BookLust

Thingamaboob!

Yeah, I know, you're probably asking yourself, "What the hell is that girl smokin'?" But this post, as silly as it sounds, is very serious!

I'm thrilled to say that my pal Sandra Bell Lundy, creator of the comic strip Between Friends has created some flash animation clips with the characters from her strip, for the Canadian Cancer Society, with the message to women of a certain age to remember to get their yearly mammogram. Here's the first animation, and then you can continue to watch the two stories in the series.

Thingamaboob is a campaign from the Canadian Cancer Society to remind women aged 50-69 to go get their yearly mammograms. Yeah, it ain't exactly the most fun thing to do, but it's important. And if you're interested in Sandra's experience working with the Canadian Cancer Society in creating these animations, check out her great blog post. I'm so proud of Sandra, I could just burst.

A little personal note about, um, my boobs. Years ago, when I was 36, I was lying on the couch late at night, unable to sleep, and so started watching this interesting documentary about one woman's struggle with breast cancer, called My Left Breast. It got me thinking about breast cancer, of course, and so since I wasn't doing anything else at the time, I decided to give myself a breast exam while watching the documentary (confession: at that point in my life, I didn't do regular self-exams). And I'm not kidding, I found a lump. I don't remember the rest of the documentary, because, well, I was freakin' terrified. I made an appointment with my doctor PDQ, and long story short, after much poking and prodding (and my very first ever mammogram and breast ultrasound) and waiting and worrying and just general desperation, I was told that the lump was benign. But just to be on the safe side, I agreed to have the lump removed. And since that experience, I've had yearly mammograms and ultrasounds, and lately I've even had them twice a year (I'm one of those lucky gals who are at higher risk, never having had kids, and being blessed with big dense boobies).

So thank you, Sandra, for being part of such a great campaign, and hey – thanks for the reminder! Time to go check my boobies. And if you should be getting a mammogram, too, well – what are you waiting for?

Squat, Skinny, Buggy and Beady

Had a blast at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival today. Even got to see some cartoonist pals I haven't seen in a while (great people like Rina Piccolo, whom I haven't seen in ages!)

It was tons of fun drawing cartoons for the kids at the Owlkids Draw! event. Animator Nancy Beiman took some photos of me while I was showing the kids how I draw my cartoons.

I've never really thought in any great detail how I draw my cartoons – I just draw them. But while preparing for this presentation, I couldn't help but notice a pattern in my work. My characters are either squat or skinny, and their eyes are either buggy or beady. If you don't believe me, see for yourself:

What does this say about me? Maybe I don't wanna know.

Oh, and yes, some of those characters are indeed from my upcoming book The Pirate and the Penguin. Can't wait for September!

TCAF at TRL!

If yer in the city this weekend,  and yer a comic/cartoon freak, why pop by and say hi to me tomorrow (Sunday May 10th) at the Toronto Reference Library from 12:00pm–1:00pm. It's the Owlkids Kids Draw! I'll be part of the cartoonist panel who'll be drawing cartoons for kids, as part of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival.

How Many Editorial Cartoonists Does it Take to Change an Opinion?

Who knows? But it's an interesting question, don't ya think?

Hoo-boy...it's been a busy week. I guess by Mr. Harper's standards, I've just been gallivanting too goddam much lately. But I haven't consumed nearly enough cocktails, and last I checked, I wasn't on any televised gala events. But give me time, dammit, and I'll make Harper proud.

On Thursday September 25th, an amazing event took place. The very much revered caricature artist David Levine was at OCAD, to discuss his long and successful career as a painter and of course biting satirist. The evening was hosted by Canadian editorial cartoonist for the Globe and Mail, Brian Gable. Mr. Levine was gracious and friendly and very funny. I did not have the courage to speak to him, but it was enough just to be in the same room with such an icon in the cartooning/illustration field.

Here's a tiny sample of Levine's work. From left to right (just in case you don't know), George Orwell, Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence.

I could not help but notice the plethora of editorial cartoonists in the audience that night. I was sitting next to the hilarious Gary Clement (who is also a talented children's author/illustrator), and I also recognized Andy Donato, Susan Dewar and Patrick Corrigan. I made the flippant comment to my mother later that week that if a bomb had hit OCAD that night, there would be pretty much no more editorial cartoonists in Canada, and she told me to keep my mouth shut, I wouldn't want to give Harper any more goddam ideas.

Doug Wright Awards

Anyone here know who Doug Wright was? I sure remember. I read his comic strip religiously as a kid. And I thought it was so cool that such a talented cartoonist lived in the same city that I did at the time – Burlington, Ontario. He was an incredibly skilled cartoonist, with an amazing ability to create completely wordless comic strips week after week, for many, many years.

Well, four years ago freelance journalist Brad MacKay created the Doug Wright Awards, as a way to "cast a spotlight on the range of cartoonists and comic artists working in Canada." I attended the 4th annual awards ceremony Friday night, held at the Toronto Reference Library. My pal Johnny Martz was nominated for the Pigskin Peters award, and Lynn Johnston was being honoured with the Giants of the North award, an award that celebrates life-long contributions to the art of Cartooning in Canada.

It was a great night out, and I got to see some wonderful cartoon pals, was well as meet some new ones! Check out the blog post by animator Nancy Beiman, who wrote a very detailed piece about the evening.

I managed to get some photos of the evening (and if you've got a Facebook account, you can see more of my photos there). Lynn looked fabulous, and was very gracious and entertaining, as always.

Brilliant BOOX

Every now and then I'll come across a cartoonist who creates something that makes me say, dammit, I wish I'd thought of that! Well, it happened again a few days ago, when the wonderful Paula Becker emailed me this bloody brilliant comic strip called BOOX:

Apparently the cartoonist, Mark Alan Stamaty, creates this comic strip BOOX for the New York Times Book Review. Damn I wish I could read it on a regular basis. Or better yet, I wish he'd get a book published with all his NYT Book Review cartoons. This is cartoonist after my own heart. It's like my Art Imitating Lit series, only like, better and smarter. Now if only I could get a regular gig like lucky ol' Mr. Stamaty...

I'm Hungry For Books

I'm swamped with deadlines again, which means not only am I not posting enough, I'm not reading enough, either, darn it. But I did just finish a great book which I promise I'll talk about very soon. And there's lots of other ideas I'd love to talk about, if I can just find the time!

In the mean time, enjoy the latest card I created for my local bookstore in the Bloor West Village. My first batch sold out!

Who Knew I was a Slasher?

Many thanks to Isabella, for bringing this little gem to my attention! I've been distracted with this and that of late, so as a consequence I completely missed this little write-up in the Wired Blog about my Lethem and Chabon strip. In this interview with Lethem, he mentions that he'd love to be in a slash fiction story. As far as he knows, he's only been slashed once, by none other than moi. Boy do I feel uncool. I didn't even really know what slash fiction was, and apparently I've done it!

I love Lethem's description of my strip as  "a sublimated homoerotic comic that was just an inch away from being Kirk and Spock." Heh. And I'd never made the connection with the Kirk and Spock homoerotic thing in my strip before. That's another duo that I love, by the way. Maybe there's another strip there, somewhere...wait a minute, my brother and I already did that, though mind you, we neglected to add any homoerotic humour.

I leave you with this very silly cartoon of the Star Trek dudes, drawn many years ago. I found it a few weeks ago, when I was cleaning out all my old portfolio cases. Sorry for the crappy scan, but I had to scan it in sections, 'cuz it's this huge poster! For the life of me, I don't know what motivated me to create this. And why did I draw it in crayon? Only my therapist knows for sure...

May The Yam Be With You

Ever said to yourself when you encounter a great book, be it literary or comical, "Now why the heck didn't I think of this idea?" This is one of those times for me.

One of my cartoon buddies, Brian Fray, while grocery shopping one day, "decided that yams were kind of funny looking. And that the word "yam" was pretty funny, too." And so Brian took it upon himself to create a book of yam cartoons to prove his brilliant theory. The end result is silly, hilarious and quite frankly, YAM-azing. I'll never think of the the phrase Yama-Llama-Ding Dong in the same way ever again.

So get the book, yammit!

Too Fond of Books

This is what you do with your time when you're avoiding finishing up your taxes. But I planned on drawing this eventually, anyway. So why not now? Heh.

A while back I approached the manager of my local bookstore about selling some greeting cards in their small card section. He seems interested, but I'll have to bring in samples before he'll approve them. The other card I'm gonna try and sell is this one:

Hope he likes 'em! I'm obviously not doing this to make a ton of cash – I just wanted to share my artwork more with my local community, as well as express through my art my love of books. And if I can ever get myself really organized, I'll finally sign up with CafePress!