I thought you might want to see the photo we traced to make the cover drawing. This is honestly what the top of my desk looks like most of the time, with various incarnations. Right before I got the idea for the cover, I had ironically cleaned off the top of my desk to help with the thinking process. I therefore had to cosmetically "mess up" my desk to it's regular state. The task was fairly simple: pull some sewing out of the pile, toss some overdue bills, sprinkle with bits of paper and pins and thread, and then decorate with empty beer cans and moldy tea mugs with festering tea bags dried to the bottoms. It's no wonder one of my idols is Francis Bacon. If I was computer smart I would make that into a link so you could click on it and see a picture of his uber messy art studio. I had a similar crush on this guy in art school who had the messiest studio space in the painting department. he literally kept a shovel that he would use to shovel the crap away from his painting area. I don't particularly LIKE having a really messy desk, but I like having all my stuff there where I can see it. Colin likes that as well, he wants all his stuff hanging on the wall out in the open, no cupboards on the doors or anything. Sometimes I get a little freaked out with all our stuff towering over us, threatening to topple and crush us.

Here it is ! the cover of my very first mini-comic collection of these strips, from dec 2006 to july 2007. I had been dragging my feet on layouts for a few months now, but I decided to give them away as christmas stocking-stuffers. I did not actually draw this cover, Colin did- but he didn't actually DRAW it, he traced a photograph of my desk. In the process he smashed a freshly healed cut and gushed blood all over the drawing, which I edited out with photoshop after the drawing was done.
Today I took some of them down to the local comic shop but I was too shy to offer them up. Maybe tommorow then.

This is a really old comic, part one of one of the many adventures Colin and I had with Christine and Travis when we went up to the Queen Charlotte Islands this past August.

Why would I get stuck up a tree with a bunch of giant turtles?

Well to everyones' delight, James Wood, singer/geetaurist of The Hotel Lobbyists, has been back home in Vancouver for almost a week, but still has a ways to go to being the dynamic fellow we know and love. I have been thinking a lot lately about back when we were in UBC education together. My little brother is now doing his first short practicum with UBC education, and the tension and stress and smelly BO problems are all fresh in my mind. The whole situation seemed so over my head back then (and still is) but James always seemed to have a pep talk or some empathy, without seeming holier than thou. He always seemed to be way more stressed out than me, but still inspirational and more in control? I always felt better after talking to him.

I thought it might be nice to re-publish this strip from right after UBC Edu, before I got hired with the Surrey school district. I was very, very nervous and stressed out about having to be a substitute teacher, and not having a job yet. I then had this crazy dream which was comically metaphorical, about having no choice but to kill TEENAGE zombies. I was totally out of my element, being the pacifist I am, and there was James, encouraging me along to kill some zombies. Next thing I knew, I was hired as a sub, and feeling a wee bit more confidant.

For some reason there isn't much sub work right now and I have had a lot of spare time to work on comics in my new studio space. I've begun a process of editing my juvenile quality control with magical Photoshop, so this is the new, improved cleaned up version.

part two of the great Mojave Desert moth attack.

Thursday, september 25 at 3am, the Hotel Lobbyists were driving on the trans canada highway outside of Brandon, Manitoba. The driver of their van fell asleep at the wheel, veered off the road, tried to right the course and the van rolled. James, the singer/guitarist, and my good friend from UBC teacher ed, was critically injured. The drummer, Mike Gurr, was killed. I don't know what happened to Jordie and Jordan, but I hope they are okay athough they must be hurting pretty badly even if they're physically okay.

I've done a lot of drawings for the band in the last couple years, and consiquently gotten to know them all fairly well but not nearly as well as I could or would like to. I do know that Mike was an extremely hard working, driven guy with an electric personality. he always greeted everyone with a smile, and had fantastic energy and big plans. I can't stop thinking about him. All the same can be said for James, who spent all summer killing himself.....wrong word......working himself to the bone organizing the Green Mountain Music festival to raise funds for CF. After the concert he had his own wedding to organize and attend, and then what seems like two weeks later, was off on this tour with his band. all their dreams. I went to the kick off around the last week of august and I asked mike if he had all his changes of underwear packed. He said that was all he had left to do, that night as they were leaving the following day.

tommorow night there is going to be a funraiser to help the families with costs of getting the boys home and everything.

I have already posted this image but lets see it again....it's the drawing I did for the Hotel Lobbyists t-shirt. from left to right, James, Jordie, Jordan and Mike. I hope he gets to finally know all the secrets of the universe.

part one!

This dream was awesome. I honestly have always fantasized about living in a "shack"...especially one with a secret passageway.

This comic has been sitting around for months now. I finished it weeks ago but I went on vacation to the Queen Charlotte Islands and forgot to post it beforehand.

I've been noticing that my comics look really....amature sometimes, because of the lettering and the way that you can see every booger smear on them when they get blown up. Since I've been using photoshop to work on rock posters I am aware that I should be polishing them up with that before posting, but I can hardly pull out a pen lately.

anyway, I got a new sketch book the other day and that always promises goodness.

I also got a real art studio too, at the beginning of the summer, and the office across the hall is that of one of my idols, Pia Guirerra....google her. woot!

yes, more revisions!

the poster for the green mountain music fest....a fair bit better than last years poster! I leanred how to use photoshop off the seat of my pants for this one. yay!

The fundraiser preparty for the green mountain music fest!

woot

This comic is a bit back dated....I was meaning to do something about our document dilema for a while now. Basically we needed replacements for colin's canadian citizen papers for christmas so I sent the paperwork out last summer. The replacement arrived this spring! 4 months after the fact. If you don't already know, new laws require all landed immigrants to carry a special ID card, or you need proof that you are a canadian (re: Passport). If you don't have proof that you a re a landed immigrant or a canadian citizen, or some kind of Visa, then you MAY be deported. Colin has a british passport and a british birth certificate, but he became a canadian citizen in the mid 90's, then promptly lost the papers hopelessly. So, we stood the risk of that. In the end, we ended up going to NYC anyway, after endless stressfull conversations and talking in circles. the customs officer hardly even looked at us twice!

first prototype art for this years fantabulous Green Mountain Music Festival... mark your calendars, July 19th!!

money money money

This is one of the unfortunatly few comics I made while in NYC. It took me exactly two months to get this one finished, because I back-burnered it for various lame reasons. Now, It's one of my favorites. the last panel and the restaurant scene were almost entirely drawn by Colin.

Here's hoping this works.

For some reason one can't enlarge the comics in my last posting....curious, because I did nothing different. I will re-post them and see what happens.

here's two more comics. In the one with the giant colourful balloon heads, I was playing with some watercolour pencils that were in an art room I was subbing. I don't think I like them, they didn't blend very well. I suppose you're supposed to see the pencil marks for the "artsy effect". Anyway, I doodled on the page to wrest it from the flames, I guess. it's inspired by this little house on Grovesner road that colin and I did a drive by of...( drive by seems the wrong word) well we new it was for rent, and checked it out. even though the neighborhood is really....quaint.....it seems ideal to have a half acre lot with a cracky garage and a cracky empty lot next door. good ole cracky shack. some day you will be mine.

So, dear readers, I've been away on Christmas vacation, exploring the big city of New York. I came back feeling inspired and cowed by the craziness. I was also intimidated by the fact that any drawing I do would have to have tonnes of Katsuhiro Otomo style buildings in it....every vista looked like a panel out of pre-disaster Akira comics. Here is the comic from just before we left....I know it says NOV in the corner with no date, and part of the events happenend in mid november, but the real date for this should be DEC 6th!

And here is the first comic I finished about our Christmas in NYC. Mostly we did anecdotal little doodles and such. This comic started with me drawing colin , (bottom left) wearing this hairband I bought in union sqare. it was olive green and matched his sweater, but it had pink bunnies on it. he wore it all day long, out in public, for a couple of days. I said it was his new york baddass look. After I drew him, he drew me wearing these fake Tom cruise ray ban sunglasses I bought. I don't smoke, by the way, it's just for looks, so stop freaking out. We finished it off with Colin's sister Eleanor, just loooking baddass, since she's always a NYC baddass. Eleanor suggested we add their mom looking really nervous, so Colin drew Evelyn in the background and the city scape behind us. she wore this red outfit every day so we could find her in a crowd. There you go, two comics, you slathering Jackals!!