Feeling a little melancholy this morning walking through the first snowfall of the season. I was listening to Simon and Garfunkel, which always makes me feel especially nostalgic. The song a hazy shade of winter fit my mood perfectly. I think, for once, I was actually able to capture my mood in this.
Jason
I got this idea from my good friend Ed.
Something I don’t do enough of is just play with art. Especially since getting into comics it seems like everything I’m doing on a creative level has some sort of end goal in mind… I don’t feel as free to play as I would like. So, last night I decided to just start something and let it take me where it wanted to go. The image below is the end result.
This is a character I made before going into art school. He was this really badass superhero guy who would kick this shit out of cops and ninja’s that were doing bad stuff. A stupid character, yes, but for some reason I really wanted to revisit him. Believe it or not this thing started as a china marker sketch on watercolor paper.
When I started doing these little comics I did them with the intention of never printing them but I actually quite like them and think it would be a shame not to do SOMETHING with them. Well, my buddy Ed and I were talking about it last night and we came up with an idea for printing them that I am super stoked about.
So I finished my new mini comic, The Worst In Everything, about a week ago.
It’s mostly about being at work and how awful and pointless that can feel when you’re stuck in the middle of the workweek with nothing but more work to look forward to. I’m really quite happy with it, as depressing as it is.
Initially I was just going to put this in Boredom Pays #3 but I think it actually stands alone really nicely and would feel out of place in such a collection. That said I intend to do another cover for it, most likely in color on card stock to make it a really nice package. There are also a few aesthetic things that I want to touch up that I wasn’t able to get to in the mad dash to finish this before Canzine but nothing major. Point being, I’m going to put out another version of this soon, but in the meantime I guess you could consider this my first draft.
For a variety of reasons I’ve decided not to post this one online but since I do have a small pile of leftovers kicking around from Canzine I have decided to sell them off for $2 a piece. It’s 8 pages of black and white comics on glorious copy paper, 5.5 x 7.25. I’m also down with doing trades through the mail if anyone’s interested!
On another note I have put everything else that I have put out up for sale! Just check out the left hand column of the blog to see all of those fancy Paypal buttons! Boredom Pays #1 & #2 are now available for $4 a piece as well as my buildings prints at $10 for all 4 of them. So buy stuff! Make me not so hopelessly poor!
I’ll be putting up more stuff for sale soon, too, just getting it all organized!
Jason <3
Toronto just voted in the worst possible candidate for mayor... and I just feel really frustrated about it. Is this what people want? Really? A wife beating, racist and homophobe who's proud to be an arrogant son of a bitch? Are you serious? I've never been so embarrassed to live here.
Just one of those days. Feeling much better now.
In other news, I was pretty stoked to find that one of my all time favorite bands, Foot Ox, has put all of their albums online for free. They’re a little odd sounding because they use such a strange and varied assortment of instruments. Most people I make listen to this can’t stand the sound of the singers voice either… which is a shame because to me this is some of the most beautiful music I have ever come across. As well as having a great sound I really love the lyrics as well, as bizarre as they may be at times. I don’t really know how to describe it but the best genre I’ve seen them described as is “broken folk”. Whatever that means.
Anyway, I would highly recommend the album It’s like our little machine, particularly the songs I am, Tiny animals, Carabell and Lucky strike, though I thoroughly love the whole album. If you like that album I would recommend checking out the self titled album and the “ooo” album.
This music has such a special place in my heart <3
Despite my awful hangover from the wedding the night before, Canzine was awesome! I met a bunch of super nice people and got to sell a whole pile of comics and prints. It felt awesome to see people actually looking through these things.
I had a bunch of really awesome people say a lot of really nice things about them, too! A few people said that they had seen my work online before (including Anne Koyama which blew my mind because I have so much respect for what she does) which surprised me a bit. It’s funny that you get this really small core group of people reading your blog that actually leave comments… then this whole other group of lurkers that you don’t even know exist. It’s almost creepy.
I didn’t get as much of a chance to walk around and actually look at many other zines but I did manage to pick up a couple of really good ones. The first is from the guys that were sitting at the table right beside me called Deep Madder. It’s mostly filled with stories about sadness and isolation or random musings about whatever. It’s really good though, I relate to the content far more than I wish I did. They even had a testimonial from Jeffrey Brown telling them not to be sad. Another is a Zine called Kissoff, which is composed of short autobiographic stories. Some of the best short stories I’ve read in a while. The last that I picked up was Vicki Nerino’s Sock Puppets & Stool Pigeons, which I wanted to buy at TCAF, but could only buy so much. If you’re familiar with Vicki’s work than you know to expect something weird and fucked up, which this is, but this one is somehow adorable at the same time. Probably my favorite comic I’ve seen of hers.
Anyways, I can’t wait for TCAF. I’m really, really hoping to land a table.
Jason <3
There was this time when I was a really horrible artist doing really dumb and terrible drawings but I totally thought I was awesome (I’m still not sure much has changed, but for the sake of appearances let’s pretend they have). As awesome as I thought I was I didn’t think it was realistic to pursue anything of that nature until I met Jim.
He was the first person that I ever met that was actually making a living off of this whole art thing. I was pretty blown away because where I’m from I was always told not to waste my time on such things. And, I mean, I knew that people did this stuff but I never thought I would really get to know any let alone that I could actually aspire to be one of them. Eventually Lisa was able to convince me to move to Toronto and start school (where I would eventually become one of his students… which was a little weird but kind of cool, too!)
Anyway, point is, I’m not sure I would be doing what I’m doing right now if it wasn’t for meeting Jim at that time. So, his happiness means a lot to me, And well, he just got married (which is where all of this booty shaking happened!) the other night and I’ve never seen him happier! Congrats, you deserve it!
Jason <3
(oh yeah, and you should go check out his new Skullkickers book through Image! It’s doing super well and is a really fun read, especially if you were ever a Dungeons and Dragons nerd!)
I always have these little private freak out sessions whenever I get close to finishing anything. I can have a really low self esteem – especially about my artwork – when I want to.
In other “news” I’ve really been digging Bomb the music industry!’s album Scrambles. You can download the whole thing for free here. I tried to listen to them a couple of years ago but never got into them for whatever reason. I gave them a second chance because Eric Kubli was talking about them in one of his comics (which you should totally go check out). Really, really good poppy ska influenced punk.
I drew this one with the intention of not posting it on here. I do think the beauty of a journal comic is to capture the ebb and flow of life and I think to not include these whiny moments would be a disservice to his project as a whole. It wouldn't be honest, I guess.
