Voluntary service

Can literature change the world? Or should it be above the concerns of society? Philip Pullman argues that while writers have wider duties, they must be faithful servants of their stories

Long read but worth it, interesting perspective for storytellers.
Posted by Steve Lieber at ComicsPro originally.

Scrappy, the world famous WW2 super spy sets out on a mission with his commanding officer disguised as a SS officer and his prisoner. Their mission? To free the valiant prisoners of war.

These three pages illustrate that short paragraph. They are an early false start on the GN titled Dreamlife soon to appear online in monthly instalments.

click on pages to enlarge

Set up a blogg for my friend J,F,...

Was an inquiery recently on the TCJ about whats up with in the Montreal Comix Scene, this following info has been culled from My posts there
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Lets see, I’ll try to remember as many as I can here, apologies to those I forget, my brain is lousy for these things. The * indicate that I know a little bit more about them and their work than just a name, if I have the energy to I’ll post more on them later, though if Jamie or Francis (Hervieux, current publisher/editor of MensuHell) wanted to fill in I wouldn’t complain. Also I’ve included the names of artist who’s work I’ve seen in some local zines and publications like havreexquis (http://iquebec.ifrance.com/havreexquis/havreexquis.html) and MensuHell

Adam Tzemopoulos
Alysia Melnychuch
*Alexandre Cloutier-Turcotte
*Alex Fellows
Andrew Baines
Avary
Alain Renaud
*Billy Mavreas
*Bernie Mireault - http://www3.sympatico.ca/bem69/
*Bruno Rouyère
*Brad Simpson - http://www.enormouspublications.com/
*Bob Loblaw
Benoît Joly - http://www.pastis.org/mg/benoit.html
*Caro Caron
*Carlos Santos aka d.bilos
Dom Desbiens
*Dan Buller aka D.S.TURBO – member of www.hvw8.com
Dan Purcell
Dominic Bruyére
*Dan Villeneuve
*Eric Braun aka 106u - http://site.ifrance.com/106u/index.htm
*Éric Thériault - http://www.cam.org/%7Eveena/
Emilie Lemay
Eric Ouellet
Forg
Frank
Frédérick Valuis - Turcotte
Gino Pagiuca - petit Gi
Guillaume Forest - Guy Mauve
Guim
*Howard Chackowizc
*Hengy Fong – has a site, cant find url though
*Jimmy Beaulieu - http://www.pastis.org/mg/jimmy.html
*Jane Tremblay – Very good strip artist, works a character named the evil empress, she’s in PIN CITY
Julien Chung
*Julien Bakvis
*Jai Granofsky
*Josh Dolgin & *Jesse Brown - http://www.gorillacartoons.com/
*Jack Ruttan - http://www.axess.com/users/jackr/
*Jesse Bochner – Great satirist
Jean-Paul Eid
Jean Laurent
Jacques Boivin
*Kurt Beaulieu
Leif Tande - http://www.pastis.org/mg/leif.html
Luis Neves (don’t know much about him but he’s very good)
Luc Giard - http://www.pastis.org/mg/luc.html
*Michael Hind
Michèle Laframboise
M7
Marc Pageau
*Michel Lacombe - http://babyl.dyndns.org/%7Emichel/
*Melissa Di Menna
Nicolas Lamy’
*Niall Ecces
Olivier Martin
Pierre Côté
Phil Angers
PhlppGrrd - http://www.pastis.org/mg/phil.html
Philippe Gonyea
Pierre – Yves Clerson
*Peter Ferguson - http://www.threeinabox.com/petfer.html
*QUESNEL - http://www.clic.net/%7Etroglo/j-critik.htm
* Rupert bottenberg (amongst other things, the other guy who hosts comix jams in town, I started out by going to his. Very well informed on the local scene & history)
*Richard Gagnon
Robo
*Ray Pierrewit
Réjean Paré
* Rick Trembles - http://www.snubdom.com
* SWIZ - http://www.geocities.com/swizcorp
Sebastien Trahan - http://www.pastis.org/mg/sebas.html
Simon Banville
Simon Dupuis
Sabine Allaire
Shrü
Sirkowski - http://www.missdynamite.com
*Sherwin Tjia aka Sully - http://www.pedigreegirls.com/index.htm
*Steve Requin - http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Hollow/5445/Requin.Roll.html
*Tim Moerman
Turf
Trabendo
*Yanick Paquette - http://www.dsuper.net/%7Eyanick/

The jams today are much lower key, not nearly as entertaining by sceptical as those in the 90’s were.
But there is still a loose scene.
There are distinct groups who show up and almost always sit as groups and get a lot out of the evenings, and collaboration frequently results. And there is a lot of cross-pollination going on. I always think they feel their best when a lot of different members of the community show up. At least a few times a night people get right into it, & style, linguistic or ego driven barriers go out the window.

The Jam Zines are very much a result of a collective effort, though it less seldom coalesces into coherent stories than it could. Still there is association by publication, print runs in the low 100’s.

Organization wise though, largely due to my own poor delegation abilities there is frequently little more than me & Sandra. But I’m all for joining forces with some others to keep them up and make them interesting. I’ve been planning to collaborate with Francis more, he and Steve Requin before him have been unveiling the Monthly MensuHell at the jams semi-formally already for some time. The most recent issues of Mensuhell have been of a high calibre.
Both it and the Jam zines are stylistically quite diverse though, so depending on how you define a scene…?
Then there is the question of whether the scene sees it self as one? To be honest I’m not sure.

Anyway,

Some other collaborations going on
Sabine Allaire
Bob Loblaw
Ray Pierrewit
Together they publish a zine together named ‘Nom d’une Chienne!
Very good new talents in town
I’ll try to post some panels latter.
Published a very good 1year collection of there work for the Expozine
I’m not sure if it works but try
nom_dum_chien@yahoo.ca

Peter Ferguson & Carlos Santos have been collaborating a lot in general. I’d expect to see some cool stuff from them soon both together or otherwise.

There is the MensuHell contributors, as of the last issue that would be
-Francis Hervieux (ed)
-Michèle Laframboise
-Pierre–Yves Clerson
-4in
-Luis Neves
-Michel Lacombe
-Julien Chung
-Réjean Paré
-Éric Thériault
-Jack Ruttan
-Richard Gagnon
-Avary
-Kurt Beaulieu
-Philippe Gonyea
-Marc Pageau
-Sirkowski
-Alexandre Cloutier-Turcotte
-Marc Jetté – writes a monthly artist Biographie of local artists, it is on Valium this month indecently.
-Ningel
-Jacques Boivin

There have been many others.

I would note that Francis Hervieux, Michel Lacombe, Éric Thériault, Jack Ruttan, Richard Gagnon, Kurt Beaulieu & Alexandre Cloutier-Turcotte of the above mentioned tend to function as a group at the jams every month. Often along with Tim Moerman, Steve Requin (previous ed), Mr SWIZ, Rupert bottenberg when he shows up, Jane Tremblay, Jimmy Beaulieu, Howard Chackowizc, Guy Mauve, Caro Caron, Guim…a bunch more that I just don’t have time to list right now.

They have all had a visible effect on each other’s work over the years.
Represents what is frequently labelled as the ‘French table’ by newcomers to the jams.
Truthfully like the city, a ‘mixed group’.

There are of pockets student age artist who have been showing up as groups, some decided cliques but I’m not sure how tightly artistically connected they are.
Time will tell.

There is also a very comprehensive list of groups posted by Jamie Salomon of Crunchy Comics Publishing on the thread. the following is an excerpt.

"The Méchanique Génèrale line from Mille-Iles is a closed collective that has some similarities to Actus, except they don't publish their own books. The collection director is Jimmy Beaulieu, and some of the other artists are PhlppGrrd, Leif Tande/Eric Asselin, and Benoit Joly.

L'Oie de Cravan and La Pastèque are two other French-language publishers. L'OdC also puts out poetry books, and have published a couple of books by Geneviève Castrée that seem to have made the rounds. La Pastèque is a growing publisher that includes Quebecois, American, and European artists. They "discovered" Michel Rabagliati.

Crunchy Comics (me) and Conundrum Press are English publishers. We co-published Overlords of Glee last year. Conundrum actually is more active in the lit scene, but have very recently put out a book by TO-based cartoonist Marc Ngui.

Other publishers of alternative-type comics include the Zone Convective line from Mille-Iles, through which Eric Braün has published two collections of his silent strips and Éditions Kami-Case. Zone Convective used to be an independent publishing house that was a continuation of Éditions Phylactères. There's also something called 400 Coups that out out an adaptation of Ubu Roi last year, but I never figured out exactly what their story is.

Eric Braün pubishes an increasingly international anthology of wordless comics called 106U (the title is homologous to "sans issue", French for "no exit"). The last one had some color pages of people's non-comics art, like Valium's paintings and Hélène Brosseau's papier-macher monster sculptures. The next one is going to be a doozy - something like 200 pages with a molded latex cover by Braün and Rick Trembles."

The Tie Painted Per Foot

Arriving in the Ground of your died ancestors, one should be put at the current of the salesmen of displacement of plaid costumes of hammer-point and the ties painted per foot.

The Tie painted per foot being an element very rare, and being provided by well lit businessmen held in the underground malls.

They are painted by little debutantes with their naked feet functioning in addition to credit available on the cards of American Express of their Daddies. It is a sure sign of a man without scruples, of confidence, and will most probably try to convince you that he is especially your God - a truth

And with that I christen a satellite web page here. It integrates my Blogg with a small version of my Portfolio and a Yahoo group for talking to people silly enough to post there.

Been a while in the coming, but WORKING FOR THE MAN is out and online now. It's a huge anthology of comix art dedicated to helping out a fellow artist in hard times, William Messner-Loebs and his family. You can read more than 100 pages of stories and sketches for only $9.95us what more do you want?

Not sold? ok here are some samples of what is in the book
My girl A.J. Duric & I did a story in it titled 'Helpless', you can see two sample pages of that here

There are more samples of the book as well as info on the Loebs here

now go get it! :)

Updated my illustration portfolio today

NEW WORK : doing some illustration in the next issue of Kitchen Sink, Accompanying an article on trends in recent popular war moves by Arne Johnson.

Also, goofing around recently i did this.

I found this book in a $1 dollar bin a few years back. It's truly a masterwork of inspired lunacy that all children will love and most adult should read, even if they don't get it. Right up there with Sendak's 'Where the wild things are' & 'the night kitchen'. I wanted to share it with a recent acquaintance by email, so i looked it up online to see if i could send him a link as to where he might find it. So i pluged it's name into Google, "who needs donuts?" by Mark Alan Stamaty'...

...turns out it's out of print. But not just that, it's also becoming quite valuable, worth a couple of hundred US now on Ebay.

Look out, the next speculators market will be in children’s books! Ack!

Very silly. To bad, cus this is a book that should be read, not valued. what’s most ironic is that at the ending of the book, Sam, a young boy who has spent the entire story in search of donuts, amassing a huge collection, apparently not to eat, just to have, then saves an old woman drowning in coffee by dumping all the donuts in the coffee, soaking it all up. Grateful she offers the young hero her meager life savings to buy more donuts. Sam, who has learned a thing or two from the beginning of the book, says no thanks, "who needs donuts? I've got Love" and rides home on his tricycle.

As tempting as the $200us profit is against the $1cn it cost, to sell it to a collector seems, just wrong.

A how to by Salgood Sam

Artist wanting to give line work tone or shadows in the past would often resort to using what is commonly known as Zipatone, sheets of transparent adhesive plastic sheets with dot screens printed on them. You would cut out sections of the sheet and place it on the art. It works quite well but aside from being messy to work with and expensive, it’s also not commonly available anymore in most places. Having been made obsolete by improved printing capacities and Photoshop.

A question that comes up though amongst artist is what is the best way to use Photoshop to create this effect. After some experimenting I’ve come up with what I think is a very effective method

Zipatone effects in Photoshop:

1.Scan your art into Photoshop as a high rez grey scale image, I usually go for 400 to 600 dpi size as (printed).

[ Aside on scanning: Most commercial colour or tonal printing uses a 300 dot screen so anything higher rez aside from hard edged line work is lost information, & by scanning grey scale the lines are extrapolated so they don’t get hard jaggy edges either. You can scan high rez (1200) bitmap and then convert to lower rex grey scale, but I find this to be a waste of time, as the results look the same to me either way. line work scanned at 300 dpi grey scale terns out a bit blurry so I start at 400 to give the surpluses of info that will guarantee a clean printing, and if the paper quality is high enough to merit it 500 to 600 will give you excellent results.

Some suggest going for 1200 bit map or greyscale scans. But unless you’re printing B&W on high grade glossy, it’s a waste of the computer processing time that the massive files this tends to result in will cause on all but the fastest boxes, and you won’t see the results on the paper, often even if it is hgB&W on gloss. ]

Once you have scanned the images into Photoshop fix your Levels till the image is as crisp as you want it. At this point by jogging the three shifters you can either play up paper textures that may have been picked up in the scan or eliminate them. Also I like to Set final document size & bleeds, crop marks, all that crap at this point so I can see exactly what I’m working with.




2.Now create a new layer on top of your art and set it to multiply or darken, I favour multiply for this trick.

Using grays only, on the new layer paint or fill in the areas you want to tone.

You can do flat tones that will turn out like typical zipatone.

Even gradations that will translate to same effect the light to dark graded sheets give.

You can use a wacom pad and paint in organic tones, or, If you want a more old fashion by-the-hand look you can do this on paper (I use a light box with a photocopy of the art under the working sheet) and scan it in as a separate layer, then just drop in on top of the line art set to multiply or darken.

Also you can use samples of textures or patterns, whatever. Anything that has tonal value can work here.




3.Now, working on the layer with the tones only, go to -filter/pixilate/color halftone-.
Set all the channels to 45 or whatever angle you want your dots on, and pick a max dot size (this may take a few passes to find the right size) and tada, halftones!




You can use the eraser tool now to clean up stuff (you may end up with stray dots in places), do scratch away type effects, whatever.

Once that’s done flatten the page and save out a final version. (I always save an unflattened version so I can go back and edit it if I need/want to)

Got over the hump on Pin City last night, feels good to be getting somewhere with that. Flipping through one of my older sketch books i found this old drawing of one of Joseph's co-workers, thought I'd through it up here.

Scanning the news...
While they continue scrape oil off the coast of Spain and governments drag their feet ever slower towards doing at least the least about the environment, we now get yet one more bit of evidence in the monster pile that suggests we are slowly choking on our own shit. Only too apropriate that we feel it in our colons.

Well, i'm off to sign up for Ti Chi, see if i can't do at least something good for my self.