more about ME! Branch Magazine interview

So, the people at Branch Magazine are running an interview with me (don't worry, there's other good stuff in the magazine) I did the cover for them, an image of my house being urinated on, littered on and written on by my neighbours. Branch Magazine is a really beautiful presentation of some really talented artists and writers and sometimes, people like me.

Another blog entry! Holy crap, people are sure to give a sorry shit about that…

Months ago, when the ipad was a new and exciting thing for sad people to buy, I made this doodle on the metro as I watched a dood sadly tapping the screen. He seemed to be saying, this piece of shit didn't really make me all that happy for all that long. Is that cynical? Is that the low-budget single-malt talkin?

Here's the haiku I wrote at that same time, reworking it endlessly to accommodate the syllables, in a thin, fetishy moleskin notebook, all the while feeling infinitely superior to that poor sap.

sigh:

Already, i see,

The people who bought ipads

are dissapointed.

(ps. the lower case “I” denotes important, sensitive poetry.) 

Please go do something important now, like watching the Keyboard Cat video on youtube. sheesh.

Doug Wright Award Auction Art

I just finished this drawing for the Doug Wright Awards Art Auction. During the research, I found out that Jim Aparo had died. I love that guy's work. I really feel like he was one of DC's most under-rated artists, up there with Neal Adams but perceived as a Herb Trimpe or something. (No Offence to Herb Trimpe! Jesus, he's solid, but he doesn't have the flash of a Neal Adams or a Jim Steranko.) Anyway, I have been drawing bug-eyed, bucktoothed cartoon people too long and this pathetic attempt is my best super heroey drawing. I'm no Herb Trimpe, that's for sure.

I'm just an Intense, creepy, bearded dude… who loves you, Jeffrey Brown.

This scene (copyright Jeffrey Brown) has probably happened to him a million times. Creepy, hairy, Charles Manson-y guys coming up to him and instead of spraying him in a shower of his own blood, regale him ineffectually about how much the book CLUMSY meant to them. This may not be ME (see below) but  this  same scene surely DID go down at TCAF a few years ago.

My 4-Year old Can Draw Better Than That…

Okay, I know he's my kid and all, but I think my son's Sam's drawings are rather awesome. I mean, this one looks like something Marc Bell might do after a rough night.  

meteora

So I went to Greece and I actually sketched two things. How every other cartoonist manages to sketch 500 old-master style renderings of their vacations is always beyond me. I'm pretty sure they do it after they get home. Probably using photoshop too. Anyway, this is a drawing I did in Meteora in Greece which is the most insanely amazing place I ever saw in my life.

I carried a 40 lb kid up mountains to four of the six monasteries there. At the top, amidst byzantine splendor and chapels painted by Theophanes, the same kid wanted a hot dog. He's a good kid though.

This is one of the monasteries.

.

partridge family look out…

No, I'm serious: Partidge family LOOK OUT.

Me and two of my kids rawking the unfinished basement. The band is called “Rappi” and this is just an “untitled jam” as the kidz are wont to say.

Sam's Computer

I came upon my kid typing furiously like some tiny office drone on this laptop that he drew in a notebook. The strange chinese marshmallow candy is the mouse.

I should make him write these “blog” entries. 

MAN DRAWING SALON

me and Billy Mavreas and Todd Stewart passed around these drawings (and passed around a crapload of stimulants). You know we used to do this every week, but I believe that our livers would have been destroyed by now had that continued.

You could see more of these collaborations here if you scroll downnnnnnnn to the entries entitled Man Drawing Salon.

new book done and done.

This pile of 170 pages is my new book, Mid-Life. It's my first full-length book, until now, I've been the un-marketable entity that made short story comics when the slavering masses are drooling for “GRAPHIC NOVELS,” with this book, in which I appear in my underpants on what seems to be 90% of the pages, I am sure to be catapulted into some kind of hot-property-like-comicy-stardom. My staff of market researchers assure me that 40-something male cartoonists in their skivs are thee hot property this season. so.

chester brown christmas card

Well, not get to all name-droppy, but Chester Brown,  was kind enough to send me a Christmas “card” which is actually a beautiful, 8-page original comic book. Including a personal note in his impeccable Chester Brown lettering. Holy crap.
The Giants of Canadian comics are such consumate gentlemen that they make schmucks like myself look like ass-clowns for not even sending out cards, hand-made or other-wise.
But I have been shamed enough to be determined to send out an illustrated card next year.