I have been an amateur cartoonist ever since I was a child

but for far too long, I thought that I could be an Artist and that did nothing but complicate matters.

It didn't help, that I was very slow to realize, that it was the cartoony aspects of comic book art, that really grabbed my attention and not the allure of the photorealistic artists like Neal Adams.

I still have a lot of Neal Adams' comic books, they have been a part of my collection for over forty years but I rarely, if ever look at them, these days.  Which is just a little bit sad, really because there was a time when they lit a fire inside of me!

These days, I am more impressed by people like Paul Grist, Chris Samnee and a local, Toronto artist, Tonci Zonjic, who signs his drawings "TOZO".

So, without further ado, I present a few of my amateur efforts, in the hope that someone, somewhere, finds something interesting in them.

I wear my influences on my sleeve and when I was 16 years old, I fell in love with the work of Vaughn Bode... it still shows!

This is an attempt to create a character sheet, that would help me to stop, continuously, noodling around with concepts that have been bubbling away inside of my head, for too many years.

Finally, these are a couple of "slice of life" moments in the lives of a couple of the characters.  They are also investigations of effective composition, as it pertains to cartooning.

I would like to think, that my love of the artwork of Wallace Wood and his light touch style of humour, is also evident, if only a tiny bit.

Grand Ma Moses, the primitive style painter, who only began "painting in earnest" at the age of 78, shows that it it is never too late to pursue a dream.

Mine is a pretty small one.

I just want to put together a cartoon story, that will, at the very least, not embarrass me to put my name on it.

Who knows, maybe it will actually happen but until then, I will continue to do my best, to learn from the cartoonists that I admire by dissecting their work.

Summertime and the Living is Hot!

After another period of inactivity,

I have finally come back to the Blog.

One of the best parts about being a kid, in the 1960s, was getting to read comic books that were being drawn by

Jack Kirby,

Steve Ditko,

Don Heck,

Gene Colan,

John Romita Sr.,

John Buscema,

Jim Steranko

and a host of other, very talented artists.

It was a secret dream, of my fevered childish brain, to become the next Ditko and take Marvel Comics by storm!  Of Course, in the end, I didn't have the talent or the dedication, to achieve that goal and I, like so many other fans, went on to other things.

Drawing was always something that I loved to do and I never stopped doodling cartoons and daydreaming, about actually making a comic book story out of them.

It may yet happen, while their is breath, there is hope, you know but in the meantime, I continue to try and educate myself about how to cartoon well.  It has been an engrossing subject and I have followed it for years.

One of the best things about the InterNet and personal computers is the ability to find and see publications, digitally, that, because of their rarity, one would never be able to hold in on's hands.

One such item, that I always coveted and should have realized, had I been intelligent enough to do so, that I could have sent away for, even from foggy old England, was:

The Charlton Comics

Guide for the 

Artist, Writer and Letterer

Some things, are worth waiting for and I was finally able to read this slim volume, page by page, 

right here 

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.ca/2009/03/how-to-make-comics-charlton-way.html

on the wonderful Blog, Diversions of the Groovy Kind.

It was put together by Nick Cuti, who went on to write the adventures of E-Man and the cover, is a great example of the amazing work of Tom Sutton, who died in 2002.

The information it contains is clear and easy to follow, which is why it was produced in the first place.  According to Cuti, Charlton Comics was being inundated with poorly formatted submissions, at that time and they wanted a way to show people, how to send in work, that might actually make the grade.

If cartooning How-To books get your motor running, then follow the link and enjoy!