (Aug 27-29) I’m at the Toronto Fan Expo, probably the biggest comic/nerd con in the city, if not country. Drop by for a hideous caricature, print, sketch or down low (high fives are old news).  In other news, I just got back from a long weekend in Reno where I played mini golf with a two headed dragon.

My good buddy Jon McNally turned me onto the retro-D&D inspired comic The Intrepideers by Tim Sievert.  I ordered all 3 books, (one by his friens Brett Von Schlosser and Kelly Krantz) and was overjoyed with all of them. If you are an old-timer like me and enjoy some dungeon crawling danger, you should check them out. They are not all ages, so if you aren’t an old-timer, stick with the Princess Planet, Kukuburi and Charles Christopher. Anyway, I was inspired to make some fan art so here it is:

It’s summer and I felt the need to move from studio to patio for a few hours to enjoy the weather. Usually my sketches are more on the realistic side despite my cartoony art style. This time I loosened up a bit and tried to capture more shapes and movement. I even was inspired enough to tighten some of the drawings up and colour them. This is the result (click to enlarge). I was surprised by how many colours I could remember days and days after the sketches were drawn. Only about 30% of the clothing colours are made up.

Anne Koyama runs a fantastic art/comic book publishing company, Koyama Press. She’s been getting a lot of great artists to redraw her KickAss Annie logo and posting them on their facebook page. I asked to join in the fun and she was game and let me come up with this monsterpiece. Original logo first, my redesgin second (click to enlarge)…

Life drawing is the best practise for the human figure. In college we had a lot of different sizes and shapes and ages of models. Last night was the first time I’ve had a chance to draw super-hero proportioned guys from life. Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School is a life drawing group with branches all over the world. The idea is to have fun models, fun themes and fun times drawing the human form. The theme last night was He-Man and Skeletor, two of my favourite toy/cartoon characters from when I was a kid in the ’80s. Here’s how some of the sketches turned out. Most of them are drawn from 5 minute poses. The first three are 10 minute poses, the coloured one was coloured during the break and the last two drawings were 1.5 minute warm ups.

A couple of years ago I noticed that pal and comic book creator Darwyn Cooke looked like Dog the Bounty Hunter’s slimmer brother. But recently I realized he could also be a doppleganger for Michael Mullen, the US Chariman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff…

I decided to draw some more posters for band I dig in the style of old comic book covers.

I couldn’t think of anyone to open for Electric Six so I just went with the Electric Light Orchestra because I thought it was kind of funny.

The Get Up Kids is probably my desert island band. If I could only listen to one group forever it would probably be them. They were emo before people made up the term. Earnest rock pop. I think their side projects, Reggie and the Full Effect, Blackpool Lights and The New Amsterdams are also really great.

I always associate Van Halen with my my cooler older cousin and Fast Times at Ridgemount High.

I got a fun email a little while ago that said

Hi Brian,

I’m a big fan of The Princess Planet, and webcomics in general. In
fact, my super power is “Webcomic Themed Halloween Costumes That
Nobody Gets.” I usually coordinate them with a more normal costume
worn by somebody else. This year, my daughter (1-1/2 years old) went
to a party dressed as a princess, so of course I went as Bad
Boyfriend. Sadly, nobody got it. I hope you enjoy the attached pic,
and please keep up the great work.

Your fan, #12

Bad Boyfriend hasn’t been around in a while, so click here to remember him. Thanks again to #12 for thinking of The Princess Planet on Halloween and sending the photo over for me to share. He has an adorable princess and some cute ghosts in the house too.

The Toronto Comic’s Art Festival lived up to its reputation of putting together some of the best and most passionate small press and webcomic talents together in a fantastic space. The audience was a great mix of young, middle and old, male and female, comics fans and curiousity seekers, robots and astro-goblins. This is the room we made into the TX Comics home. I don’t know if the three girls in black and white stripes were together or if horizontal pin stripes are the new black.

I overheard an equal amount of “Why do I have to be the unicorn?” and “Awesome! I want to be the unicorn!!!”

I drew more hideous caricatures.

Yup, I reused the ol’ lightning teeth gag.

You can click the one below to see it proper sized.

Thanks to everyone who said hi, bought prints or just came out and supported TCAF. This convention was also the launch of the Abominable Charles Christopher book and it looks amazing. If you like super well drawn animal cartoons, you should pick one up. Karl Kerschl put a lot of love into the book.