Friday, December 31, 2010

Now available in 'Toon Town



And by Toon Town, I of course am referring to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in Canada. I was up in Saskatoon rather recently to attend a reunion of sorts with some of my animation school buds. While I was there I decided to shop my comic book around to any stores in the area. In a strong contrast to my reception in Regina, they were much more enthusiastic and encouraging. In Regina, I was told "this [independent] stuff just doesn't move". In Saskatoon, I was told, "this girl brought her comic in to us and it sold and sold and sold. People were constantly asking for it." Well, I guess that shows you, if you want to sell a comic book in Saskatchewan then Saskatoon is the better place to be.








Here are the stores I sold my comic to in Toon Town:



8th Street Comics and Books


1006 8th Street E.


Saskatoon, Saskatchewan





Unreal City

139 2nd Ave. N


Saskatoon, Saskatchewan





In fact, the guy who worked at Unreal City seemed very enthusiastic about seeing my work. He even said that he would welcome any other comics I make in the future. He's just one of the many individuals in Saskatoon who will do anything within his power to help local artists (even artists who used to be local). He told me his name is Theo. I couldn't find a picture of him, so this one will have to do.




If you see him at Unreal City or someone similar, tell him David Germain says "hi".


Oh, hey, speaking of local artists. I discovered one when I was up there in toon town. Theo was showing me the independent comic section of his store and pulled out a comic done by Elaine Will. It was volume 1 of her graphic novel of sorts called Look Straight Ahead. It is so close to professional you'd swear Elaine lives on a big pile of money right now. Here's the front cover:

You can learn more about this comic and future issues here at her blog : lookstraightahead.blogspot.com
Hooray for free enterprise!!!

Saturday, December 18, 2010

WOW! What a deal!!

My comic book can now be found in another book store as of today. Just this afternoon I sold some copies to Phoenix Comics & Books located on 2105 Broad St. in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

They'll be selling it for quite a bargain too. As you can see, online Jesus Needs Help is on sale for a whole $9.15. But, over there at Phoenix Comics & Books, they will be selling it for just $1. That's a whopping 90.85% off the regular price. However, it's probably only a good bargain for you if you happen to live in Regina. If you live anywhere else in the world, the price of gas and/or air fare would ruin an otherwise fine bargain. So, I put it to any Reginians reading this blog, head on down to Phoenix to take advantage of this deal.


Before you ask, yes I did try to get my comics into both Tramps and Comic Readers in Regina as well. However, they have a policy of not accepting comics from the public.
Well la-de-frickin'-da!
Oh well, like I've mentioned above, if you want to purchase my comic at below rock bottom prices and have plenty of money left over for other Christmas shopping AND you're fortunate enough to live in Regina, then by all means, head on over to Phoenix and do so. Also, if you are at all apprehensive about this purchase because you are unsure about its contents, well then you should definitely read this review that James E. Daniels did first.
Hurry, while supplies last.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Now sold in stores

Yes, just today I sold the first copies of my comic to stores where they are now
available for sale. That's good news only if you live in Halifax and anyother surrounding areas. For the rest of you, if you want to buy my comic in a store near you, you'll have to demand it from the clerks themselves. "Hey, where are the issues of Jesus Needs Help?" you could ask. Try asking that question multiple times, getting louder and louder each time. Try banging your fist on the counter several times and then make your face turn blue. Aw, heck, go ahead and do a full Sam Kinison. Anything it takes to get my comic in your local establishment, that's all I ask.

If you are lucky enough to live in (or near) Halifax, here are the stores where my comic is available for purchase:

Strange Adventures
5262 Sackville Dr.










Quantum Frontier
Games and Comics
3087-A Robie St.






Monster Comic Lounge












In addition to that, I am hosting a Comic Book Launch Party on December 1.
It will be at the Economy Shoe Shop at 1663 Argyle St. in downtown Halifax. I'll be selling copies of my comic book there as well. If you live in the Halifax area and would like to attend, it would be a good idea to find the event on Facebook. Just search for "Jesus Needs Help" in the search bar and you should find it easily. (Hey, I found it just by typing "je").

And, of course, if you don't live in Halifax and my comic is not available in your local store, there is still the option of buying it online right here.

Thanks, everyone.

Friday, November 12, 2010

COMIC FOR SALE


We've got a comic for sale.
A really good comic for sale.
Won't you buy it.
Take it home and try it.
A comic for sale.

See in the window a really good comic
full of charm and appeal.
Handsome, elegant, intelligent, sweet.
It's really ideal.

Don't you want a little comic you can call your own?
A comic that'll be with you when you're all alone.

"How much is that comic in the window?"

Take our advice at any price
a comic like this comic is mighty nice.

A comic. A real good comic for SAAAAAAAAAAAAAALE!!!

Yes, my comic entitled Jesus Needs Help is FINALLY available to the public. It looked touch and go there for a while. I was indeed getting worried. But, those fears have turned to sweet sweet relief now that my comic is here.


You can look for my comic on Amazon.com or you can very easily purchase it at my eStore. Enjoy yourselves everyone.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Yes, the comic book is almost ready

I got the proofs back from Createspace today. Overall, the comic is looking pretty good. BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT, I found two very obvious mistakes, one a spelling error and one where an entire word got lost somehow. At any rate, I'll have to correct those mistakes and then re-upload the files all over again. This, of course, will cause a minor delay in my comic's release date.

While I was at the Ottawa International Animation Festival this passed week promoting the comic, people often asked if I had any samples of the artwork online. Well, I do now. Any one of you that I handed out a business card to at the festival and has even bothered to find this blog through the address I so conveniently put on each one, right below are a few samples of the artwork you will find (minus the dialogue). I hope this whets your appetite a bit more.


When my comic is finally ready, you'll be able to purchase it by clicking here. Enjoy!

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Something WICKED this way comes



That right there is the front cover for the comic book I'm working on. I'm hoping to have it done and on sale sometime next month. You'll most likely find it on Amazon.

(Oh, by the way, in the title of this blog post, the word 'wicked' is pronounced like a California surfer, as in the phrase "Whoa! That's wicked!!")

Tell me what you think so far.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

HA! I found 'em!!

For the passed few weeks, I was back in Regina helping out my family with a big move from one house to another. In amongst the grunting and the sweating (followed by the lifting of furniture and/or boxes full of old crap), there were times we reflected on distant memories. There were even moments of "AHA! I finally found it!!" as well. One of those moments came in the form of the drawings I posted below. Yes, a bit of an explanation is needed for those who were not involved.
Y'see, these were drawn back when I was attending an animation school in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. It was my 3rd and final year there. The school had occupied the 5th and 9th floor of a very prominent mall in the downtown area. Much to everyone's dismay, the school had fallen into some dire economic problems (for reasons too depressing and nauseating to go into here). I'm going to protect the names of most of the people involved except for one: Andrew Butler. He was the manager of that mall at the time. He had always hated the school and, on top of that, his business practices most often resembled wolverine devouring a still-breathing caribou fawn. Therefore, our eventual departure from that mall was not pleasant.
So, as some people know (and some unfortunate others find out the hard way), when you piss off a cartoonist they get even with a pencil & paper. And that is precisely what I did. The results of which can be seen below. My original intention was to leave these drawings someplace where Mr. Butler (or one of his slimy cronies) would find it. But, I was advised against that. So, I tucked them away until I found them again and put them online just today.
I hope Mr. Andrew Butler himself sees this post of mine and spits out his coffee which results in the shorting out of his laptop.





Moral of the story: Never get a cartoonist mad at you.

Monday, July 05, 2010

Scary Monster

The other day, a friend of mine was asking everyone to draw monsters that he could put up in his baby son's room. So, being not one to back away from a drawing challenge, I sent in my contribution: Cookie Monster's angry cousin.


His response to this picture was "it might be too scary for him". FAH! I think it'll be a character building experience for him. If he can sleep through the night with this face staring at him, he'll be a badass when he grows up. (That's just a theory though).

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Tweety

4 years ago on my birthday, I made a post about Daffy Duck. Last year, I did a post about Pepe Le Pew. This year, while commemorating my 36th time witnessing our planet revolve around the sun, I will talk about another woefully misunderstood character: Tweety.



Not only do most people not know what Tweety is all about, some are even confused about what gender he is. And, of course, too many people under the age of 10 only know Tweety as a corporate trademark to be plastered all over girly-girl merchandise (which of course only adds to the gender confusion). Today, in this blog post, I will attempt to fully elucidate on what is the true essence of Tweety. And, in order to do that, I have to first talk about where Tweety came from.

Tweety came from the delightfully disturbed mind of one Robert Emerson Clampett (known as Bob Clampett to friends and fans). In the year 1942, Bob and his staff thought it would be fun to do a cartoon about Abbott and Costello as cats. Of course, they couldn't just fill up 7 minutes with aimless banter. This wasn't one of those cheap, suffocating, modern cartoons where they're only allowed to spew aimless banter. This was the golden age of animation. Audiences demanded action. So, they figured that it would be a good idea for these 2 cats to try to catch a bird. But, rather than our regular type of bird like a robin, a sparrow, or a chickadee that could fly around with ease, they thought to use a relatively new born bird. In real life, they are mere hors d'oeuvres to cats. The joke here, of course, is that the Abbott and Costello cats (here named Babbitt and Catstello) are so inept that they can't even catch an easy meal like this. The result of this concept was the instant classic: A Tale of Two Kitties.


As you can see, this is unmistakably Tweety's debut as a character, catch-phrase and all. Tweety's design was based on a naked baby picture of Bob Clampett that his mother proudly
displayed in their home. (It's also been said that Bob designed the wattle on the beak of the pelican referee in Porky and Daffy after his own testicles and also had several drawings of Daffy Duck's beak in The Great Piggy-Bank Robbery resemble a vagina. But that's mere hearsay and speculation.) However, I think Tweety is more than just a physical caricature of Bob as a baby. Tweety also represents both sides of Bob Clampett's brain: the wide-eyed innocent youth as well as the relentless prankster. Remember that Clampett started working at the WB studio when he was only 17 years old. Though not entirely small (he stood 6'3"), he was viewed as innocent youngster at first. That is until everyone got a load of the constant pranks Bob would pull on everybody (Chuck Jones' unit got hit the most by his and his staff's onslaughts). Therefore, I think Tweety is truly Bob's most personal creation. I should also mention at this point that Tweety is indeed a sociopath (hopefully that wasn't a component of Bob's personality). Just look at Tweety's eyes as he watches his feline adversaries suffer all sorts of pain. There is not one ounce of remorse. There is never a feeling of "perhaps I've gone too far". Any remorse that Tweety DOES show is done with a venal level of disdainful sarcasm. It's almost as if the suffering of cats doesn't affect him at all. Plus, he's as strong as an ox when he wants to be. All of this put together made Tweety quite a powerhouse to deal with.
Of course, the censor board (back then just as much as today) are no stranger to compromising artistic integrity. They very wilfully violated the very personal identification between Tweety and Bob's baby picture by demanding that they cover up Tweety's "nudity". The "nude" Tweety appeared two more times in the cartoons Birdy and the Beast and Gruesome Twosome. Sadly, it was around that time that Bob Clampett was leaving the studio (some say he quit and others say he was fired, it might have been a little of both). One of the last acts Clampett performed before leaving was allowing Tweety to be adopted by long veteran director Friz Freleng which involved covering up Tweety's nude body. They eventually settled on exchanging the pink paint for yellow and making Tweety officially a canary.
The result was the 1947 cartoon Tweetie Pie. It was not only the first time Tweety was paired with Friz Freleng's creation Sylvester the Cat, it was also the first cartoon that won an Oscar for Warner Bros. An intersting side note: producer Edward Selzer didn't want Slvester to be paired with Tweety. He even demanded to Friz drop Tweety and use the woodpecker from the previous Sylvester cartoon. Not only did Friz vehemently refuse to back down, he even handed Mr. Selzer his pencil and said, "Here! If you're so smart, you do it." and went straight home. Later that night, Friz got a phone call at home. It was Mr. Selzer saying "Okay, do it your way." From then on, Sylvester and Tweety were a team. Here is that cartoon now:


The Sylvester and Tweety team was a big hit with audiences with this cartoon. So much so that pretty soon, Warner Bros. had asked them to produce 3 Sylvester & Tweety cartoons every year. A task that I'm sure was quite daunting after a while.
Friz kept Tweety's personality relatively in tact with the first few cartoons he directed. Bad Ol' Putty Tat (c. 1949) somewhat reprises the vicious routineTweety gave to Catstello in A Tale of Two Kitties. In Home Tweet Home (c. 1950) Tweety attempts to "save" Sylvester as he's falling from the sky by placing a pillow on the ground. When Sylvester finally lands, it is suddenly revealed that the pillow contained a hidden anvil. "Who do you suppose put that in that pillow?" Tweety smugly asks. It was also at this time that the
series was emersed in some very ingenious premises such as in the cartoons Ain't She Tweet (c. 1952), Catty Cornered (c.1953), or the Oscar nominated Sandy Claws (c. 1955). However, as the 1950's waned on, it was clear that the series was merely cruising on auto-pilot. One last ingenious entry into the Sylvester & Tweety series was the Oscar winning Birds Anonymous (c. 1957). But it was surrounded by several other rather formulaic cartoons.
Not only that, Tweety was slowly changing throughout these cartoons. More and more, Tweety was doing less and less. In the cartoon Canary Row (c. 1950), Granny was introduced as Tweety's owner and protector. More often than not, from that point on, it was actually either Granny or a bull dog who would foil Sylvester's plans. Tweety would mostly observe from a safe vantage point. In Tweet and Sour (c. 1956), Tweety actually NEEDS Granny to save him from Sylvester. In Tweet Zoo (c. 1957), Tweety spends the last half of the cartoon perched on a tree inside the alligator cage where Sylvester can't even get near him. Check out this entry done late in the series. Tweet and Lovely (c. 1959):



Either the dog foiled Sylvester's traps or Sylvester ruined them himself. Tweety did absolutely nothing to protect himself.
This is the state in which Tweety languished for years, definitely after the original studio shut down. Finally, in 1996, the makers of Space Jam made a little attempt to return Tweety to his powerhouse roots. That's one of its highlights (among a long laundry list of major flaws).



But, soon afterwards, Tweety began to become an image to be posted on pink merchandise for girls along with Hello Kitty, Betty Boop, Dora the Explora, and the Disney princesses. Stuff like this:




There are even some girls with a relatively healthy obsession with him. I found more than a few of those in the Tweety Facebook group I commandeered. All of this has sadly lead way too many people to believe that Tweety may be a girl. I've been told he is even marketed as a girl in Israel.
Here's definite proof of Tweety's masculinity. Below is the original model sheet for Tweety's first cartoon.

Note that the bird's unofficial name in this cartoon was Orson (I assume he was named after
the highly acclaimed director Orson Welles). Orson is, of course, a boy's name. Check any book of Baby Names, they'll verify that. Another piece of evidence is in Bad Ol' Putty Tat (c. 1949).
Sylvester paints his finger up like a female bird and manages to lure Tweety away from his house with it. And, before Tweety realizes his new girlfriend is really a finger, he getsvery chivalrous when he thinks they are both in danger. "Don't worry, little chickadee! I'll save you!" He exclaims. And then there's Rebel Without Claws (c. 1961). This cartoon takes place during the American Civil War. Here Tweety plays a Confederate soldier. If he were a girl, wouldn't he have played a "southern belle"?
I think I can rest my case now.
Don't let any of that tacky, glittery merchandise fool you, Tweety is all man.

That's about all I have to say about Tweety for now. Feel free to elaborate on anything I said or even add your own comments.

Oh, and before I go:

Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday dear myself
Happy birthday to me

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

A gay pelican

Recently, I joined a facebook group called "Let's All Draw Gay Pelicans Instead of Mohammed Day". So, that's exactly what I did. I don't know about you, but that pelican looks quite happy to me.


NNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! That is NNNNOOOOTTTT Mohammed inside the pelican's beak. That is in fact a diminutive version of Osama bin Laden that I used in an experimental student film quite a few years ago. Although, that film of mine does have an appearance by Mohammed in it (and he is most likely not portrayed the way most Muslim would envision him). The only place I put it up online is on my facebook profile. Who double dog dares me to post it somewhere else?

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

A comission for a friend

Recently, a friend of mine asked me to do a simple drawing for him. He said he needed it for his job. Right now, he's in Korea teaching a room full of Korean students.................. how to be an American I guess.



Well, whatever his curriculum is, one upcoming lesson of his is all about the truth about fast food. I'm sure he plans to go in depth into how it's processed as well as how it's advertised (because you can bet they put much more effort into ad campaigns than they do into the actual food). Anyway, he asked me to draw a cow that is "in no way, shape or form" enhanced with steroids. Here was my first attempt:


A nice enough drawing. But, he found that the face looked too mean, the muscles weren't comically exaggerated enough, and that the udder looks like four penises (although having more than one penis would come in handy sometimes, he felt that this would not be an appropriate image for 14 year olds. They're too young to know why four penises could be beneficial). So, I made a second attempt that he liked much much better. Y'know, I like it better too.


I hope he gives those Koreans a heaping helping of that thar "book-learnin' " so's that they gets the ejumacation they needs.

I'll leave you now with a Canadian point of view of Americans.