Gerald Bull Project
Some exciting news for me is that last month I received a Canada Council grant for my next new project - a full fledged historical graphic novel in the vein of my Banting mini-comic about Canadian scientist Gerald Bull.

Gerald Bull was considered by many to be one of the most brilliant scientists of the twentieth century. His research led him across the globe, from Canada, to the Pentagon in the U.S., to Barbados, South Africa and Iraq – where he developed the “Supergun” for Saddam Hussein, and ultimately to Brussels, where he was assassinated in 1990.

Canadians often think that our history is boring, but this story is one of drama, intrigue and politics that reads like it came right out of a John LeCarre novel. It also has a lot of themes that are relevant to the politics of today - namely how far should individual passion and obsession take you?

I first became aware of Gerald Bull through my grand aunt Louise Murphy. A Sergeant and code-breaker in WWII, she served as Bull’s personal secretary during his time at Valcartier, Quebec in the 1950s and would house sit for him while he was on overseas trips.

She knew him as a genius, a caring family man and boss. She also felt that he wasn’t given the respect or support he deserved from the Canadian and US governments (his work for South Africa actually got him imprisoned in the US for 6 months), and that this is what led to his downfall.

So - this is what will be taking up my time for the next couple of years. Right now I am in research mode, but am also doing some sketches. This summer I will be writing the first draft.

Above is my drawing of Bull in Barbados, where he worked on the HARP gun (High Altitude Research Project).

Well, we've been in our new house for about a month and a half now and things are finally settling down. We had lots of problems with basic necessities like electrical, hot water, phone (TONS of problems with Bell and then Rogers), & Internet.

I'm slowly getting into the swing of this working from home thing. It's got its pros and cons obviously. Overall the whole family is happy to be in London.

I'm also back at the drawing board! A friend, fellow cartoonist Zach Worton asked for a sketch from me about a year ago! I finally got around to it this month, and since it is so late I did a fully finished one for him. He's a fan of the Canadian painter Norval Morriseau and I found a really awesome old photograph of him looking very James Dean like that I did the drawing from.

Happy New Year 2008!
Sorry for the lag in between posts but December has been a very busy month for me! Dave got a great job offer in London, Ontario, and we have both quit our jobs in Toronto and sold out house already.

Rosie has gotten into our #1 pick for daycare (after much time and persistence on our part), and now we are house hunting in London. A goal in moving to London is to be closer to my family (my mom especially who's crazy about Rosie and vice-versa), to get away from the bustle of Toronto which we're kind of sick of, and to provide a more relaxed environment for Rosie to grow up in.

Another goal was for me to be able to devote more time to my artwork and comics in particular! It's been very hard with a 50-hour/week job, plus a toddler and a husband (who I like to see) to get much time to work on my artwork, but hopefully you will notice an increase of updates here of more art-related postings. Other than that, we'll see where the wind takes me.

Way Off Broadway
Here is some artwork of a recent commission I did for the "Way Off Broadway"singers. This is a singing duo from London who do local gigs and wanted an illustration to use on their CDs, business cards and marketing material. They wanted caricatures of their likenesses along with an image that showed that they're fun guys who don't take themselves too seriously.

Initially I did a drawing of both charaters running away from a Broadway sign (from their name - Way Off Broadway), and I tried to put equal emphasis on both. The client Abe, correctly pointed out that really both should be running in the same direction away from the sign.

Initial drawing












This meant that one character would be in the foreground though, and the other in the back. To try to keep an equal weighting on both I made Jeff substantially taller (which from the photos it looks like he is in real life), plus with cartoons you always have the license to exagerate features somewhat. Below is the final piece which I was quite happy with and the client too!

Final piece as approved by client














Rosie Stories Review
Lastly, Shawn Hoke recently gave my Rosie Stories mini a new review at his site.

Trampoline Hall

Monday night I was one of the cartoonists participating in Trampoline Hall, studiously documenting the speakers and the surroundings. Because of construction happening around Fort York as well as a film shoot, most of the streets were blocked off and I had a heck of a time trying to find the place.

I left myself time to get lost (since this is a regular occurrence for me), but was still in a panic after driving around aimlessly for 20 minutes and getting near empty in the gas tank. Finally I ended up picking up 2 other lost souls whose cab dropped them off on foot, because he gave up finding it, and together we got followed another car who was driving around looking for the event.

Teamwork saved the day and it made it just on time! It took me awhile to settle down, but once I did I really enjoyed myself. Here's the sketches I did during the evening. Click on the images for larger versions.













Fellow cartoonist Brian McLachlan and Zach Worton.


















Host Misha Glouberman



















Fellow cartoonist, (Reverend Aitor I think)? I was frankly more fascinated with the audience and the other cartoonists than the speakers. This gentlemen in particular had such a neat look that I ended up drawing him multiple times. Steve Manale suggested I do a montage of him.





























































The final speaker was a bit trying, he was getting so outrageous that people were starting to laugh out loud at some of his comments like the one here.

What I've done is more realistic in style, but lots of other people like Steve Manale and Johnny Martz were doing full-blown comics of the event. The Immonens were doing one-panel gags that looked so awesome that I was green with envy.

Becky Jonson who curated the evening is gathering all work done that evening into a zine which will be available this Sunday at Canzine as well as The Beguiling.

Below is a photo of me at the event (stolen from Kathryn Immonen's Flicker stream). Note my Spider-Man pencil case on the floor under my chair.

Upcoming Comics Events

I'm in a couple of comic related events in the next couple of weeks that are pretty neat that you should all check out if you have the chance.

Monday, October 22nd, Trampoline Hall
Created by author Sheila Heti, Trampoline Hall is a literary salon where each month, non-experts talk about subjects they are obsessed with.
This month, Trampoline Hall is temporarily uprooting itself and moving to Fort York's barracks, and will feature a bevy of Toronto area cartoonists. A bunch of us will be live sketching and documenting the evening and the event's speakers: Leaf Buckareff (on Hyberbolic Crochet), Waylen Miki (on Robotism), & Jakob Zimmer (on Diverse Curiosity). This should be a pretty fun evening. Tickets are $5.00, and it all starts at 8PM.

Confirmed cartoonists include: Zach Worton, Arthur de la Cruz, Ben Shannon, Steve Manale, Emily Holton, Shannon Gerard, Kagan McLeod, Roxanne Bielskis, Diana Tamblyn, Reverend Aitor, Stuart Immonen, Katherine Immonen, Blair Kitchen, and Jeff Lemire.

Sunday, October 28st - Canzine
I’ll have a table at Canzine this October 28th, at the Gladstone Hotel.

$5 at the door gets you the new Horror Issue of Broken Pencil Magazine (organizers of the event) and access to hundreds of zines, mini-comics, all-day horror screenings, DIY workshops, readings, and all sorts of other stuff. So drop by and say hello!

Finally, Diverging Comics recently did a pretty long interview with me and you can read it here.