February Montreal Comic Jam

It seems as if the new cheap-beer venue, plus some more vigorous promotion on Facebook and other places, is helping the Montreal comic Jam catch on again. Nice crowd in the otherwise very quiet Bar des Pins last night, Thursday Feb 28, even though it was a very cold night.

Here's Fanie Grégoire (r) and her friend, to whom I was introduced, but forgot to write down her name. We need "sign-in" sheets again.


Olivier and Yan, being monkeys.


Yan with one of his intricate cityscapes and Tim Burton-esque characters, which he does sometimes for Ubisoft. greentea.canalblog.com


Maïté www.minikim.net who does the spiffy illustrating for that book Alta Donna, in front of her there.


Shane Simmons, whom I haven't seen at one of these in maybe a year!

Here are a couple of my sketches of the participants:

Shane:


Yan:


Here's a [link] to the full flickr photo set of pictures I took. People were peeved at my flashing away, but I hope they're happy now with a record of the night. Apologies to those good artists at the other table I didn't snap. I hope to have a couple of sample pages of jams to put up here. Thanks to all who showed up, and see you again at the end of March!

Final Day of Court (yesterday!)

A high-powered law guy, who came to listen.

This all went down yesterday, but I was so burnt out by hanging around in a court room for three days (nothing like the effort Me. Goulet made to prepare and conduct her case on the part of freelance writers!). Here's what we sent to the membership:

This afternoon, Me. Mirielle Goulet made her rebuttal to arguments by high-profile lawyers on the final day of the Electronic Rights Defence Committee's class action authorization hearing. Now the case goes under advisement, and we can do nothing but wait for Judge Eva Petras' word as to whether the class action goes ahead. She has six months to render her judgment, but decisions can come more quickly than that. We'll let you know at the first opportunity. As Judge Petras said when summing up, "it's not quite so easy."

Much appreciation is due to the freelancers who took time out to show up at the hearing and support Me. Goulet's efforts. David Homel, who is the poster boy for our side, deserves special thanks for his assiduity. Unlike the lawyers on the other side, none of us were being paid to be there.

More later.

Jack Ruttan, ERDC secretary

Mary Soderstrom, ERDC President

I kept awake much of the time by drawing, so here are some sketches:

This is the other side, with its defense.


Here's our side, rebutting their side. Go Mirielle!


An angry lawyer and a kute (tm) kitty:


More action of a different kind, tomorrow, because tonight is the monthly Montreal Comic Jam!

More of the Usual

A little blogging in the morning before a bath, and then back to the freelancers' class action hearing (see below). My computer's been screwed up with viruses and the like. It's as if there are pornographers and casino types holding a raucous party inside, and they want to sell me tickets to it. Once in a while, Internet Explorer pops up with another 'exciting' offer, and the machine is wonky. I don't use explorer, but can't delete it, because some stupid services still will only work with it alone. There are solutions to all these problems, but I'm unhappy about the situation, even though the machine is working at the moment.

Montreal, from the Palais du Justice

A pretty blog post from Mary Soderstrom, one of my colleagues in the ERDC class action for electronic rights for freelancers (please read below) reminded me that I had taken this picture from the window near the courtroom where all the 'drama' is taking place.


At right is Notre Dame Cathedral, while that ship-like building in the back is the Five Roses Flour Mill. (called it "Robin Hood" at first, but that's further down the road!)

A court presentation is mainly hours of boredom punctuated by moments of high emotion. They don't put this all on TV. Just the exciting stuff.

ERDC Authorization hearings, Day Two

Gosh, I was in court all day with the below, and the scanner isn't ready at the moment for graphical stuff (Mainly I've been drawing silly pictures of real people, and don't want to spread them around too much). So here's the update of what was happening. Wednesday will be the last day.

Lawyers for the opposition took the floor today at the Electronic Rights
Defense Committee class action authorization hearings. Some harsh
things were said. For example, it was alleged that the ERDC was not a
serious group, and consisted of only a handful of "hard core" members.

The opposition will continue for part of tomorrow (Wednesday), but our
representative, Me. Mireille Goulet, will have her time for a rebuttal.
After that, it's up to Judge Eva Petras, but she is unlikely to hand
down her decision immediately. Whatever happens, we'll keep you posted.

Having members of the freelance writing community present at the hearing
is important, and helps our case. Please turn out for the final day of
hearings, tomorrow, Wednesday
February 27, 2008, at the Palais de Justice Montreal, 1 Notre Dame East
(between Notre Dame and St. Jacques at boul. St. Laurent - Metro Place
des Armes), 16th floor, Room 16.01 at 9:15 am, on the dot. There will be a
break for
lunch about 12:30 p.m., and the hearing will resume about 2:15 p.m.

Electronic Rights Class Action Court Date, and Water

This is what I've been doing today.


Here's a note I've sent out to Canadian freelance writers, as Secretary of the Electronic Rights Defense Committee. I'll explain more about what that is later. But for now, here's the update from today.

Monday, February 25, 2008 6:30 p.m.

Today the authorization hearing for the Electronic Rights Defence
Committee's class action on behalf of freelancers kicked off at the
Palais de Justice in Montreal with Me. Mireille Goulet in fine form.
The defendants in the case, which goes back more than 10 years, are the
Montreal Gazette Group, CanWest Global Communications, Hollinger
Canadian Publishing Holdings, CanWest Interactive, Southam and Southam
Business Communications, Infomart Dialog and Cedrom-SNI.

Representatives from the Professional Writers Association of Canada
(PWAC), Quebec Writers Federation (QWF,) the Writers' Union of Canada
(TWUC) and the Union des Écrivaines et des
Écrivains Québécois (UNEQ) testified as to the case's importance to
Canadian freelancers. Heather Robertson, whose class action case on
similar electronic rights issues against the Thomson chain reached the
Canadian Supreme Court, also sent her good wishes.

But the hearing continues tomorrow morning, and Wednesday as well. We
urge writers to show their support by attending the hearings. Tuesday's
session will begin at 9:15 a.m. in Room 16.01 at the Palais de Justice
Montreal, 1 Notre Dame East (between Notre Dame and St. Jacques at
boul. St. Laurent - Metro Place des Armes), Room 16.01

Please come out, and support the cause of freelancers and electronic rights
across Canada.

Jack Ruttan, ERDC Secretary

Mary Soderstrom, ERDC President

Writer Mary Soderstrom, on her excellent blog, posted the call to arms, so I feel as if I've been too shy writing about this myself. Please come to the Palais de Justice in Montreal, and support freelance writers!

Kept awake during the court hearing by drawing a lot. This is all I feel comfortable putting up at the moment.

Groovy Space People

Groovy space people and the spaceships they fly in. (on very thin paper)

By the Light of the All-Seeing Eye of Agamotto!

Rover, by myself, and R. Gagnon.

It was fun and games as usual at the Cock N' Bull bar last night. Though we showed up an hour earlier than our usual time. I'm a little leery of being thought of as a 'regular' in a place where the regulars are mainly very grotesque and broken down (the clientele is a combination of these, and a variety of students from nearby Concordia University). Plus, I'm a freelancer, and weekends don't have the same meaning to me that they used to. But Rick gets me out, and I'm usually happy that he does.

We have a table we usually get, next two a couple of groovy, smart old men, who do crosswords and read the "New Yorker," (passing these and other magazines along to their friends in an informal but complicated system). They're kind of bemused by our geek movie and comic talk, enthusiastic drawing, and sharing tunes on our iPod (again, the comics and the iPod were things Gagnon introduced to me. I'm not nearly as passionate a collector as he, and he loves to share). But, I suppose we're entertaining, and fill up the chairs, keeping away worse company.

Anyhow, Richard gave my sketch of Clea, Dr. Strange's squeeze, a fun Ditko-inspired "Dark Dimension" to get lost in. Note the Mindless One (reading Reader's Digest, which is pretty mindless), and the Demon's collection of masks from the Other Side of Nowhere.


Meanwhile on planet Earth, I contented myself with sketching a few of the folk at other tables:

Bangkok

Nothing too ambitious. Just wish I was back in Bangkok at the moment, on my terrasse.

Dr. Strange Days

Dr. Strange's girlfriend.

Reading Volume One (the only volume the Central Library had) of "Marvel Masterworks" Dr. Strange. Amazing the weirdness Steve Ditko was able to pack into very simple drawings in a very tight space.

What now seems a long time ago, R. Gagnon and I collaborated on an homage to the Ditko-inspired Dr. Strange stories, which you can read here. Rick is the big comics fan and collector, who turned me on to this. He also did the delicious colours in the strip. I added my own strangeness (doing the pencilling, layout, and most of the writing).

From the Dawn of Time

Just a couple of pics on a faintly palaeontological theme.


I always had trouble drawing tyrannosaurus legs as a kid. I'm unhappy that these seem to bend in different directions. Probably easy enough to fix ...

Foggy Highway

Colour and Loose

Doing some watercolours here, with ink outlines, trying to absorb some of ideas from the other artists who have had their work posted here.



Below, I completely forgot about this, but here is a fantastically loose interpretation made last Friday by R. Gagnon over my pencil drawing of the "real" Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. It's about as scratchy as Gagnon gets.

Long Phone Call

Some of my friends like to make long phone calls. Me, not so much. But while listening to one this afternoon, I drew this guy.

Just Another Sketch

All Gagnon, all the Night

Didn't do a lot of drawing myself, this last Friday night at the Cock N' Bull Bar, because R. Gagnon was monopolising my sketchbooks. Above is a watercolour and brush pen portrait by Rick of a neighbour. Good way to get invited to her and her friends' table!

This is a gangster that I drew and Rick inked:


Rare for us, we stuck around when the band struck up. Here's Rick's solo take on the drummer:


And another nearby sitter, by Rick. He didn't invite us to his table, which is fine by me!

Trying Bigger Things

Gosh, doing large scale watercolour pictures, like the one above, is tough. Lot of elements to go wrong. I usually just start in a spot and begin drawing things. Then apply colour wherever, according to an image I have in my head. Like writing a novel, the bigger the picture, the harder it is to keep in there. So, you need aids, such as a colour study (maybe a more limited palette), thumbnails, reference photos, practice and knowledge. Just winging it, for me, with my particular level of talent, doesn't always work.

And these things take a long time! Still, I call it a learning experience. I could do nothing from now on but cute pussy cats, and small drawings with black outlines, and be more technically successful and appealing. But I get bored doing just one thing. Want to branch out, try difficult things. Challenges. So, that means a lot of potential falling on one's face. What the heck. I wonder where I'd be if I went to an illustration school, or did only this, and not the writing? Despite a lot of self-criticism, I'm happy with the abilities I've got.

Here are what are to me more successful, and charming images: tough guys, and a horsie.

Too Fluffy, Too Tall

These kinds of cats kill me. One, from a popular blog, is fluffy and grumpy. The other, based on my guy, looks ridiculously proud of himself, and ready for a parade.

More Characters

More characters from the sketchbook. Billy is a good boy, who's only occasionally murderously violent. And only if you provoke him, by making eye contact, for instance. Or looking away from him. In the back is Catriona, a character from the eerily lovely and affecting 1940s film I Know Where I'm Going by Powell and Pressburger.

The B-29 Superfortress up top seems to have been specially modified to shoot off its own propellors.

Below, continuing the theme of men with their dogs:

More Sketchiness

Still have drawings I dashed off with the brush pen from the Dr. Sketchy drawing session in my watercolour book. I'm posting them as I splash bits of colour on them.

Popeye and a Zeppelin

Drawn late at night, again in bed, with no reference pictures, I thought this was too off-the wall to post. But my friend liked it, so what the heck.

It's Popeye, Swee'Pea, a zeppelin, plus a generic Montana tiny town. The name on the zeppelin is "Nicht Hinelhausen," which means (I think) "don't lean out the window" in German.

Gagnon Sunday

--drawing by Richard Gagnon and Jack Ruttan

Big change in routine this time: Gagnon Friday, my meeting, chatting and sketching time with a friend, fell on a Sunday night. And I'm only getting to it Tuesday.

Rick G. had called as I was riding on the metro (lucky he got through: I was stopped at a station with cell reception), said he'd be late. When I arrived, the Bar des Pins was full of balloons. I thought it was a birthday party, but it turned out to be a reception, or launching-off, for a hockey game at the University. The old bald server guy told me the place would be buzzing tonight.

He was wrong. Some aspect of the bar fell short for the head organiser, a tall guy with a loud, reedy voice ("People! People! (clapping hands) Now let's get read-ay!"), and he had 'his bitches,' which is what he called the girls who had done the decorating, take everything down, and move it out the door to a more stylish place. Maybe the surfer-themed bar in the shopping centre across the way.

So no big crowds, which was fine by me, though Rick thought the server would be disappointed. I'm not sure. No rushing around to do, no noise, no big clean-up. And this place had been around for over 50 years, I imagine. That's a lot of slow Sunday nights. Gagnon and I drew the usual pictures, and finished a large crossword.

Instead of college kids, there was a man with a very pretty black cocker spaniel that liked to fetch pool balls:

Looks a bit like one of those sheared sheep coats that cost a lot of money in antique clothing stores.

Here's another collaborative sketch. That's not Gagnon, only someone like him, doing what he does. And the place always smells of cigarettes:

Dr. Sketchy Redux

More from my Saturday at Dr. Sketchy. I was pretty tired after drawing frantically for three hours. Chatted with the model at the finish, and she was pretty tired after posing all that time! This was her first experience as a life model, I gathered. I think if you do it more often, you develop stamina which helps you hold some poses more comfortably over long intervals.


She's thinner than this. I guess I can say in defense I was making her R. Crumb-like.

One thing, when I'm working hard on a drawing, all sense of the model as a sex object goes out the window. It becomes more of a problem of geometry, trying to get all the shapes to work, and see the relation of things. Then afterwards, hopefully, hubba-hubba, but I don't think I'm habitually a "good girl" artist. Though certainly like drawing "cute."


Lots of women drawing in the audience. That's supposed to be a guy, lower centre, looking close at his paper.


She was totally smashing, and sitting next to me for a time. She didn't seem to mind my drawing her.

Don't know if I'm coming back right away. It was a little crowded, and I had to be a bit of a pain to find a good location (but I was late). Still, pretty good discipline for someone such as me, having to perfect my human figures. So, who knows?

Dr. Sketchy

Went to the Dr. Sketchy burlesque life drawing session the other day. Was lost, didn't have the address or name of the theatre, but saw this person undulating in a window.

She pointed me in the right direction, which happened to be across the street. Her, and her male counterpart (whom you can see in my flickr set) happened to be an entirely unrelated burlesque-style event. (UDPDATE: her name, from her card, is Mlle. Oui Oui Encore, and you can look up her and her partner at Blue Light Burlesque.)

I climbed the stairs, paid my ten dollars. What greeted me looked like a regular drawing class, except much more crowded. Took one of the last folding chairs, and saw an empty space at the front by the wall, where no one had went because someone had set up an elaborate computer with drawing tablet, and it was hard to get past the wires.

Managed it, and after warming up, was able to do a few drawings.

That's me in the right hand corner, from the big mirror. This was usually a rehearsal studio.



This is our model, Miss Lexie Von Hagen. [link to her myspace page, but don't say I didn't warn you!]



It was years since I've been in a room drawing a model. Tried out lots of different drawing implements. This is pencil with black gouache and a Chinese brush:


And my trusty brush pen, with watercolour washes. Here she looks more pissed off than she was. These were the short poses (5 minutes or less):


I was as interested in the crowd as I was in the model. when not drawing her, or she shifted to a lousy angle, I sketched the people around her.

More drawings tomorrow! If you're impatient, the whole thing is in the flickr set, or on facebook.

Ugly Cats, and Spies

Gosh, I haven't been posting at my usual feverish volume the last two days. No bar meeting and drawing the other night, but I am going to this event today: [link]. So, will have something about that, later, unless decide not to go, or totally do awful drawings. In the meantime, here's an unflattering picture of one of the cats:

Not so pretty and poised now, eh, Miz B.?
(A possible "LOLCAT" caption could be: "Your offering disgusts Godfather Kitteh." Or: "LURP LURP LURP LURP")

Also, tonight on the Discovery Channel in Canada, is the premiere of the second of three episodes of the TV show "What's That About?" I wrote. This one is "Spies and Security Ops." I recommend seeing it, especially if you love guns, fast driving, and things that go "boom!" (I seem to love One and Three. Two, not so much!)

Tonight, (Saturday) at 7 pm eastern, Discovery Canada.

American T.V.

...As opposed to our pitiful showing of home-grown product (oh, that's too harsh. They pay my bills. Say, smaller-scale). Here is charming Irish rogue and terrible actor, Colin Farrell.


These next are supposed to be Garrison Keillor and Stephen Colbert. Still have a ways to go in catching a likeness, but I'm a little more confident now, giving names instead of calling them "faces seen on T.V."


Below, Mistress Boggedy sits for her portrait. Most of my furniture coverings are Boggedy coloured, as to not show the shedded hair. But I do vacuum a lot.

Late 18th Century: Switzerland

Pasted together copies of this "slutty national costume" character I drew, following a design in an old book Historic Costume in Pictures by Braun & Schneider. I think she makes a wild 'kick line.'

Below, inspired by Nicolas P. further down, I splashed some highly intense watercolours while watching Rules of Attraction, a good movie about the dark underside of those "American Pie" college comedies. Halfway through, thought it was totally ruined, but now I kind of like it.

A Pile of Drawings

Work isn't going so well, so here are a pile of drawings. Some of these sit around in pencil for a long while, and I finish them, and post them here.

Concerning the above, years back in Calgary, I had a chance to design space ships for someone's short film I don't think was ever made (that was around the time when "Star Wars" first came out). But the guy did have a volkswagen-size fibreglas egg in his father's garage for a long while.

I was reading a lot of science fiction at the time, and so I imagine my space ship designs were better back then. Here, it's mostly putting together vaguely streamlined shapes, and other items while watching Star Wars Part II. Not a brilliant movie (but not much worse than 1950s costume spectacles) and I've always loved models and special effects.

Beware the dreaded Giant Astro Cat!

Below, a sketch made while watching the bad hit-person film Domino.



Next, something I drew in bed before turning out the lights. Lucky it held together, because no pencil drawing underneath!



Finally, I added ink to a sketch R. Gagnon made, doing a riff on a curious menu item he was describing to me. M. Gagnon's a confirmed vegan, but he's good enough to keep it out of the conversation most of the time. Though I wonder what goes on in his head, and whether he will snap some day.

Science Fiction

Max Railhead is unimpressed as Prefect Snuxxx Blaar tells him tales of the wondrous pleasure satellite of Rumpus VI.

More Jammin'

As promised, more from last week's Montreal Comic Jam, at the Bar des Pins last Thursday. These try to be the last Thursday (I suppose) of every month. If you want to sign up for notifications, please join the Montreal Comix Jam on Yahoo Groups -- another of those things to sign up for.

Anyhow, here's a page of portraits of jam participants I started. It's interesting trying to keep a likeness when someone else is interpreting your pencil drawing. But Nicolas drew me all himself on the right hand side of the second row. I look more nerdy than I thought, but Nico is probably getting even for my making him into a brain-damaged hobbit in the upper left. Proper attributions are there if you click on the image.



And below, the rest of the brilliant drawings Nicholas Plamondon made in my watercolour sketchbook. Part of me is jealous of their boldness, but like Rick's drawings, and many of the other skilled artists at the jams, they inspire me to try different things and improve my own work.

Another Day, Another Bar

Somewhat late here. After going to a bar last Thursday, and drawing comics, the next night I met with my friend R. Gagnon at another bar - and drew comics. I was feeling slightly under the weather and sorry for myself, but Richard carried the ball. Above he's painting away with my paint box at one of his drawings I've posted before (and flipped), and here's the result:



There was some sort of altercation next to us, which I resolutely refused to pay attention to (maybe not wise: what if a missile or body came our way?). It was over some guy wanting to pick up a cute dog people had brought in.

This isn't the dog, or the person who was doing the shouting, but the incident inspired Rick and I:



We must have been feeling a little cynical (or reacting to the dismemberment idea), because soon we were drawing pictures with our wrong hands. Here's a Charles Bronson Character Rick drew on the back of his veggie burger placemat:



While Richard's good inking hand (he's a leftie) makes my left-handed drawing of this Simon Lebon-like character look good:



Finally, Gagnon was doing quick sketches of Video Lottery players to impress a pair of giggling girls:



But for me, the scene seemed more like this:


Well, not really. Getting out generally cheers me up. This evening, I'm going to post the rest of last week's comic jam drawings. Then, it's back to whatever I can come up with on my own.

Comic Jam Fun

Had fun at the Montreal Comic Jam last night. Not that it's sometimes a drag, but I don't always do my best work at these. The Montreal Comic Jam was started in the 1990s by Rupert Bottenberg, and then revived later in Mile End by Salgood Sam.

It's shrunk down a lot since Salgood was running it, basically turning into a meeting of a few of my friends. We weren't always working on producing collaborative artwork, more talking and sharing things.

Last night was the first Jam at a new location. The Bar Des Pins, which Richard Gagnon and I discovered for one of our own get-togethers. Rick liked the atmosphere (he's nuts about these "old man" bars) and so suggested this as a neat place to hold the jam. The previous location -L'Utopik- closed down, despite being packed every night. The Pine Bar is smelly, but the beer is cheap, especially on nights when the Canadiens are playing on the tele.

Here's our group. Basically the usual suspects:


Click on the pic above to see the names, and a couple more pictures, as well.

Jane Tremblay has been managing the jam. She's usually facing away from the camera, so I made a point of taking a nice picture of her:


Here's a standard Jam page. Not the greatest art, and added to over a period of meetings stretching over months. I had actually forgotten ever drawing the next to last panel. Looked over someone's shoulder thinking, oh, "somebody's doing hatching." Then realised the drawing was mine, from more than a few months back:



For translations, and attributions to the various artists, please click on the image and read the "flickr" page.

One new face at the table was Nicolas Plamondon. A young artist, kind of a kid prodigy. Thankfully he had had his 18th birthday a couple of weeks ago, so it was legal for him to be in the bar.

I showed him my watercolour sketchbook and paints. Asked him to do a sketch for me.

Nico painting:


Here's the result, kind of a riff on the late Heath Ledger as the Joker:



Nicola hadn't done watercolours before, (or hadn't done them for a long time, my French is lousy). But he was so excited by the medium, he spent the whole night filling my sketchbook. Here's another page:



It's such a treat seeing someone so excited about drawing, especially with a new medium. That's what the Jam is all about.

Anyhow, this post is getting long, but there's more I want to show you. Lots more great drawings by Nico, and some more of my own sketches, worked on by others. That will go in another post, tomorrow most likely (They're on flickr right now, if you can't wait, Just click on the images above). In the meantime, there's more beer to drink tonight, and drawings to draw with my friend R. Gagnon, which I'll also put up Saturday. Later!