Can’t wait for the Fall!

Autumn’s coming up and I’m looking very much forward to it! All this time chilling around while doing nothing is a bit boring, so it’ll be great to get back into the system of school.

Speaking of “the system,” I just saw Zwigoff’s Art School Confidential today, a movie written by Daniel Clowes of Ghost World fame, one of my favourite comics and also a pretty neat movie. ASC was a pretty well-written movie, and it was cool to see Clowes and Zwigoff do another project together. The movie was pretty funny, and there’s one thing I can remember forever from the movie: I’m glad I’m not THAT much of an art dweeb.

Fuck! Some art-heads are just insane, and seeing people that get too high and dazed in their artwork make my head spin. There are casual fans and fanboys/fangirls, and then there are art dweebs and poseurs. Oh, man. I’m glad I’m not any of the latter.

Ech. Didn’t really mean to rant so much there to begin with. It’s just that people get so angry at each other while siding with a specific branch, and it just pisses me off. Politics will continue to develop us, religion isn’t dying, and non-conformity is a lie. So world, stop fucking with each other and shake hands! I can’t wait to go back to school, take classes, and maybe grab a coffee with a couple of friends from whatever café we choose to go to (commercial or independent, it doesn’t fucking matter). Even if it’s Starbucks, which is the oddest coffee shop I’ve been to, I don’t care.

I’m a closet fanboy.

TCAF last Saturday was awesome! There were some really weird smells at times, but it didn’t take too much away from the event. I was trying really hard not to act like a complete and udder doofus at the show, giving away those fanart-postcards to some of my favourite artists. Every time I saw one of them, I was almost tempted to snort, laugh, grow an annoying voice, and spontaneously grow a pocket protector in my left breast pocket. I’m hoping to God that in the end, I actually DIDN’T do any of those.

I guess I’ll start off with what I didn’t like about the show; there was no air conditioning. It was the weirdest thing, too. Outside, it was fresh and cool (with the best wind I’ve ever felt in August), but in the Victoria College, it was hot and dank. None of the windows opened, based on my understanding, and to relate to what I said before the smells didn’t help.

I’m also pissed off that I didn’t get to see Vera Brosgol, ‘cos I’ve been wanting to for quite some time. From what I remember, she’s one of the first alternative-vibe comic artists I started to admire around my early years of reading webcomics. I went to the Flight table to see if she was there, but one of the other artists said she stepped out for lunch a while back and didn’t come back. I bit the bullet and left the art-postcard with him (whom I should have known, sorry), and it was the only one I didn’t give to an artist in person. I really do hope she got it (and that you found this site), and I don’t even know if I ever saw her at the event. I vaguely know what she looks like too, which really sucks! Ha ha!

The greatest thing about TCAF were the artists and their personalities. Every one I met and talked to (or stuttered at, more or less) were great people, and they really liked the postcards. Dave and Raina seemed to really enjoy their cards, and Raina even said that was the highlight of their day, which made me feel a lot more confident about my work. A lot of the artists surprised me with something I wasn’t expecting though: for the drawings some of them gave me free swag and minicomics, which was amazingly awesome! I only ended up buying what I came for (Life Meter 2, Scott Pilgrim Vol. 1, Flight Vol. 3), but I got more than I bargained for! Bryan Lee O’Malley caught me a bit by surprise, though: he was very chill when I met him, as if he had (as corny as it sounds) some rock-star vibe to him. I give him his postcard, and he had this “that’s kinda cool” expression on his face. In any case, I hope they all liked their gifts. Still a good fan of all of their works.

What surprised me the most about this showing was who I met at the festival that I didn’t expect; Yuko Ota and Ananth Panagariya were in front of me and Jackie in the lineup at Lee O’Malley’s table. Again, both are artists and writers that I’ve been big fans of since my growth of loving webcomics. I might have seen Brian Carroll at the show too, but I was a bit too nervous to ask who I saw if it was him when I saw him. It’s like back at the Paradise Toronto Comicon, where I was too nervous to talk to Ramon Perez and Rob Coughler (which I finally did at TCAF).

I wonder if he knew who I was. Probably not. Ha ha!

Well, that was my time at TCAF. Seeing stuff like that has made me want to do comic work even more, so I’m glad that my comic’s still going in Imprint. Makes me relieved and somewhat comfortable.

EDIT: Wow.  Apparently the co-founder of TCAF, Christopher Butcher, actually mentioned my blog entry!  Good times, and thanks!

TCAF to come!

In about a couple of hours, I’ll be off to Toronto with my brother Joe and my friend Jackie to TCAF. Seriously, if anyone’s in the area and has got some time today, check it out! It’s at U of T in the Old Victoria College, near Queen’s Park, and of course, it’s completely free to attend.

I’ve got a drawing each for 13 of the artists attending the show. Actually, it’s more like 12 artists because I don’t even know if Carly Monardo is going to be there; I drew something for her just in case she’s sharing a table with Chris Hastings. If not, I’ll probably just give that drawing to Chris so he could relay it to her. Overall, I’m happy with the end product. Working with pens has been one of the most fun experiments I’ve done art-wise in a long while, so it was great to give it a go!

Alright. I should get ready. But seriously: you guys should go!

Home stretch towards fall.

I’ve been meaning to update in the past week, but I’ve been in and out of it since I got back.  Maybe it’s because I still have a paper due for my Prague classes tomorrow.  Eh heh.  Heh.

I’ve been doing a lot of drawing still; there hasn’t been a day where I haven’t doodled up something significant since July.  For the first time in my life too, I picked up a 9×12-inch sketchbook.  The first page I drew on has a prototype page for an Impression comic submission I’m doing for the Imprint Frosh Issue, although it’s more than one panel.  I might not even use it ‘cos it’s a whole page, so I’m planning to make a one-panel comic for it just in case.

I really like where Impression’s going; I’ve been a big fan of drawing Jim and Lan ever since I created them.  Originally, they had no names.  They were just two random characters I drew for one of Shayna’s articles (WARNING: NSFW) in the paper during the Winter term.  After that, I tried drawing them again for the whole term for her articles ‘cos I found it to be fun.  After realizing that Impression at the time was just a random guest comic, I started thinking about making it a series using the two characters.  It’s taught me a lot about writing in confined canvases and showing a relationship between characters, while still keeping it funny.  So far, this is my favourite work and I’m hoping to continue it in the paper.

I’ll be going to a Toronto devMeet (mostly because my friend Mandi asked me to) this Saturday.  It’ll be kinda weird though if devART actually becomes a topic of discussion at this get-together though, since I’ve been fairly scarce from the site.  I’ll also be going to TCAF the weekend after, which I’m really excited for.  Danielle Corsetto has been one of my favourite comic artists as of late, so it’ll be cool to see her there again.  It’ll be the first time I’ll get to see this many “indie” comic artists and writers too.  Hope I don’t explode from it!

Well, that’s what’s going on right now among some other things.   Till then, I’ll be seeing ya!

The world continues.

It’s nice to be home. It definitely is. I mean I loved Prague, but I started to get homesick late in the trip. It’s great to see nostalgic land again.

Now before I say anything else, I want to give my respects to a good guy that passed away last Sunday from an accident at Village 1 on campus: Zafrin. I remember meeting him a few months ago randomly at a bus stop, where we had a few laughs from a bus that totally did not stop for either of us. The bus didn’t even say it was out of service, and the driver didn’t wave us off or anything; he just kept driving! We were both totally shocked and we couldn’t help but laugh at it together as we headed to the SLC for a ride from RideSafe, while sharing a few words. From what I gathered from him, he was quite an intellect in religious studies and he was someone comfortable with his position in the world. I didn’t get to know him so well, but I do feel for the loss that his friends and family is suffering right now. I guess he is the first person I knew in my life that died; I never knew my grandparents well, and of the few deaths that happened during high school, I didn’t know any of the deceased students there. I send my condolences to Zafrin’s family and friends; I hope that both you and his spirit find peace.

Also, I want to give my wishes to Ryan and his friend Shawn, whose body was found just a few weeks ago in Switzerland after his disappearance. I can’t begin to understand how Ryan and Shawn’s family and friends are feeling right now after the funeral, but I do hope that they heal from this tragedy (especially my buddy Ryan). I hope we’re still up for that coffee on Thursday, man. Sam’s gonna come along too, so we’ll have an amazing threesome of dialogue (no innuendo or sexual terminology intended)!

Sorry for being so depressing. I just had to get that all said and written.

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On a lighter note, I’m still updating my sketchblog and Facebook album with more drawings. I always find drawing to be relaxing. It’s how I meditate. You’ll usually find me in perfect bliss if I’m listening to music on my own sketching up ideas…

Well, until then!