Hello digital fanbase!

for the festive season my parents bought me a Wacom digital drawing tablet! I am really enjoying it, especially those moments where I've been messing around with the mouse, going "this would be SO much easier if I could just do it with a pencil!!"

so to practice I drew this little comic:

Yesterday I participated in the Waldorf Hotel Comic and Zine Fair, in scenic east Van! I had a great time. It was a tiny little affair, with pretty much everyone from the local scene and a few people that I don't know yet. The fair was held in the tiki room basement of the hotel, which was pretty cute. I'd never been to the renovated hotel, yet. I had only seen it when it was a nasty alchaholics dive bar. Anyway, for being such a small affair, I sold a LOT of comics! I think it was because I was moving them for so cheap. I sold them basically at cost, and everyone was able to afford them.

APE CON CON-TINUED!

thought I should say some more about Snan Fransisco.....

after the book launch at floating world in Portland, we got to spend the night with the generous and hospitable Joe Keatinge ( who won an eisner award and a harvey award for his compilation!) he had an awful lot of books in his apartment. The next day we picked up young Farel Dalrymple author of Pop Gun War http://www.popgunwar.com/ to help us drive to San Fransisco. The I5 is always good for fun times like road kill spotting, and punchbuggy religious-propaganda billboard.

Here's Farel driving Friday. I always want to spell his name "Faryl" probably because of the awesome way his last name is spelled.....DALRYMPLE ....also fun to say out loud: "fair-rell dall-rim-pell". The drive down was pretty smooth and uneventful except for the cruel manipulations of a Mazda full of teenage-ish girls up to no goods with my men on the highway. There were three girls in their car plus some large cage containing some kind of animal, which was convenient. Three loose-moraled girls for the lads, and whatever mammal was in the cage for me.
Farel got us into downtown San Fran around 8PM and we went straight to the Last Gasp warehouse party, which was pretty cool....a bunch of cartoonists milling about stacks of books with spilly alchaholic drinks like red wine!! It was really hot and crowded but I felt somehow like I had hit the big time, without even publishing one comic. Did I mention my box of comics never made it? I don't recall. Well, my box of comics never made it so I had nothing to sell/trade for the weekend. Farel Stayed the night at his sisters house, and I felt awesome driving around downtown SF in my own car...I felt like I had gotten some serious XP points on my driving proficiency. If you don't understand that last sentence you shouldn't attend a comic convention.
The city was beutiful but our hotel was ghetto...as was the neighborhood. I got that feeling when I checked it out on google maps street view. My reasoning was that no neighborhood could be worse than our own Downtown East Side, a notorious crack-fueled ground zero of mental illness and poverty for the entire country of Canada...nevertheless, Vancouver crackies don't seem to have the same air of anger and hostility that the american homeless did. Most of the homeless...at home...seem to just want to crack around in their own cracky dance, staring at the ground and such. Our first morning in SF, a fine fellow on the sidewalk outside out hotel greeted us with what we thought was "...THIS IS JOHNSON TOWN!! IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, GET OUT!!" or something like that. Then he told me to "shut up, bitch!" or something like that.
Well after that, the convention was super fun. Despite not having my books I was well entertained with Dan Clowes, and Julia Wertz, and Vannessa Davis, and Erica Moen and Lynda Barry and Hellen Jo and all sorts.

Here's another little ditty I am putting together for a poster....try to guess the theme.

Hello Friends!

I am back from an epic weekend trip to San Fransisco Alternative Press Expo! I drove down with Robin McConnell of Inkstuds Radio http://www.inkstuds.com/, who happens to be an old roomate of my man Colin, from back in the days before me. Robin is a fantastic hillarious fellow, but he doesn't drive. Colin is a fantastic, hillarious fellow, but guess what he doesn't do? We tried to solicit another driver but nothing worked out so I was psycologically prepared to spend about 40 hours behind the wheel of my car.

Now, in order to streamline the journey, Robin and I shipped our books to Portland to be picked up at his first book launch at Floating world Comics. His books were there, but mine were not. My trip changed from buisness to pleasure. I was dissapointed, but there wasn't much I could do about it. The book launch went fine, and Colin and I got a chance to meet up with our old roomie Jen Whechsler, who lives in Portland now. Portland is a great place, it has light rail!!!

Here's Robin at Floating World, selling the very first copy of Inkstuds to his friend and noted comic book guy, Joe Keatinge.

Well, I participated in my first comic-con today...which wasn't really a comic-con it was the comic room at the Word On The Street book and magazine festival. It was nice, because it was small and there were a lot of people that don't really read comics, coming around to check out everything. When you're at a big, popular con, there's so much density of material, it's nearly impossible to look at everything. I kept my hopes pretty low for today, I expected to sell about ten comics, (five of them being to people I know) and the FIRST PERSON that came to my table bought something! I tried to keep a tally of how much of everything I sold, but I often forgot to write it down. I sold at least 20 comics, and gave away a pile of free cards with prints of our rock posters on them. it's definatly a start. I know now, bring a table cloth, and lots of free stuff to give away, and everyone likes cute animals. Dear Diaryahh 2 with Sweatpants on the cover definatly got the most "traffic", and funnily enough, there is not a single drawing of a guinea pig in that comic. Today was also the debut of my new comic, "THE FINGER- part one, My Right Hand" I was going to call the whole comic My Right Hand, but Colin and I decided that The Finger was more catchy, and funny. Here's what the cover looks like:

here's another page of my comic...not the photoshopped version. Of course, in the actual hard copy it will be all shiny and perfect. I've decided to change the name of the comic to "THE FINGER" because I think it's catchier and funny. Any imput on the matter would be appreciated. On september the 26th, I am going to be hawking my stuff at The Word on the Street festival at the library in downtown vancouver! It'll be my comicker coming-out...my comic cotillion. my first festival. come by and buy some stuff. you can check out the fest at www.thewordonthestreet.ca/vancouver
there isn't any mention of my name, I'm listed as candcdrawingfactory, which is what colin and I call ourselves together. Im going to be showing our poster art as well. we are planning on going to APE convention in san franscisco in october as well. BIG TIME!! but not as me, as companions to our friend Robin McConnell, who hosts Inkstuds radio on CITR. I really hope it works out because it would be a nerd festival to bandage the salve of my Stumptown fiasco, whom still haven't given me my money back!

here's another little poster I've drawn...it didn't get posted up anywhere but It did get used on the internets...and I think it turned out cute.

more pages of art....I've been working very well ever since I downloaded an app for This American Life, which is a great chicago radio show on NPR. Every episode has a theme, like "bad friends" or "Moving" and a series of stories and interviews and radio documentry. Nice girly human drama stuff that I like. For some reason when I'm captivated by the radio stories I am less likely to roll my rolly chair over to Ed's bookshelf and start flipping through the comics, or go, "hmmm, I'm kind of a tiny bit peckish" and go buy a Budgies Burrito. Snacking also seems to help me concentrate,...I try and keep a kings ransom of rice cakes and apple sauce on hand.

this page isn't photoshopped yet.

and this post you can actually click to embiggen!! for my blind aunties.

So in this 2 month absence from posting about comics, I have actually been working on My Right Hand. I've got about 8 pages completed, and I just finished photoshopping 4 of them...except for page 4 itself...that one's not done yet....I still have one panel to draw that's daunting. That page is basically a seguay from the 5th inning were I broke my finger, to the seventh inning on page 5.

Last night was the CD release partaayy for Shiloh Lindsey's new CD, "Western Violence and Brief Sensuality", featuring cover art by yours truly! I was so excited and proud, and sad, since I had to leave early in order to work the next day...BOO-URNS. I missed Shiloh's performance, unfortunately, but I listened to the CD when I got home, and like everyone was saying, it is quite awesome...and so were the performances I saw, El Dorado and a bit of Swank. For an urban yoga pants city that used to be a hippy enclave, we certainly have some great old-fashioned alt-country music here in Vancouver.

Here is a picture of me with my first real CD cover!

Here's an interesting tidbit for you: I am a member of the Vancouver Desert Plant Society, which is as it sounds, a garden club for people (old people) who like cacti, succulents and other desert- climate plants like Mesquite, which I quite like. I know I posted some comics earlier about when my friend Andria, (who is the Vice President of the DPS) and I took a road trip to Joshua Tree National Park to see the plants there. What's interesting is that I kind of joined the club on a lark. Andria wanted to join but didn't want to do it by herself, and I was thinking, "okay, whatever!" Now, five years later, I have windows and windows full of cacti. I have made lots of friends in the club that I would NEVER have made friends with on a normal basis, like Charles and his wife Nettie, who have a great property on Saturna Island that Andria and I have visited twice now. We've seen so many beautiful houses and gardens, which is really inspirational to me to become an eccentric old retired person with a really extensive, anal retentive hobby. The reason I am saying all this is because in July we have our annual DPS show and sale, where you can come and see all our most prized, rare and valuable plants under careful supervision, and you can also purchase rare and valuable desert plants for truly reasonable prices! Also, I made the poster for the sale, and here it is....all of the photos were taken by either Andria or myself. I think one of those plants is mine, but most of them belong to Andria. the main photo is from our trip to Joshua Tree...it's the field of Opuntia Bigelovii....yeah!

so come to the show and sale. see some plants...buy some plants.

I've been working on a new book about the crazy summer I had last year, because of one tiny bone in my right middle finger. I only have about 7 pages laid out so far but I am invisioning a grandiose graphic novel. we'll see how interesting it actually is. Here are the first two pages.

So I just got the news that there isn't going to be a Green Mountain this year. James, the organizer, won't have the time to devote to it this summer since his rehab has been ramped up. If you didn't know, James was in a terrible car accident last fall, while on tour with his band, The Hotel Lobbyists. He had a brain injury from a crushed skull, and spent 6 months in the hospital. Although James has been out of the hospital for about a year now, he is still working on getting a normal life together. We were all shocked and delighted when James decided to do Green Mountain last year, but he had a lot of help from his family and this year he'll be doing more job skill training and stuff like that.
I'm pretty dissapointed, but I hope that we can do it again next year. I think I might continue to work on the poster anyway and save it for later.
I probably should be focusing on my comic books anyway, even though I still haven't heared anything from Stumptown!!! you have my money, you jerks!

Here is day two of the New York sketch diary.....I sent a couple copies to family members as thank yous for Christmas and birthday gifts and I didn't want to spoil the surprise. I'm pretty sure they've got them now, so here's what's inside!

I just finished putting together a little booklet of the sketches from our last Christmas trip to NYC, and here is the cover I made up; It's from a photo I took of Colin just outside of his sister's apartment building.

I got a reply today from Narduar the Human Serviette! I'm pleased because I wasn't sure what to expect...it was just an email (possibly from an intern?) but it means someone got my letter, opened it, read the comic and then went online and typed my address in their email account. I was concerned because I sent an actual letter, that means a little bit more work on his part if he wanted to reply.

He said "Have a Nice Breakfast!"

Colin and I also sent in our application to the Stumptown Comic Fest!!! April 24-25 in Portland, Oregon. I've only got 3 lousy mini-comics ready, but we'll see what I can get done during spring break. I'm working on a little comic about breaking my finger this summer....excitement!

here's another page from the narduar comic, to jog your memory!

I've been working on finishing up the comic diary I did of my trip to NYC with Colin this past Christmas, in the tradition of travel diary comics.

Here's my latest rock poster!! Again, for my favorite customers, the Hotel Lobbyists! This poster was pulled out of my arse in a matter of days. It features Bette, the French bulldog belonging to James, the lead singer of the Lobbyists. Bette is really a girl, but graphically it worked better with her in the traditionally male role in this stereotypical scene....unless Bette maybe swings that way....(or the poodle is maybe a hustler if you know what I mean)....
all the colours besides that on the dogs was done with Photoshop....not as pretty but FAST. Note the date on the poster, I had to get er done.

Check it out.....the finished cover for Shiloh Lindsey's album, "Western Violence and Breif Sensuality"

I am Also working on an album cover for David Chenery and the Lonesome Valley Singers...it will also be terrifying sepia with lots of gore.