Mark Martin's Twenty Nude Dancers

Back in the late Eighties and the early Nineties, I would occasionally buy a copy of the tabloid sized,

The Buyer's Guide for Comic Fandom

and one of the items of interest in it,

was Mark Martin's comic strip.

Occasionally, he would make the strip a kind of simple tutorial and one of them, obviously, made an impression on me, to the point where I copied it out!

Once again, the information seems forehead smacking-ly obvious and yet, no less worth noting, since many young cartoonists overlook these basic ideas, in their quest for the "magic" that will make them great!

I know, because I was one of that unwashed mass!

The truth is, there is no "magic", there is just hard work and learning how to apply some basic principles.

Thank you for listening, to an old man ramble on.

Ty Templeton's Comic Book Workshop, Summer of 1989

In the summer of 1989,

I was finally free (having ceased to work for a company, where I was always working on Saturday and Sunday) to visit one of our local comic book conventions.

This particular show, I am fairly confident, took place

at the old Westbury Hotel, on Yonge Street, just above Carlton Street, here in Toronto.

The highlight, for me, was the chance to sit in on a, if memory serves me well, one hour, comic book drawing workshop, taught by the amazing Ty Templeton.

While Ty entertained and attempted to educate us, I made a few notes and the other day, I rediscovered them, in an old sketchbook.

So, for the edification of anyone with an interest and since Ty still holds regular classes, here in Toronto, 

as the  "Comic Book Bootcamp", someone must still be interested,

I present those notes and sketches here.

There is a lot of good, simple and straight forward, advice here, for anyone who wants to understand the mechanics of building a readable comic book page.

The amazing thing, to me, is that Ty had already absorbed and assimilated these grains of wisdom, at such a young age.

Despite the fact that he gave me, in that class, this information, it would take me another twenty years before I actually understood what he was saying and truly appreciate his gift.

Thank you, Mister Templeton, for being the tremendous teacher that you are and I apologize for being such a poor student.