Friends

On Saturday I ran a little monster-making workshop and sold Morris books at a stall at an arts and crafts fair in the Well church hall in Camberwell. My friends Liz and Steph had a table next to me and did some amazing face painting. Here are Akin and Mdadi, and all I can say is, wow.



I had loads of fun making monsters with the kids, and a great time chatting to Sha and Muun, from South Africa and Botswana, who drew this one together:


( Two more pics under the cut )

To be fair about my paralyzed reaction to this sort of contact, I had no idea how to deal with boys, despite being about 13 and having almost only male friends. Up until that year (when Gareth noticed I was female), I was...um... I had a singular style, and never had to think about boys beyond how much I enjoyed hanging out with them and playing Ren and Stimpy on Sega Genesis.

In order to draw this comic, I did a little research into bottle-base sidewalks. They were made to illuminate the basements below the city buildings, because NYC is so crammed that it's mostly built up and down. Turns out, there are a TON in downtown Manhattan, where I was a kid. They exist in other cities too, but they aren't that common, anymore. What's really sad is that a lot of them are wearing away-- the prisms busting out and breaking. But look: aren't they fascinatingly beautiful?

I have a new comix I'm going to be selling at ZONACON in Orlando, FL this Nov. 20th along with a few issues of my anthology thing I printed in June. Anyways, It's a mini-comix and I think I might be selling it online once I get a proper website up to sell it on with my other comix. Nothing like photocopied books man. That's fucking underground for sure.




those are two pages from the book, I also have online a comix I did with a friend that's in the book.
will-ellwood.com/ncc/index.html
Go give it a read, I'm pretty proud of it in some technical respects.

Taso and her marvellous mythical beast

On Friday evening, as part of the Comica festival, Gemma Tortella organised with Paul Gravett so that a group of kids, their parents and I watched three animations in the cinema at the Institute of Contemporary Art and then spent an hour drawing to music. We saw Sweet Dreams and Story from North America by Kirsten Lapore, and Bryum & Kapok 03: A Lilt by Overture. The DFC's Patrice Aggs slipped into the cinema with us before she headed off to do her Black Powers talk and we had a good giggle while watching Sweet Dreams when the cupcake starts getting jiggy with the butternut squash.

Sweet Dreams from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

After we watched the animations, we went and drew pictures to music I'd picked out. Some of the songs had evocative lyrics and others had quirky instrumental bits I thought might give us ideas. I started off showing them some pictures from my Morris the Mankiest Monster book and said that while I'd been painting it, I'd been listening to a song called Hunnu by Egschiglen's Mongolian throat singers. It always makes me crack up because it sounds to me like a bunch of short men jumping around in the mud, which was just perfect for the book.
(Sorry, you have to have Spotify downloaded on your computer to listen to these links. But it's great, I've been listening to a lot of music that way recently.)
( More drawings and music links under the cut )

sketchdummmmpp!!



Illustration for Comic Center website

( Original stuff, fanart of Crash Bandicoot, Sailor Moon, A Song of Ice and Fire, Naruto, Blades of Glory, Breath of Fire 4. V. image heavy  )

Well, I used a lot of the suggestions that came my way from that post the other day! I was pretty pleased with the turnout of readers for that question, I must admit. I guess it's because you hear a lot that people don't give a darn about history in this country, if depressing yearly polls from the Dominion Institute mean anything, but it's clearly not the case among my livejournal followers. You guys are great!

I had to do a general sweep that involved a good range of places, professions, backgrounds and time periods, so you know, not everyone's favorite author is going to be in there but I sure did like the range in suggestions. Looking at it now I wish I had someone from the NWT (not one! for shame) and New Brunswick. Stompin Tom is from New Brunswick but he's also sort of from everywhere.  I could have put the Irvings in there, I think they control history in NB as well as anything else.

I was all crazed out with strep throat while I did this, but listening to Radiolab shows and a burning passion for Canada I guess(?) kept me going.  You can find the image in today's National Post, along with an article about the Historica/Dominion merger! Interesting stuff.


( picture is under the cut because it's huge )


Here is the legend, the rows are sort of wonky but you'll figure it out:

Row One (bottom):
James Wolfe, Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, David Suzuki, Louis-Joseph Papineau, John A. Macdonald, Terry Fox
Row Two
Emily Carr, Joseph Howe, Joey Smallwood, Robert Bartlett, Louis Riel, Joy Kogawa
Row Three
Marshall McLuhan, Samuel de Champlain, Marilyn Bell, Wayne Gretzky, Emily Murphy
Row Four
Rene Levesque, Sam Steele, Farley Mowat, L.M. Montgomery, Susanna Moodie and Catherine Parr Trail, John McCrae
Row Five
Pitikwahanapiwiyin (Poundmaker), Oscar Peterson, Rush, Pierre Berton
Row Six
Les Filles du Roi, Mary Pickford, Skookum Jim Mason
Row Seven
Charles Best, Frederick Banting, Pauline Johnson, Mordecai Richler, Tecumseh, Stompin’ Tom Connors
Row Eight
William Hall, Tommy Douglas, Marc Garneau, Roberta Bondar, Rosemary Brown, John Diefenbaker
Row Nine
Shanawdithit, Louis de Buade de Frontenac, David Thompson, William Shatner

More to come, later

You and me, we all like livejournal. Lately it feels like it's running a little dry, I'm guessing it's because of twitter (@wolfhard)? Here are some of my favorite livejournals that are still posting like crazy*. (beatonna also makes lists like these. She would be listed bellow because she is the best at comics but I think everyone reading this already knows and follows her. If you don't then you are nutz.)

nedroidcomics Everyone probably already knows how funny and smart these comics are, but if you don't they are the total funniest. Anthony produces a rich feed.

davario Dave has the best line work and the most appealing drawings! Also he's doing a Brovember, drawing fellas all month long. Get on board!

royalboiler Brandon Graham posts a PILE of amazing things all of the time. His own work is amazing, his girlfriend's work is amazing, his friends' work is amazing. He produces a rich trove of content all of the time. What a great journal.

r_dart Rebecca Dart is possibly the most talented person I've ever met, she is out of control. You may have seen this comic featured recently on Drawn.ca, holy cow so good). I had the good fortune to work with her on a kids' cartoon last year, she is the definition of tops.

bougieman Robin Bougie is married to Rebecca Dart and his livejournal is NOT WORK SAFE, (but is wonderful). This journal is a wild collection of the filthiest drawings and kitten youtubes. You should be following this guy.

bottomlesspop Brian does the rad fantasy comic JobGoblin (linked by me many times in the past), but lately he has been doing these cool sprawling doodle pages. Really neat stuff!

jasonturner Jason Turner is like a god-damned poet!

teamdynamite I don't know who this guy is but this stuff knocks my socks off.

bugs_is_icky I have a big big crush on Britt's paintings. She's an amazing artist who does amazing (often filthy) work. She also has an amazing dad. Follow her now so when she gets big you can act smug!

There are so many people missing on this list! I'll do another one of these in the future.

*I'm going to post a new comic next week unless things go haywire.

I fell off the dieting thing a bit today and had a fucking amazing lunch. We made jalapeno cheese corn bread with lox and an over medium egg. That is a grilled tomato on the left.

Hey guys! I've got a drawing in Leigh Walton's Tintin sketchbook! There are so many amazing and hilarious Tintin drawings in there from very talented artists, check it out:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/phthoggos/sets/72157606566029871



As I was telling Leigh, I think Bianca is an under appreciated character.
There are close to no ladies in all of Tintin, but I don't think it's necessarily sexist. It's a boy's adventure comic and I do wish there were more positive, strong Women hanging around, but the Women that are there are pretty excellent.

It always pisses off my shit when there are really awesome male characters that are wonderfully caricatured and full of character, with big noses and exaggerated features, while the females look like barbie dolls with no character or exaggeration what so ever. Women are always thrown in just to be a garnish, something pretty to look at while the guys get all the features and fun.

Bianca isn't like that, she is FULL of character. She's overbearing, pompous, demanding and hilarious, just as hilarious as the Thompson Twins, the Professor or any of the dude characters. Even though she's pretty much the only real woman character in Tintin, she is one of my favorites.

Mahk Jehi

I don't know really what to post about, though I feel like I want to, or may need to, post something. I had a few running ideas earlier but they faded as I kicked into full gear searching for a movie put out a few years ago called A Thousand Roads. It's fictional story, a cinamatic story, of four Native American people living in different parts of the Americas, with vastly different lives, all drawing on their cultural upbringing to take them through their lives. Lisa Gerrard worked on the soundtrack (which is how I found out about the movie) and I've been listening to it all this morning. It's great--if you like that sort of music, which no one I know does, but whatever. Sucks to be you guys.

Unfortunately, I can't find it anywhere. It's not on Netflix or Amazon, so I'm thinking that I'm probably pretty close to boned. Not like I can watch any Netflix now anyway because I have two out that I CAN'T FIND ANYWHERE IN THE HOUSE! GRAH!

I would also like to take this time to submit an open apology to all my friends. I have been incredibly anti-social as of late. I can't seem to find the motivation to get out of the house for anything other then hockey or car classes, and event then I really only do it because I've paid for it. This is not to say that I don't ENJOY going out and doing those things, but it is definitely a challenge to start the task when the alternative is to stay at home and do something very similar to nothing.

So this leads me to the next point. I want to do some sort of holiday party. Perhaps a Yule festival! Fuck yeah winter solstice!

Baseball:
I probably only actually watched about half of the MLB regular season. I wasn't home a lot in the summer, and all of August and September were lost to moving, so I put games on when I was home and remembered. That being said, I watched the Yankees do a lot of crazy shit. The regular season was awesome, which you all know by now, even if you don't watch or like baseball, and I couldn't hope for a better match up for the World Series. No lie, I remember saying a few years ago--like 2006 maybe?--that I would be a happy happy person if I could get a Yankees/Phillies World Series.

Of course, when I did I was immediately conflicted, but either way I would have been super happy. Thanks for being there Philly, maybe you'll take home another ring next season, but 2009 was the Year of Evil! Yes!

Who's been putting minicomics together?


The answer is me


I still need to fold 'em... but how do I know when???

There's loads going on with this month's Comica festival in London, but don't miss Comiket in London, this Sunday's marvellous small press fair at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, 1-6pm. Comiket will feature ellenlindner, tozocomic, and cleanskies among others, click for the full list here.

I drew 2 strips this month for Revue Magazine and told them to pick the one they liked the best to print. This was not the one they picked.