quirk of dayuse: irony is bliss

…I did a big artist gig for a great profit. I’m so stoked from it.

Last Tuesday, I was a paid cartoonist at the UW Canada Day Celebrations. Basically, I did caricatures, but instead of exaggerating features, I simplified them. 5 hours of work, and I maid over $50 in tip alone! Sweet!

And now I’m prepping for the Paradise Toronto Comicon, planning to sell some really neat things while hoping to get cred for what I do.  Here’s a list of what I should be selling, along with the prices:

• Cardstock prints (incl. “hipster café,” “girl in the park,” and fan art prints): $6
• Lightweight mini-prints (selected Impression comic strips): $2 OR 2 for $3
• Mini-comics: $3

I’m working on the mini-comic now, which is cutting it pretty close.  But I should have them done before the event!

A few big things I need to mention:

1. Comic updates!

Hooray! I finally got the time to update Deathblossom! As well, Impression is up, giving a nod to another favourite of mine, Bryan Lee O’Malley. Take a read! I’m sure you’ll enjoy both comics.

2. Commission artwork!

I’ve got four projects (right now) to work on, with one to finish by tomorrow night and the other to finish by Monday at the latest. It seems my Facebook advertising to my friends actually worked! I’ll post them up later when they’re done.

3. Paradise Toronto Comicon!

For the first time in my life, I’m going to hold a table at an artist alley! It’s exciting stuff. I hope I get the table though, since the Paradise Toronto Comicon is in two weeks and I just sent an application. Ha ha ha!

I’m not gonna do a whole ton of stuff at my table, to tell you the truth. I’ll show off a sketchbook, do sketches on request with a tip jar, and give away business cards and flyers to promote myself. I’ll also be selling 3-5 stacks of original prints, which I hope will help get me money!

Here’s a preview of two prints I’ve finished so far:

If you happen to see me there with my art, drop by, get some nice sketches and prints, and help me with finances!  Lol.

Of course, I still have to worry about school work.  Can’t forget about school work…

Well, it’s official. I am too much of a geek for my own good. I’ve recently sorted out the links tagged “webcomic” on my del.icio.us account, and it turns out that I read about 108 webcomics.

ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT. Of course, that includes “on hiatus” comics and ones that I read on-and-off, but still! Since starting my column on contemporary comics and animation last year, I’ve definitely come a long way from where I was. Although I have to admit, I don’t really regret reading so many comics. I love the medium, especially stuff from the indie field of artists, so it should be no surprise that I’ve caught on to so many of them.

So, yeah. One hundred and eight. I thought you’d like to know.

Wow. I didn’t realize how much MoCCA hit me. I was so tired yesterday, that I konked out at around 4 PM. Yikes! Oh, well. Here goes.

It was great to see all those comicists at MoCCA! Webcomic artists are always cool, and I’ve always wished I had the time (or guts) to hang out with them at dinner or something after the cons I’ve seen them. But alas, for some reason, I chicken out. I said hello to tons of people, but in this entry I’ll just stick to talking about people I hadn’t said hello to prior to MoCCA.

I got to meet Randall Munroe, which was cool. My friend Jackie (whom I was with at the festival) got to talk to him while geeking out on Linux apps and distros (which I’ll admit flew over my head). He showed off this really cool setup on his mini-tablet laptop, which he can apparently call up on any computer to use.

Maybe I should’ve mentioned that I’m a reference in his Wikipedia article. That might’ve been funny.

Saw Carly Monardo at the event, which I’ve been a fan of since her work on the Dr. McNinja poster I bought. She’s been asking for commission work after a weird series of events, so I thought I’d suggest my interest in hiring her in person! If you have any time at all, those few who read my blog, please check out her artwork and help her out!

Steven Cloud and Jeffrey Rowland were there. Steven laughed at the dialogue in the fanart I made for him, which made me a bit relieved, since I just started to read his work.

Other unfamiliar faces included Rachel Nabors and Jennifer Babcock. I’ve checked out their work from time to time, and I remembered enjoying it, although I haven’t read much of their stuff. I apologize to both of them if I seemed a bit distant. :\

———

I got a lot of really cool swag! Didn’t get anything cool for free though, save a sketch of Faye that I later decided to give to my friend Maggie. But here’s a list of some of the stuff that I bought!

• A signed copy of Hope Larson’s Chiggers, which hasn’t been released yet in stores (TBR June 17th)!
• The “Caffeine Comfort” mug from Octopus Pie. Yay!
• A copy of DMZ, volume 1, signed by Brian Wood!

I ran out of cash pretty quickly. Ha ha ha.

———

Well, there you have it: a personal report of the festival! I’m writing up a more informative entry (as in “better content”) of my times in MoCCA for this week’s issue of Imprint, so stay tuned for that. It’ll be up on shelves and online this Friday!

So here I am! New York City, baby! Oh, man I missed this city. Unfortunately, I can’t go sight-seeing that much in the city. You know…COMICS ARE IN THE WAY and all that. :P

This is probably the biggest thing for me ever. It’s helping me get a better insight into the world of comics today, and it makes me want to get into the field even more. I’m so excited, but I’m also very, very tired. So instead of not posting anything, I’ll give you my Flickr quilt of fanart!

I saw Yuko and Ananth there, too! I wanted to say hello, but I chickened out ‘cos I thought they might’ve forgotten me.  Oh well.  :\

And here it is!

Deathblossom’s updated! Yay! Go and check it out! Not extremely happy with the artwork in this one, so I might edit it sometime later.

In other news, there’s a possible chance that I’ll be going to the MoCCA Art Festival this weekend for a cover story in my column. I’m trying to get funding help from Imprint although there are some technical things we need to discuss about it first before the rest of the Board — since I’m part of Board, I can’t vote — decides if they’ll help or not.

I first heard about MoCCA (the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art) through a promo comic by Raina Telgemeier. A museum! A museum on comics! How is that not amazing?! Since I’ve learned about it, I’ve been wanting to visit MoCCA and attend the Art Festival for the past couple of years. This might be my big chance!

The Con Bug is fading fairly well in my system, and I realised that one of the reasons is because of my collection of music. I’ve mentioned a few times how much I love music — from rock to blues to folk sounds, but mostly contemporary bands like Jason Collett, the Hives, and Metric. I’ve mentioned before about some of my favourite bands, so I won’t bore you with any more repetition, which I’m a culprit of in my column writing for Imprint, apparently. Thank God we have a proofreading team.

I always feel happy though when I can walk outside on a nice day, wearing my ol’ trashcan headphones and my iPod nano. It’s a form of meditation I do every time I can and it keeps me inspired.

And Daft Punk’s Discovery is still great. Just timeless. Ha ha ha.

I’m going to get a page of Deathblossom up (at least) before or around the end of the weekend. I’ll see if I can muster up two, but I don’t know how likely.

If no one’s noticed, I’ve been doing something special with Impression this Spring term for Imprint. All 6 official Spring issues will have a comic done by me in the style (or at least in a style familiar to that) of popular comic artists; the first one was Charles M. Schulz, and this week is a tribute to Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins from Penny Arcade. I’ll post it up Friday evening, so once it’s up, I’d love to get feedback!

Oh, yeah. By the way, are you guys reading Octopus Pie right now? Are you even reading it, period? Because you definitely should! The storyline right now is hysterical. The character Eve makes me think of times of nostalgia: growing up differently than the majority of other Vietnamese kids, the signs of being a “Twinkie” of sorts. While Eve may not be like me AT ALL, it triggers old memories both good and bad but very much inspiring to my imagination.

EDIT: Dammit. I don’t have my tablet pen on me, and I went home for the weekend, so the comic’ll be up a bit later than planned. Hopefully for only a day though. Grrh.

HO-LY FRICKIN’ CRAP.

I was never really interested in TOKYOPOP. Mind you, it’s not because I never liked them at all; I didn’t know much about them. For those not in the know, TOKYOPOP is a U.S.-based manga and OEM publishing corporation in L.A., known for bringing over comics such as the Kingdom Hearts and Beck manga series.

Interestingly enough, TOKYOPOP has started a new project called the “Manga Pilot” program: a contest where an artist can submit a 24-36 page series pilot, and the winner goes…well, I dunno.

Taking a look at the actual written contract (which is oddly linked under the word “CRAP”), the format of it just scares me. The other three top links above lead to many other responses of this contract from good names in the contemporary comic world: Jen Wang, Bryan Lee O’Malley, and Lea Hernandez. I won’t go into much detail about this program, mostly ‘cos the three sum it up very well. I just thought that I should post this up as a thank-you to you artists for warning me of such a development.

But I will say that I’m pretty shocked at this. My original thought about TOKYOPOP was that it must be a pretty impressive publisher to have gained such publicity. Now, I’m really not sure. :\

To follow along with the subtitle of my blog, here’s a quick summary of my time at Anime North.

SUCCESS

• Got to meet Ryan North (again) and Jess Hartley, both who are great writers in their own fields of work.
• Saw some hilarious costumes, like a Rabbid, people with a floating Sim cursor above them, and Pedobear.
• Finally got to play Dead or Alive 4. I don’t care what people say, the DOA series can be extremely fun to play, even though it’s a simple fighter. I think it’s the most authentic to movie martial arts, but that’s just me.
• Picked up and read Scott Pilgrim volumes 2 and 3. The Infinite Sadness is probably my favourite one so far.

FAILURE

• Missed my chances to finally meet space coyote. She wrote one of the first webcomics I’ve ever read (Saturnalia), so it’s safe to say that I was pissed.
• Con Bug: I got a slight fever, runny/stuffy nose, and a sore throat. It sucks. I usually don’t get sick, but I’m more prone at a con. :\
• Money handling was…weird.
• Creepy costumes. Those who have never seen the light of this are extremely lucky.

MOOT

• AN was close to what I remember, although there seemed to be more space to move around. Anime cons aren’t really my scene.
• Got quite a bit of exercise moving between buildings for the con.

That was pretty much my time there. Don’t know if I’d go again, but remember that not going is probably because the anime scene isn’t really much of my own. If you’re big on anime in Canada, then definitely go!

So it’s Saturday morning, and I’m in Toronto with a few buddies for Anime North. It’s quite the spectacle, although it’s usually not my cup-o-tea to go to an anime expo anymore; except for Satoshi Kon and Miyazaki films, I haven’t really been watching anime for a long time. Nevertheless, I’m enjoying myself checking out the dealers and artist alley. Just remembered that space coyote is a guest of honour here, so that made my weekend so much more worth it. Might just see Ryan North again, this time at The Beguiling booth in the con!

In case you might actually want to SAY HELLO to me because you happen to even recognize my work, this is pretty much what I look like: