I’m slowly working my way through the final 70 pages of Wahoo Morris. I roughed them out in a space of a few weeks, and I’m now in the process of cleaning them up. My original plan was to just get the basic construction done digitally, then print them out, slap them on the light table, and do the clean drawing on the final Strathmore before lettering and inking.

My ‘roughs’ are turning out pretty close to finished pencils, so I’m thinking, instead of wasting time tracing them on the the light table I might buy myself a large format printer and just print them out in blue line and ink directly over that after the odd touch up with pencil.

Anyhoo, that’s still a decision for a few weeks at least into the future. In the mean time, here’s a random page of digital pencils.

If you liken my blogging to a rolling stone… well… it’s covered in moss and ground deep into the dirt.

It’s not like I haven’t been busy or had anything to say; I’ve just gotten out of the habit of writing about what I’m doing or showing what I’m working on, and getting that stone rolling again has been a struggle.

Part of what stopped the stone rolling in the first place was the nature of what I was working on last year. In May of ’08 I started storyboarding on TOTAL DRAMA ACTION and I was under a Non-Disclosure Agreement. There really wasn’t anything I could show, and I’m not even sure I was allowed to talk about it. The show is on the air now, but until the final episode airs I’m still a little iffy what I can and cannot show/talk about. I also worked on an Australian production called SUMO MOUSE, which was kind of fun, but I have no idea when or where it will be airing.

All in all I was kept pretty busy through to February which I took off to get Married. So life was pretty busy until the beginning of March, but by then the blogging momentum was totally shot.

I’ve been off since I got back from the honeymoon, though I spent most of March and early April job hunting as well as trying to get the house and life back into shape after the blur of the previous 10 months. I spent a few weeks in April writing, finishing off the script for the second half of Wahoo Morris and breaking down the outline and script for the project I plan to follow up Wahoo Morris with. And since late April I’ve been working on the pencils for Wahoo Morris.

I roughed out the layouts for the remaining part of the second half (about 70 pages, bringing up the total page count to 197 pages) and I’m now tightening them up into inkable pencils. I’m doing them digitally (a new method, at least for WM) and the plan is to print them out in blue line for inking. I don’t have a large format printer at the moment so I’ll probably finish penciling the whole book before I can afford to buy a printer so I can start inking.

I’m supposed to be starting storyboarding on a new show in a few weeks (which will help pay for a new printer) so we’ll see how far I get with the pencils before I can start inking.

I’ll pop some pencils up this week to show my new method.

I wish I could say that I had a blast at TCAF, but alas, no.

It had nothing to do with the show itself, which I love, or the organization which is great. The new venue wasn’t as picturesque as the last one, but the location was convenient and the floor layout was better, so no complaints there. It was nice seeing colleagues and friends, and meeting new ones, which is one of the main reasons I like attending shows like TCAF.

The problem was…. I was sick as a dog.

I was recovering from a Chest Cold as the weekend loomed, but I seemed to be better by Friday. I flew in early Saturday morning and was feeling a little under the weather and spent most of the day fairly quiet, but I figured a good night’s sleep and I’d be back in the pink for Sunday. Sadly I was mistaken and I spent Sunday feeling like I was trying to breath under water, and chain-eating fishermen’s friend cough lozenges in attempt to not spend the day in one continuous coughing fit. And near the end of the day I started to get a lower stomach issue, which pretty much had me in agony all day. Well, maybe ‘agony’ is a little melodramatic, but I was not in the best shape, and I pretty much just sat there like a lump waiting for it to be over. I was not the most social person, as talking without coughing was a chore, and my salesmanship was nil.

I never even wandered the floor at any point in time to check out every one’s stuff and to buy and trade. I didn’t buy a single comic! Which tells you how sick I was as that’s my favorite part of any show.

If I managed to infect anyone, friend or fan or casual browser, I am reeeeeeaaaaaly sorry!

Hopefully I’ll be a little healthier next time!

Hey all.

I’m finally breaking my writers block and posting to the blog. It’ll be a short post, but as I’m appearing at TCAF in Toronto this upcoming weekend, I thought I should at least mention it here.

So, if you are in the neighborhood stop by and say hello. I’ll have a few copies of Comic Book Tattoo for sale as well as copies of Wahoo Morris Book 1 for sale in case you don’t have one yet.

I didn’t have any plans for any conventions this year, but I enjoyed the last TCAF too much to stay home this time around.

It’s been a few days since the Rendez-Vous came to a close, and I’m still having trouble distilling my thoughts into anything more than fractured moments from the weekend. The whole experience was so alien to the usual North American comic convention experience. It was exhausting, as all public appearances are, but it was such an inspiring event for so many reasons.

I don’t even know where to begin. We, the invited artists, were treated wonderfully. In the French speaking market, comics is truly considered an art form as well as popular culture, and it was eye opening to see people of all-ages, children especially, all interested in buying books and speaking with the authors and artists. While Salgood Sam and I, the two Anglo guests, did not have quite the same interest from the public as the artists from the Franco-Belgian market, we did receive a lot of interest, much more than I would normally get at a super-hero dominated comic convention. It was like an SPX, but free to the public, in a National museum, with gallery showings, and galas in conjunction with the French, Belgian, and Swiss Embassies, a lot of wine and cheese, and dinners and parties every night.

We weren’t worked too hard. Every guest was booked for two events a day. Either two two hour signing blocks, or a signing block and a presentation of some sort. On my first day I was driven to the University de Quebec en L’Outaouais for a meet and greet. Along with Delaf et Dubuc, I was presented to a gathering of students in the Bande Dessine program for a question and answer period. The questions tended to be more about the career of art than technical questions. Questions like, “How important is networking in getting work and maintaining a career?” came up a few times over the weekend.
On Saturday I had a half hour live drawing presentation, where I drew on stage while being interviewed by Tom Fowler. I think it went fairly well, and Salgood Sam filmed a good portion of it, though the English presentations tended to have very small audiences. On Sunday I was booked for “Masters at Work” where I had an hour to do a large illustration on canvas. It was just done in a corner of the Festival space, but I would occasionally step back to get a better look at the canvas and realize that there was a circle of people watching. I had quite the audience throughout most of the hour.

Aside from the daily Festival events, there were a number of other special events after hours. Thursday it was the opening ceremonies at the museum followed by a wine reception. Then it was off to dinner with the invited artists and the organizers and friends of the Festival.
Friday evening there was an unveiling of an art show sponsored by the French Embassy at the Alliance Francais of the works of Phillipe Aymond. There was more wine and cheese!
On Saturday evening there was the unveiling of the Tout Spirou collection at the Universite de Quebec en Outaouais. Basically, a gentleman had collected the entire run of Spirou, going back to 1938, and had donated the collection to the University library. There was much wine and cheese! Then it was off to the offices of the Salon de Livre, a huge heritage building in Gatineau that was the original Mayor of Ottawa’s summer home, for a pot luck dinner of traditional Quebecois food. It was at this event that I truly understood just what Paul Roux, the coordinator of the Festval, meant when he told me that the purpose of the show was to create a family. It truly was a big family dinner full of warm, fun, and inclusive people.

I think this is where the show had the most profound effect on me, on a personal level. I have Francophone roots, but that side of my heritage has been long lost. My dad was raised English, a result of the school board system in Cornwall where he grew up. My grandfather died when I was three, leaving an Anglo family behind, so I grew up with no direct connection to the Francophone side of my family. Those roots are something I’ve always felt, but aside from 4 years of French Immersion during middle school and early High School and an interest in French Bande Dessine, I’ve really had little direct exposure to that side of my heritage. The experience has really solidified a desire to reconnect with that side of my roots. I’m not really sure how I’m going to do that, aside from taking a French course or two and reading more Bande Dessine of course.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience, and I am sold on the Festival. They do not book the same artists two years in a row, but I offered to help out in any way that I can next year, simply to be involved.

A la prochaine!

* All photos are by Salgood Sam. You can see a document of the show in Salgood Sam’s Flicker Set.