The Best Birthday Present This Year?

Tomorrow (nov 5th) is my birthday and I have been praying that I won't open up my paper to read that McCain has won the election. The best birthday present I will get this year would be to read about an Obama victory.

Right now it's 9:00 PM, and I'm watching the projection on CNN as the polls start closing, and I'm starting to relax a bit that Obama will indeed win the day. Kay Hagan just beat Elizabeth Dole - yay! Democracy in action as people reject Dole's "godless" ad, which was completely reprehensible.

To say that I've been glued to all information on the American election for the past couple of months is a bit of an understatement. I feel quite desperate about things, and have been wondering why I've felt so strongly - especially since I'm Canadian.

Our Canadian election came and went in just 6 short weeks this fall. My candidate won in my area, but the Conservatives remained in power overall (though they did get hammered in Quebec over their "culture is only for the elite" line which was a sweet victory). Though I was disappointed, I wasn't crushed, and if Obama loses tomorrow, I will be crushed.

I think this is basically because I believe my life will be affected more by who becomes the next President of the United States, then by what Canadian party is in power. This is a strange kind of irony, but I believe it's true. Whether we like it or not, the US. has a huge effect on us here. To paraphrase Trudeau:

"Living next to to the US is like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt. "

Then when I was watching the 30 minute piece Obama put on the national networks this week, I realized that I have a lot in common with him, and maybe this is also why he really touches a cord for me.

• I also have a mixed race background,


• Was raised by a single mom,


• Was incredibly close to my grandparents who were huge influences on me,


• I know what it's like for people to look at you and assume you're from somewhere else,


• I've also only met my father once, and feel that I've been shaped more by his absence than by his presence.

Finally, there is just so much that Obama stands for that I believe in, and a loss for him would in some way represent a loss of those ideals for me. Share the wealth - yes, I believe in that. Healthcare is a privilege, not a responsibility. Education for all. Equality for all. The list goes on and on...

I'm thinking that tomorrow will be a brighter day...

November 5th Update -my wish came true and the good guys won! What a great way to start the day!

*Obama image courtesy of Jennifer DeGuzman.

Speaking at MIT this Thursday

Very exciting news - I will be speaking at MIT in Boston this Thursday, October 23rd with fellow panelists Jeet Heer and Ho Che Anderson.

Needless to say I'm really excited, nervous and really honored. Here's the full info:

Comics and Social Conflict
Ho Che Anderson, Jeet Heer, & Diana Tamblyn
Thursday, October 23, 5:00 -7:00 PM, MIT

Comics have emerged as a key means of interpreting and disseminating controversial and contested histories: Chester Brown's Louis Riel, Keiji Nakazawa's Barefoot Gen, Joe Sacco's Palestine, and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis are just some of the works that take definitive social and political conflict as their topic.

Why has historical material become so important for comics art? What unique opportunities does comics allow for critiquing and revising dominant historical narratives? These are the questions our speakers will discuss, in relation to their own work and to the comics world in general. Diana Tamblyn is writing a biography of Canadian arms trader and weapons engineer Gerald Bull; Ho Che Anderson authored King, a 3-volume biography of Martin Luther King; and Jeet Heer is a historian and a leading comics scholar.

Admission: Free. Open to the Public.

Here's what the building looks like where we will be speaking - just a little bit daunting!

Full info can be found here at the MIT website.

Then Friday afternoon, Ho Che and I will be reviewing work by any students who want feedback on their portfolios.

I'm really interested that they selected three Canadians to talk about this subject. Should be really interesting and certainly very topical! I've also never been to Boston before so I'm looking forward to doing a bit of exploring.

Muskoka in the Fall

Word on the Street
I exhibited for the first time at Word on the Street this past Sunday and had a great day! The weather was gorgeous, tons of people came out and best of all - I sold a lot of stuff! Thanks to everyone who dropped by to say hello.

Muskoka Landscapes
Other than working on my comics, I'm trying to do more artwork in general. Last fall I took a bunch of photos of the colours changing up north in Muskoka and have been doing some studies of them. Below is what I've done so far. I'm pretty happy with the results!

Muskoka Hillside - done in pen and ink.

View overlooking 3 Mile Lake. Done in pen and ink.

Muskoka Landscape - done in oil pastels. I used to use oil pastels a lot and like working with them. I'm a bit out of practice with them.

Gerald Bull Graphic Novel
I'm still working hard on the graphic novel. Last week I started drawing it in earnest. I'm now on page 2 drawing wise, and on Chapter 3 writing-wise! Making good steady progress...

Kaiser Wilhelm II

Work on the graphic novel continues. I have finished my reading and research and have started writing. I am just finishing up Chapter 2 now. I'm also still doing preparatory drawings (Kaiser Wilhelm II above, appears as a character in my Prologue), but will start drawing the actual book this month.

Last week Newsarama posted a review of my older minis and they said some nice things. You can check it out here.

I've also set up a Flick page with my drawings and illustrations, which you can find here.

The General Behaviour of a Spinning Shell

Here are some preparatory drawings for my Bull Project. When I asked friend Frank Cammuso for advice on how to prepare for a full-length graphic novel (and he should know having just finished one major book for Scholastic - Knights of the Lunch Table and Otto's Orange Day for Toon Books this year), he recommending totally immersing myself in the subject, literally surrounding myself with it. This is what he did for Knights where he did tons of research on the Knights of the Round Table.

So - I've been doing just that. Tons of background reading and preparatory sketches on all sorts of things I would never normally draw. Since Bull was an artillery expert, I've been reading a lot about that, and some of the things are strangely beautiful like these below. I adapted them from mathematical equations that looked at the paths spinning shells take in flight.

Slowly Rolling Fin Stabilized Missile
Spin Stabilized Shell
Fast Rolling Fin Stabilized Missile

I think I might end up doing a mini of all of my drawings (and maybe the prologue of the book which is a story in and of itself) for the project and release it for next year's TCAF. Would you guys be interested in something like this? I think it would end up being approx. 40 -50 pages or so.