More Bookstore Cat news, and Ryan Larkin

Welch's has a new bookstore cat. Her name is Khan, as in "Star Trek." At the moment she's in isolation, and is being de-fleaed, so she hasn't had an official "coming out" yet. I hope she fills the position as well as her predecessor, and doesn't hiss and scratch the customers.

There's a project brewing to do with Rosie. More about this later.

I learned about Rosie's demise through Rick Trembles' cartoon in this week's Montreal Mirror [link]. When I was visiting with Welch today, reminiscing about the cat, and other things (like my time there at the bookstore), he pointed out an interesting thing about the cartoon. Note similarity in angle of the drawing of the store facade there with the image from the store's web page above. That's research for you!

We also talked about Ryan Larkin, who was and is a habitue of the bookstore. While I was a clerk there, I knew him well. Don't know if I'll tell any stories, because they're not many of them happy. He's still drawing, and it would be cool if the attention he's getting from the film about him winning an academy award puts him back on the straight and narrow. I have my doubts, unfortunately.

Rosie the Bookstore Cat

"I care nothing for you hapless beings. I, after all, have slept with the greats!"

Oh, man, Rosie the Bookstore Cat at S.W. Welch's is dead! I worked there for five years in the '90s, and she was a very affectionate creature (most of the time) who did her job well. I drew some pictures of her, as did a lot of other people who worked or shopped there. I'll look through my stack of old sketchbooks, and try to find one.

I remember in an idle moment pitching in her direction a large eraser Welch had on his desk. It hit her on the head (accident! I swear!), but ever after during that evening she sat on the table of books across from me, glaring with an expression of hatred remarkable to find in such a small, harmless-looking animal. Perhaps I can capture that, but she was in general a sweet cat.

Schwartzenkatzen

This is a scene from late in the Second World War, when the German Luftwaffe was sending up all sorts of strange experimental aircraft in the dying months of the war. Here is Jadglieutenant Werner Heifetz, formerly of the Hot Air Balloon and Goethe Appreciation society, being urged aboard for the maiden flight of the "Geschwindeschwartzenkatzen" experimental jet fighter.

Making all this stuff up saves on research time. Unfortunately, checking later after I drew this, his flying suit looks more British than German, and his parachute is way too small. Well, that's what they were doing late in the war, poor guy.

Iron Horse

There, that's much less scary. The motorcycle is not accurate, because I didn't have a photo reference, but it doesn't look too bad. I stuck the helmet in as an afterthought, because safety's important. However, despite the fact the kickstand is up (oops), I don't think she's going anywhere, immediately.

It's always tough to know when to stop on these things. You don't want to over-work it. But should the front tire be dark? I might put in a background, too. Wash is easier, but lately I've been making my little lines.

More and Unsettling Faces

Maybe soon I'll get off this kick of drawing these faces. I don't want them to get too neurotic. But they're just things I do for myself, when I'm not particularly inspired, or don't have a story to tell. So the fairly intense faces come up, also explosions and disasters. And cute animals. Don't know what that means psychologically, but I'm trying to get a rein on it to produce more popular things. Not to lose the edge, but channel it.

Party

I don't know, does this look like a fun party? It's just one of these group things I draw, to fill up the page. I'm bored just posting sketches here, but when I come here I'm usually in a poisonous mood, and don't want to share that. Other people are full of bloggy goodness. Follow them through some of the links at right, though not before looking at my pictures.

Been busy with translating, and writing proposals. I'd like to talk about this, but it's worky-worky, and I don't like spreading secrets. Still, I was pleased to be a little busy this week, though I've got a carpal tunnel thing happening, and have to take breaks from the computer. Probably a good thing, if it does that. I remember the time my computer completely broke down. I panicked, but ended up doing a lot of other cool things, when I might have been surfing the web reading articles on God knows what.

Swisss Misss

This is my try at inventing a human figure, and I suppose doing something slightly cheesecakey, which is different for me. It's not too bad, but she is slightly giraffe-necked. The more one practices with these sorts of things, the better one gets, but sometimes the improvement is only over a very long time.

I imagine if I just copied photos and other drawings it would have a much better "surface" finish, but this is just the way I bash around. Trying not to be an R. Crumb clone, either, though that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm not as hip or as biting as him, (or as popular), neither am I as preachy. Still, I admire his habit of getting it out there no matter what people may think. Even though that has calcified into a bit of a pose by now. Still, he walks the walk, and I love his stuff.

I've heard interesting stories about Crumb, which I am not going to pass on here. Anyhow, I doubt that I could have been published in Weirdo, because I don't have an attractive wife (don't have a wife at all, actually).

Still more drawings

As the title says. I'm busy with work, but always drawing. Usually before I go to bed, or else in the morning. Filling in all that cross-hatching is therapeutic.



I guess I'm going to continue putting these things up. Avoiding making any promises, but it might be cool to have an entire sketchbook, good and bad, on flickr. So, it's easy to scan these things as I do them, and I enjoy looking at them on the web. Don't know what harm it could do.

There's lots of nonsense I could write around these, but I think I'm just going to let hypothetical viewers come to their own conclusions, however erroneous or accurate those might be.



At bottom is an actual paying illustration, for the McGill reporter. It's from an old issue, so I don't think there are copyright problems. Worked hard last night on a couple of new ones for the next issue. So it was on my mind.

These are different, outside from my not choosing the content. They're obviously not as swirly and obsessive as the drawings I do for myself. I've got issues about "giving it away," which I'm still working on. I either do it too little, or too much. Obviously I haven't come to a conclusion about which is the best way to go, but as I said, I'm working on it.

In the Park

Lord Fox and his pet baby megalosaur in the park.

Mahler

Gustav Mahler. What more is there to say?

I've been to Vienna. Very pretty city. Of course, one doesn't get much of a sense parking in a Jugendhostel, and bowling around the RingenStrasse. Tried to get into the Schonbrunn museum where they have the Klimt and Egon Sheile (sorry, this blog thing misses all the accents and umlauts), but that was closed. Still, there were very pretty gold-leaf onion domes, and riding on the tramway gave one a sense of being in a teutonic but art-loving place.

Since this was 1983 (and I'm typing all this from memory, so forgive my lapses), there were gypsies, or who are now called the Romany, encamped in city parks. They had recently travelled there in their motor homes (in Europe, called 'caravans,' a word which retains more of that old-world flavour), and had pictures of Andropov, the then Premier of Russia, in the windshield. Or was that Gorbachev? I'll have to check.

Portraits

Bunch of faces from television. Some of them from a documentary special about Paris in the '20s. That's Gertrude Stein in the lower left corner.

For some reason, when you're right-handed, you draw faces facing towards the right more easily. At least I do, but I was talking with another artist who did faces, who felt the same way. So I tried to go against that here.