This past Sunday, some major cities across Canada celebrated literature with Word on the Street. In Toronto, I (The Princess Planet and Alex & Charlie) and Andy B (Raising Hell and Bottle of Awesome) spoke in the Comics and Graphic Novels tent (programmed by The Beguiling). In Kitchener, Ontario, Eric Kim (Steta and Love is Foreign Language) was in Victoria Park at the Comic and Graphic Novels tent (programmed by The Dragon).

The home to Ontario’s parliament is in the centre of Queen’s Park Circle. Locals call it the Pink Palace because of it’s pinkish toned stone. Across the top of the tree-filled park and along the surrounding roads there were many tents of booksellers, a handful of tents for presenations and thousands of people into reading. The Comics and Graphic Novel tent started the day off with a lesson for kids on how to make comic by me and fellow Owl Magazine contributer, CTON. The tent was packed and the kids seemed even more engaged when I did this last year. I’ve done several of these talks for school and libraries and it’s always the awesomes.

Clayton began with a slideshow presentation and then he and I drew comics with the kids, teaching them word balloons, brainstorming and especially confidence. I like to show kids if they can print the alphabet and numbers, they can make cartoons (using 0s for heads, upside down 7s for noses etc). We even got by when another tent came and claimed our easel, with CTON and I being living easel for each other (hence why there’s no photos of me here). Hmmm. Living Easel sounds like the lamest Dungeons and Dragons monster or an art rock band. We made some great comics with the suggestions from the audience including a fast food hot dog in a hot rod with ketchup trying to catch up. After the 45 minute talk, we did sketches for the kids. Clayton signed copies of his shuster-nominated kid’s book, CTON’s Book of Crazy Comics. It’s great that the Shusters added a new catagory to acknowledge the joy of all ages books that are so important to get kids interested in comics.

 

Later in the day I bumped into Kean Soo, who actually won the aforementioned Shuster award for his book Jellaby, at the free food and drinks area for presenters. After I heartily congratulated him and supped on Gardiner Museum’s finest finger foods I got a great preview of his talk. He, his lady and Ryan North (Dinosaur Comics) were rehearsing their presentation for the Children’s Reading Tent, where Ryan acted out the role of the purple dragon with such skill I suggested he should also be starring in a fumetti comic (photo comic) about himself.

 Kean and Ryan were on a panel later with TX’s Andy B where there was lively debate on webcomics which I was absent for, since my presentation opened the tent and Andy B was closing it down.

 Meanwhile, in Kitchener, Eric Kim moderated a panel with himself, Rob Walton (Ragmop, Chocolate-Face Grace) and Lar deSouza (Looking For Group, Least I Could Do) on webcomics. They all had different takes on the situation. Eric was the rookie coming in from print, Rob was coming from self-publishing and making a foray into web, and Lar has done web professionally for the past seven years. This made for lively discussion regarding webcomics, how they related to print, merchandising, advertising, color vs. black and white, market penetration, and notes on professionalism within webcomics. The audience was highly involved specifically in the marketing and promotion discussion.

 Eric says “Overall, I’d have to say that it was a good discussion. My thanks go to our hosts, the Dragon, and most especially to Robert Haines (the co-ordinator for the panel) and also Jenn Stewart. See you again next year!”

  

Word on the Street is a great event and I always have a good time whether it’s in Toronto or Halifax. The crowds are plentiful and friendly. While I love the comic conventions where comics mingle with horror makeup fanatics, science fiction tv star stalkers and video game cosplayers it’s also nice to see comics mingling with regular ol’ fashioned books at a different kind of event. It’s good to be flexible that way. Hopefully next year I’ll be back with a slightly different talk for kids with more of the TX guys.

So my connection to my webhost was kerplooey for a long while there and I wasn’t able to put up new posts. Boo! Anyway, finally now I can announced the winners of the 2nd Princess Planet Contest. I picked 2 winners from the forums to each recieve a piece of art inspired by their piece of art inspired by The Princess Planet. The winners were Lars and Daniel. Here’s a small version of their entries. You can click on them for the larger, more legible version. They’re also stored in the fan art section and they are the awesomes!

Get out your pens and pencils and harmonicas and roller disco routines! I’m announcing a The Princess Planet art contest!

What’s the deal?

-Create a piece of art inspired by The Princess Planet. It can be a drawing, a comic, a painting, a video, a song,  a ballet, whatever you want

-Post it in the forum in the contest thread here.

-Wait until Sept 20th when I will announce the a winner which will be judged on how the awesomes it is. That might be by artistic merit but I might won over by earnestness, humour, effort or any other good qualities.

-If you win I will draw you an original piece of Princess Planet art inspired by YOUR art entry! It will be sent by snail mail.

-All the entries will be archived in the fan art section of the website.

Get entering today!

Fan Expo is on its way to becoming San Diego North. On Saturday, the giant aiport hanger-esque convention centre had line ups of thousands of people around the block trying to get in to see Bruce Campbell, Leonard Nimoy, booth babes, booth beef and of course, more of my hideous caricatures ;). The only time I’ve ever seen a line of people that long before it was called a parade. And both had people in awesome costumes. Actually there was another lineup that was almost as long that weekend. Leaving the show on Sunday night, we ran into the crowds of childern waiting to get into the SkyDome for the Jonas Brothers.  Comicons: bigger than Jonas!

(this photo by Jason Blakely, see more Fan Expo pics on his Flickr)

All of the TX crew lined up along the back wall in the Special Guests area where we met with our existing fans and a heck of a lot of people open to discovering new comics. Karl Kerschl said 75% of the people that came up to him were interested in his TXcomics’ Charles Christopher strip, rather than his DC Wednesday Comics, Teen Titans or other industry work. And Ramon Perez said he had a simliar experience with Kukuburi. A lot of the people that came to see him had never been to a comic show before but came down because they loved his webcomic. And lot of his Butternut Squash fans were also excited about the soon-coming relaunch. (Butternut Squash is another of his webcomics, not a signature dish, although I hear he cooks a mean toast sandwich). In fact all of us were at least as well known for TX as our indutry day jobs. Hoorays!

On Friday we did a panel about making webcomics that was both informative and entertaining, like reading an instructional manual with “robot-flavoured” mad libs. Before the panel Andy declared if there were 50 people there he’d eat a live mouse. We didn’t quite make it but then again, it was a “slimy” last minute panel. Next year I hope he ups the ante to a “fire-breathing” “octopus”.

A few weeks ago I posted a comic where Princess Farrah decided to do written caricatures of people. At the show I gave it a shot and I actually got a few customers and more than a few smiles and laughs.  Here are a couple of the people who were game and I was kind to.  I think I might have offended the guy I described as a “Wall Street Goth with blonde bacon hair and nose not quite big enough to really make fun of”.

There were also some people fun/brave enough to offer their faces up for hideous caricatures. The guys even had me draw their friend from a cell phone photo.

Also super fun was sharing table space with Batman who was drawing weird pictures of himself for funds to replenish his low supply of batarangs, batmobile fuel and apparently shaving razors.

The Fan Expo is getting so big it probably won’t be long before the multi-million dollar movie pushers show up with their life sized plastic replicas of spaceships and plastic celebrities. And strangely enough the other thing that’s missing from San Diego is original art dealers. I miss flipping through classic original art and seeing the raw ink and pencil. Good thing most of the artists bring their own art to sell. I think Darwyn Cooke‘s book of original sketches was plundered by shoppers in the first few hours of the show on Friday down to about 3 pictures left. While I love sitting beside Dar at the post con dinner, sitting beside him during the show is another matter. The one place I found the show problematic was its placement of comic book stars in an areas where line-ups could not be controlled. He sat beside J. Bone who make a perfect team. You can get your Spirit and New Frontier signed by both at once. But then the line up spills in front of other tables. Poor Willow Dawson had her table blocked a lot by people waiting for Darwyn (even when he wasn’t there, just lingering until he showed up again). This would be great exposure if they had any crossover of fanbase but while Darwyn writes and draws the manliest men in comics, Willow writes and draws the strongest and most admirable women in comics. And I was on the other side drawing princesses and caricatures which was also not their bag of tea. I saw this happening with other big name artists along the Special Guest wall. I’m not sure why cult television and movie stars are put on the ends of the convention centre with plenty of space for managable line ups but New York Times bestselling comic authors aren’t. Darwyn was great about it, repeatedly trying to find someone to help wrangle the gathering hordes but his attempts came to no avail. Hopefully they’ll get this ironed out for next year’s show.

Speaking of cult movie stars I was also lucky enough to finally meet Erin Gray. Although she does a lot of these cons I haven’t seen her since I got the Buck Rogers Dvd set and remembred how much I loved the bananas out of that show. Anyone following my “Artists Who Inspire Me” thread on the TX Forums knows that her headstrong attitude and slender space suits have had some influence on Princess Christi’s design.  I almost missed her because she was a last minute addition to the show but I tracked her down for a chat near the end of Sunday. She spoke frankly but professionally when she answered my questions about working on Buck. Mrs. Gray is a real class act and she looks amazing, even all these years later. Mike Cho was nice enough to make the donation to charity for the photo. High fives, Mike!

It was also cool to talk with cartoonist Doug Sneyd again who like me and many other Toronto area illustrator/cartoonists have worked for childeren’s books, textbooks and the Toronto Star on their way to awesomes. Hopefully one day I’ll be even a 100th as good as watercolours as he is. His companion in crime, Heidi was taking photos of every costume that went past but I think my winner for favourite costume of the show was probably Steam Punk Storm.

But the most hilarious costume was the guy travelling around with Emma Frost who unintentionally dressed like Cameron Stewart with glasses. Then again, all of us TX comic creators are so handsome, who can blame someone for dressing like us. 😛

(Photo of fake Cameron by J. Bone, real Cameron by Mo De Sousa)

And as always, it was also super cool to hang out with Jay Stephens and his brother. Jay always has great stories and has got me seriosuly considering joining the National Cartoonists Society. It sounds like a great time. I picked up his how to draw books for kids and they are super amazing. He knows how to break things down for kids to understand and the text is so encouraging and funny. If you know any kids who want to learn to draw, buy them his books, Monster! Heores! and Robots!

But it wasn’t all dudes hanging out this weekend I also got to know three lovely ladies who deserve links. Kim does a webcomic about Abe Sapien and Kroenen from Hellboy falling in love in a parody of fan fiction, Meghan has a nerd blog (and the best Cooke designed catwoman costume) and Kayla’s blog covers all sorts of fun things from music to comics to pies.

I remember when Fan Expo used to be held in the front part of the convention centre where sunlight streamed in through the high windows. I miss that part of the show for sure. But I’m glad it’s growing and that at least half of the people I talked to weren’t there to see any particular person or thing, but were just there to check it out and celebrate in all things kooky. There was room for science fiction stars, zombie makeup, anime cosplay, “hilarious” t-shirt vendors, and refreshingly, even comics!

You can read TX Fan Expo coverage on the forums here and check out more Flickr photos.

Points of interest

-Fandomania writer Kelly Melcher interviewed me for Webcomic Wednesday. Check it out for at least half a laugh.

-On the TX Forums I’ve been posting almost 1 person/day in a thread of Artists Who Inspire Me, which might be fun to look at.

–TX Comics has a big announcement coming 09/09/09 so watch the main page and forums for details

-I will be in Artist’s Alley along with the rest of the TX comics crew for the Fan Expo, Aug 28-30 at the Toronto Convention Centre. There are awesome prints for sale and I will be doing sketches. If you’re in town, come see us all and say “Hellos”.

Strolling around the internets I found a couple more sweet, sweet, webcomics to share with you.

The first is GastroPhobic by David McGuire, which follows a narritive with an Amazon warrior and her flute playing child going on adventures. It’s cute, funny, full of great character moments, minotaurs,  and sphinxes with bad riddles. If you’re a fan of The Princess Planet, you’ll probably become a fan of this great comic too. Here’s one page from a longer story and then a one page gag.

 

The other comic is Jay Pott’s World Of Hurt. It’s not all ages, just for old people. It combines the solid art styles of classic newspaper strips (I love me some old Modesty Blaise and James Bond strips) and blaxploitation (I also dig Shaft, Cleopatra Jones and Rudy Ray Moore). Pastor Hurt is the name of the ass kickin’ protagonist, who helps those in a bind, or with a problem with the man. If you’re down with the 70’s vibe, give it a look!

My buddy Darwyn put out a new graphic novel a couple weeks ago. He asked me and the rest of the Toronto crew he left behind for Halifax, to submit a sketch for a contest to promote The Hunter. There was a contest running and he was hoping we’d add some colour to the contributions. Of course I got the email the day before I left for my honeymoon. So now that I’m back I made time to sketch up a drawing of his character Parker. Well, it’s not his character actually. It’s Donald Westlake’s. Darwyn’s adapted a classic crime story about a mean as meat criminal who strikes out for revenge. He’s a real piece of work: Imposing, savage, savvy…  Some of you may have seen this character portrayed in Payback (made much nicer and friendlier than in the books) or Point Blank. Westlake (who’s real name is Richard Stark) wrote the movie the Grifters as well. Anyway, if you enjoy hardboiled detective stories you should give it a look. There’s an extensive free preview here. You can see the rest of the contest drawings on Dar’s blog, which is run by awesome comic shop owner, Cal Johnston (the store is Strange Adventures and you should visit if your ever on the east coast of Canada).

After a wonderful ceremony, great party and amazing honeymoon, I’m back in Toronto and making funny pictures.

We stayed at a resort in Maui, adventured around the Big Island and then spent a couple days in the big city of Honalulu in Oahu.

There’s an active volcano on the Big Island and unlike when Mark Twain was there, the top is no longer filled with churning bubbly lava.  It’s crusted over with steam escaping from various cracks. There are a three calderas in Volcano National Park and one of them has a trail you can walk down and across the top of the actual active volcano. Crazy. Very safe but still it felt freaky walking across this rock.

When the radio wasn’t blocked by the volcanic mountains and making static, we heard an ad for a local restaurant that featured some amazingli hilarious sounding burgers. Our little blue book, The Big Island Revealed, gave a good rating and said it was a wonderful place to watch the sunset, which was right around the time we would have made it there. So we went to Lulu’s for dinner and had some good grub. Or Ono Grinds as the islanders might say. The book, by the way, was amazing and a super help in getting around and finding all sorts of beautiful, unique little spots and giving honest opinions on things to see and places to eat.

We also tried some sweet potato ice cream (which grow purple on the island because of the volcanic ash) and Shave Ice which is like a snow cone but better.

I’ve had lilikoi (passion fruit) lemonade and homemade chocolate mac nut cream pie at the southernmost restaurant in the United States. I don’t know if that counts as an accomplishment but it was delicious. Here I’m getting into the spirit with a Tom Sellek style shirt. My wife evern wanted me to try to grow a moustache, which has turned out less Magnum PI and more Higgins.

We also rode bikes down an inactive volcano, snorkeled with sea turtles and iridescent fish, paddled an outrigger canoe, ate a 9 course tasting menu at Spago that was tastebud-blowingly good, walked among giant trees atthe Botanical Gardens (where they had weird plants like White Bat Plant, Mule’s Hoof and Cat’s Whiskers), swam at a black sand beach, got lost in fields of jagged volcanic rock and learned a lot about anicent and modern Hawaii. I would love to go back. If there is ever a comic con in Honolulu’s impressive looking convention centre (or someplace smaller) I’d totally be on board for that! Someone on Maui told us that it was the third largest artist hub after Paris and New York. Every roadside coffee shop, hotel lobby or shopping mall had a gallery of paintings, glass, brass or jewellery. Does anyone know if there’s a comic scene there at all?

This weekend I totally got married and it was the super awesomes!!! Everyone was crying… and they were even tears of joy! So I’m off on my honeymoon for the next couple of weeks and while the site will update with new comics on Sundays, I will not be around to approve comments. So feel free to say something about the comics, I just won’t be as quick as I normally am separating the authentic comments from the prescription drug spambots. In the meantime you can feel free to talk amongst yourselves in the brand new TXComics Forum. 

And here’s the inside of the wedding invitation. I took out the text from the last page with the address on it, but the ceremony was a small one in her mom’s back yard on a beautiful summer day.

I recently was part of a podcast at Digital Kontent where the guys interviewed us TX creators. You can follow this link to it if you’re over 18. In it, they asked if we could do artwork for any music artists, who would it be? I got thinking about all the famous rock poster people like Coop and Tara McPherson. With the poster wars going on in Toronto, I don’t know if there is anyone making rock posters with that sort of artistic fingerprint on them.  They’re all covered over or ripped down so quickly it’s almost like watching timelapse photography. But would I do? I’d combine them with my love of old comic covers. I took a bit more time with these than the quickly rendered NBA logos and had some good fun with them. I picked some of my favourite bands and tried to imagine what a Japanther, Milkbag Brother, Incredibad and Damone comic books would look like.