Glamour

In the meantime, another one of those strange-eyed women. This time with -er, Star Wars characters. I've also continued the puppy theme.

This one's lightly censored, so I don't get in trouble with the Flickr people. Not that I think many kids look at this, unless they're looking for Star Wars, or puppies. Or strange-eyed chicks surrounded by odd men.

Adventure

Will Dan escape in time from the dreaded puppy god Paal and its alluring high priestess Mary-La? We'll see!

Serious Girl

Gosh, where did she get that outfit? I guess she's a time traveller from the future. The background is taken vaguely from my wanderings in the Rosemont and Mile End areas of Montreal yesterday.

It's not "artistic," but I love drawing with a black ball-point pen. Goes in more directions than a crow-quill, and I can add tones without worrying about smearing and smudging.

Future Downtime

But being an astro-babe isn't all thrills and stunning vistas. Sometimes messy relationships to deal with. Why doesn't he buy her a drink?

The Future...

...will have robots and pretty girls, buildings, and flying saucers and stuff.

Artie Gold 1947-2007

More sad news of an obituary nature (something these web logs seem to do well). Artie Gold, who was an interesting but reclusive poet from the Vehicule era in Montreal poetry, is dead. He liked cats, and his beer. I only met him a couple of times, but have one of his books. Complicated poetry. Not your moon-noon-june stuff, and I'm not sure if you could get laid reciting it (if that ever happens outside of a Leonard Cohen-type fantasy.) He was periodically ill, and troubled, but a gentle guy.

We've missed his memorial get-together at the Word Bookstore last Wednesday, but he's having an estate sale, at his apartment on March 24. 7336 Sherbrooke St. West, Apt. 7.

Hope it's cool putting this, and the picture, courtesy Endre Farkas (at right), on the blog, but the e-mail containing it all said to pass it on. There are shelves of Antique Bottles, classical albums, and "incredible collectibles." And the money raised will go to hiring an archivist to catalogue his 20 boxes of literary papers.

Todd Swift on Artie: [link]
Brian Campbell has a poem of his: [link]

I'm always curious where the sketch books of mine will end up after an amount of time. Probably in the landfill, but I like to think they will pass on to some strange curio shop, and give somebody a moment's pause going through them. Of course, Robert Crumb's bought him a villa in France, but I haven't created any iconic images that are (or were) hanging in everyone's room.

Lotsa Work

Sorry for not posting more. If anyone's reading. Been working hard, but successfully, on the TV show. This is a mildly amusing drawing I scrawled while viewing one of the episodes. Honestly, it's not that boring!

Lotsa Lines

Hardly great drawings. Just scribbling with a black ballpoint pen until the paper's shiny and purple. Watching my Lord of the Rings set again, at least the supplements. Not because I'm a gigantic Lord of the Rings fan at the moment, but like all the artwork and model building they did. And of course, the cats are hanging out. You sometimes don't see the mistakes in drawing until you fill it in. But I didn't care that much, this time.

"Munky" is like "monkey," but more fun.

More Collaborations

Drawing at a bar can be fun. Here Rick Gagnon has finished some of my drawings. Above, it's a satanic-looking Orson Welles with Divine at the Cock and Bull Pub in Montreal!

Boggedy cat entering a room:



Rick drawing. Despite his looking a little stern in the shot, it's good times. We were playing our I-Pod tunes for each other.

Art on Walls

Still too busy writing to draw stuff. Still like putting new stuff on the blog. I have sort of a break this weekend, so there might be a few drawings.

In the meantime, maybe people would like to look at one of my walls. I think you can click on the photo and look at the "original" size to get a better look.

I throw stuff into frames and stick it up. Other things are items I think are cool. One kind of gets used to looking at things on the wall, and they are comfortable. So, I don't change them a lot.

Top left is a watercolour cartoon I did. Next to that, a kind of Cezanne-like treatment of my kitchen table, with dear, departed Magellan the black cat. The crummy paper has yellowed now, and the putty I used to stick it up has soaked in two spots of oil. Like an even older picture in the kitchen I might post some time, this has become an object lesson in what happens to cheap materials over time: let's say, 15 years, or so.

Below that is a watercolour I did of the old Russell's book store on Saint-Ambroise. Now torn down for the Montreal Convention centre. The guy in front looks a little like Harvey Kurtzman, but what he'd be doing in front of a Montreal bookstore is beyond me. Before the new building went up, this was a nice, grey New-Yorkish part of Montreal Harvey Kurtzman might have liked. Next door to Russell's was a groovy art/performance space I've forgotten the name of.

The poster kind of explains itself. Renaissance/Disney kitsch. The little panel on the lower right is by Luis Neves, a Latin alternative comic phenom, who maybe doesn't work hard enough, and also gives away his original art. It's a beautiful little scene, however, and one of his gifts.

(Translation of the text, thanks to a friend of mine - the French was beyond me this time -

"When you ain't got a damn penny, when you feel worse than s**t and nothing goes right, of course there's love...")


I buy old frames for cheap at garage sales. Flea markets are a little more difficult, because they want you to pay for the usually awful item that comes in the frame. I'm more into the frame and the glass, but I save interesting pictures for my friend Billy Mavreas, who runs an adventurous antique store.

Conjoined Cats

A rare condition. These used to be called "Siamese," but they're tabbies. They don't know if they're coming or going, and mostly run around in circles.

Mr. B. greets the dawn:



A different style of interaction:

Ask an Expert

"Ask an Expert," is back at the McGill faculty paper, and I'm doing illustrations for it again. Here's this week's contribution, for a question about daylight saving time coming early this year.