Friday, September 11, 2009

Word on the Street

Wow, it's been a long time since the last blog update, and there's much to write about. Let's get to the first order of business...

Word on the Street, September 27th, Toronto, Ontario
I will have a booth at the Word on the Street on Sunday, September 27th in Toronto. This is a fabulous street festival celebrating literacy and the written word. This is the 20th anniversary of the Festival and it looks bigger and better than ever.

Heavyweights like Margaret Atwood, Nicco Ricci and Kenneth Oppel will be on hand, but of special interest is the Comics and Graphic Novels Tent, presented in partnership with TCAF. The tent will have discussion panels and presentations by some great local talent and friends like Claudia Davila, Willow Dawson, Brad McKay (of the Doug Wright Awards) and Kevin Boyd (of the Joe Shuster Awards).

I will be in the "Fringe Beat" section at booth# FB14 (see map above). Lezley Davidson will be sharing the table with me and she will have very first book of her webcomic "Peeling Onions" on hand. I will have my minis for sale as well as t-shirts including the my popular "Silver Surfer - Kirby Style" silk-screened shirt. Best of all, WOTS is FREE for all to attend.

Draw Parker Contest
To celebrate the launch of Darwyn Cooke's new "Parker" graphic novel, Darwyn had a contest on his site encouraging people to draw their version of the character and send it in. Darwyn himself would hand-pick the winners. There was a really good response with a lot of artists participating. You can see the gallery here. Below is my entry.

I read "The Hunter" by Richard Stark recently in anticipation of the graphic novel and really enjoyed it. To me the character didn't come across as young and handsome though. He seemed like an older, rugged kind of guy, yet with a very magnetic personality.

In my drawing, I also wanted to get across his style of dress being rumpled, and a little worn. This is from a scene in the book where he is staking out a character...

I ended being disqualified from the contest being a "friend of Darwyn's". We get nothing but his love, apparently. I'll take it I say!

Other News

  • Here are photos from my signing with Willow Dawson at L.A. Mood. Carol and Gord were great hosts and it was a terrific signing. Thanks to everyone who came out. A bonus was spending time with pal Willow.

  • Here's a link to my interview with the National Post for TCAF. I was really happy how this came out.