More Cartoon Investigations from Chris

Adding to the last post, 

here are a few more of my investigations 

into the techniques and principles of 

drawing cartoons.

I have no doubt, that most of what I have written, here and elsewhere, will seem very simple, if not obvious, to people with a larger brain and a quicker mind, than I posses but this type of investigating, makes me happy and fulfulled.

That is why I continue to do it! LOL

Some of the Research that I do

I have been drawing cartoons for a lot of years and I am still trying to get my mind around the illusions, that cartoonists and other graphic artists use, to make their drawings LIVE and appear real.

To that end, I spend a lot of time dissecting the work of others:

Yeah, I know, it seems to be just a trifle anal retentive but it makes me happy and since it has been a long time, since my last Blog Post and even longer since I last posted about drawing cartoons, this was long overdue.

Way, way back, when I was still in single digits and living in Nakuru, Kenya, I knew a kid named Peter Adams.  Peter was a year or so older than me but our fathers were both British and working for the EAP&T and he allowed me to associate with him.

Peter had an older brother, Paul, who was attending a local boarding school and when I eventually met him, he amazed me by drawing me a comic strip, in a small note book.  It was a life changing moment and I never forgot it.

Here I am, almost 55 years later and it still gives me a thrill, remembering my younger self, watching Paul draw that little story.  It was a War Story, with german soldiers, battleships exploding and other scenes of mayhem... very much in the style of British military comics of the day.  I have often wondered, if all he did was parrot something that he had read earlier on but even so, it was very cool, watching him do it, as performance art.

Wherever you are today, Paul Adams, I want you to know that I never forgot that afternoon and I wish I hadn't lost that hand drawn comic, all those years ago and several countries ago.

2020 Begins...

One of the latest items to enter the collection

is this

and despite the fact that it is a beautifully designed and printed, volume, it left me feeling less enthralled than I had hoped.

It was also relatively expensive at $50 Canadian!

Part of the problem, is that I have been following the career, of all of the British comic book guys, ever since I first discovered them, in publications like 2000 A.D. and the old Dez Skinn's House of Hammer.

What that means, is that there is very little, about the life and times of Brian Bolland, that I have not read before and truthfully, the layout of the text information, in this issue, doesn't thrill me.

However, as I said at the first, the printing is a magnificent example of the printer's art and the pictures are glorious!

What I would love to see, is an Illustrator's Special, devoted to the late Brian Lewis but I doubt if that is ever likely to happen.

Years End

Here I am, at the end of another year and as per usual, I am in a reflective mood.

In just a couple more days, it will be 2020 and that is a Bookmark moment, if only for the symmetry of the numeration.

I think about my mother, who died in 1990 and missed the Millennium by a decade, not that she would have been all that impressed, by all of the hoopla that surrounded that moment.

I also think about my father, who continued on alone, until 1997 and how much he was looking forward to stepping into the next Millennium... and then never got to see it.

My parents were very different people.  Mum was all about emotion and stories and The Movies, given a chance, she would have been Bette Davis, in a second and never looked back.

Dad, well he was the cold and rather unemotional part of the equation.  Mathematics, scientific things and love of everything technical in nature... he got me into computers, when he was 69 and I was a very unconvinced 35 year old!

Dad was on-line, when the modem was an external unit, running at 14.4 Bauds and his computer was a 286, with a 35 megabyte hard drive, visiting bulletin boards... I still remember, how ridiculous it all seemed, waiting interminably for the opening page, of the Image Comics website to load and thinking to myself, "This is BS and it will never catch on..." LOL

These days, when a day rarely passes, without me using my trusty iMac, to surf the Net, send E-Mail, or just watch movies, I realize how right my father was and how wrong I was.

It is a great shame that he missed out, on a lot of amazing things, computer related, that he would have loved.

Napster, Google, High Speed Internet and the HUGE hard drives, that we all take for granted these days.  I am uncertain, of how my dad would have taken to my becoming a Mac user, because he was a true believer in Windows and the PC revolution... even though he never even got to see Windows 98!

So, at this auspicious moment, with 2020 bearing down upon us, rapidly, I want to thank my parents, both long dead now but never far from my thoughts, for their contributions, to making me the person that I am.

I might be a loser, in the eyes of the rest of the world, but I am here, for the whole journey and hopefully, when it is all over, I won't have embarrassed too many more people, or made anymore enemies.

Happy New Year!

And

one last cartoon.

Drawing cartoons, has been a life long interest and I really thought that, way before now, I would have been a whole lot better at it... but I keep at it because it still fascinates me.

Merry Christmas Wishes

As is my usual practice, at this time of the year, 

I decorate the inside of mass produced Christmas cards,

with hand drawn cartoons.

They ain't much but they're all me!

Merry Christmas, one and all and here's to a safe and healthy 2020.

Bookland at Parliament & Queen Street East

Once upon a time,

back in the Eighties and into the Nineties,

BOOKLAND

was a neat and incredibly well run,

used book store and it was run by a French Canadian guy, who's name I cannot remember.

Harry Kremer, the owner and operator of 

NOW & THEN BOOKS, 

of Kitchener (and the first big time distributor of Dave Sim's Cerebus) knew the guy who owned Bookland pretty well...

they were both fans of Show Tune albums!

Anyway, while reading a bunch of 

P. G. Wodehouse books, that we bought years ago and put away for future reading, I discovered that one of them was stamped with the Bookland name and address.

It means nothing, but since the store it self, no longer exists, it is a neat piece of nostalgia and affirms that the place did, once, have a place on my list of regular haunts.

Lost Comic Book Shops of Toronto

Way, way back, in the early Eighties, 

there was a comic book store in The Beaches, here in Toronto and it was called, 

"Queen's Comics & Memorabilia"

This is an advert that they had printed in the pages of a local fanzine, "Gratis", issue one, in 1979.

"Gratis" for anyone who's interested, seems to have been fairly short lived and may have only lasted for four issues.  The publishers appear to have been, two young men from Scarborough, Scott Hutchinson and Jim Shedden.

Queen's Comics & Memorabilia, was also sponsoring a Comic Convention:

As this advert, in the same issue of "Gratis", proves.

The store it self, was an unusual mix of comic book stuff and music related items.  Thinking about it now, it's nearest relative, that I visited and knew about, would have been Now & Then Books, of Kitchener, which, because of the owner, Harry Kremer's eclectic taste, stocked a lot of odd stuff.

Although, even Harry streamlined the operation, somewhat, when he moved out of the old Victorian House, at 103 Queen Street South and across the street into a "proper" storefront location.

Back to "Queen's Comics..." and where it was located, at 

1962 Queen Street East, which was a clone, of this building, which still exists at 1964 Queen Street East.

If my memory isn't completely faulty and please remember, this was almost forty years ago, I recall that "Queen's Comics" 

actually occupied both addresses for a time?

Whatever, you get the picture and back then, The Beaches was an almost sleepy backwater, not the bustling Yuppie haven that it is today... so the shop fitted into that environment, of Hippies and Surfer Dudes, perfectly.

Later on, they moved the store up onto Kingston Road, close to where Victoria Park Avenue crosses it and that was where it eventually ended its life but I have no idea when.

While I am on the subject, does anyone remember another eclectic comic book and book emporium, 

"Unknown Worlds" 

that resided at 725 Danforth Avenue, just east of Pape Avenue?

This is the only proof of its existence that I have.

This is what the address looks like today!

It was an unusual place, with its walls lined with paperback books and the comics, in bins and on a rack, in the centre aisle of the shop.  I shopped there, from 1989 until 1994, when I left Toronto, for a couple of years and went loose my shirt, in Elliot Lake, Ontario.

The comic book business was in turmoil at the close of 1994 and into early 1995 and even the venerable distribution arm of The Silver Snail, Andromeda Distributions, declared bankruptcy at that time and closed its doors.

That seems to have been when "Unknown Worlds" closed, too.  I wasn't around to witness it but I do remember being puzzled, in the summer of 1995, on a visit to Toronto, by not being able to find the store.  I eventually enquired about it, at the office of a local politician, somewhere in the vicinity and they told me about the store's demise.

Just because it was the centre spread, in that first issue of "Gratis" and because I have a soft spot for it, 

here is the Franc Reyes drawn advert for 

The Silver Snail,

from 1979.

and finally, the back cover to "Gratis" issue one, which was from the young Wonder Kid, of the Toronto comic book and Science Fiction scene, at that time, 

Kevin Davies.

Kevin was also an organizer of the convention and as an artist, went on to paint the hoarding sign for Bakka Books, when it was still opposite the Silver Snail, on Queen Street West.

I borrowed this from another web page:

 Kevin Davies was a busy Toronto fan for many years… he still goes to the odd convention, has how own game design/art business, and announces on Facebook that he
has the odd guitar gig at a local pub or restaurant. Kevin chaired the very first convention Yvonne
attended, GVSTAcon, GVSTA standing for Georges Vanier Star Trek Addicts, a club at Kevin’s high
school.

So, there you have it. 

Two comic shops that "used to be", or even three, if one includes "Now & Then" of Kitchener, which pretty much died when the owner, Harry Kremer died... oh, yes and of course Andromeda, the distributor.

The Silver Snail is still with us but it has been relocated, to a second floor location, just north of Dundas Street, on Yonge Street, since 2012 and is now owned and operated by no one I know! LOL