ALTERNATIVE COMICS

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

A coulpe panels from a strange story about a person suffering from multiple pesonality disorders. In order to calm the contradictory voices the patient is prescribed a regimented diet of television, telephone, and text conversations eventually nulling the mind to the point where thoughts can no longer harm it. 8.5 x 11 inch pen and ink drawings from the all new HEY APATHY! alternative monster comics adventures. Full postings coming in the fall.

ALTERNATIVE COMICS A Heroic Assimilation

HEY APATHY! Alternative comics

Flicker, flicker, the gigantic screen transmits sublimated imagery faster than a speeding bullet. The repetitive yet ever so slight evolution of the messages bombards our homes, the streets and the theatre offering us heroic salvation with each flashing new scene. The superhuman, having arrived from a far off star , brings promise of hope and freedom as he expends his supernatural abilities in the name of justice. As his presence brings joy to the world with each new adventure, the attention mounts tensely and all eyes turn towards the alien.

 At first he was publicized as an enigma, and shortly thereafter mimicked, but despite all his triumphs the man receives no solitude. He had devised a secret home far from civilization but the documentary crew sought it out for use as a stage. Forced to reside in among men of the city, the hero falls upon financial hardship. The monetary rewards for the dispersion of evil were few and far between until the sponsors stepped in. Running shoes, capes, band aids and ice packs and any and every other product under the sun would come to bear his likeness and dignified symbol until the media madness began to take it’s toll. After missing the opportunity to thwart a fascist power due to a photo-op worth millions the hero underwent an alarming change. Realizing that his battles proved far less profitable and that the villainous regime was disempowered just the same, the alien turned towards more commercial endeavours all but forsaking his predestined quest.

Over the course of a few months, several movies and commercials, the alien became fixated on a cola he’d endorsed. Supplied with a life time quantity the hero proceeded to devour first two, then three and as many as twelve cans per day. Oddly enough the reasonably harmless cola churned malice and addiction against the unusual extraterrestrials DNA. At first the consumption resulted in malaise but soon ate away at the soldier’s physique. His skin peeled off in a leprous fashion and his skeleton underwent painful malformations. His abilities subsided as did his will until there was nothing left of the once glorious figure but a zombie-like core. Fortunately for the corporations which proffered him wealth his deformations remain a secret to this very day and no one seems to miss the champion of the future because severak younger and palatable actors have filled his place.

more strange stories at http://www.heyapathy-comics-art.com/

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Technological Dependencies

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics

Forced out of the studio by the suffocating humidity as part of my regular practice I retreated this afternoon in work the park. Most days this ritual proves more than satisfying as well as productive as I pass a few hours with my sketchpad and a book. I consider myself quite fortunate to have such an opportunity as a freelance illustrator with no particular schedule and truly enjoy passing the hot summer days leisurely doodling and researching in a shady quiet corner sprawled across the Kensington grass. Of course this limit’s my capabilities to develop any of my finer ink drawings or anything the computer centric animation but I fret very little as the time proves rather healthy. The fresh outdoor air relieve me from the flickering screen and the light table as well as the endlessly repetitive hours of typing and uploads. In fact it would appear that by stepping away from the technologies my mind retains a fresh human inspiration permitted me to accomplish more in the long run avoiding any frustrations or mechanized burn out. I highly recommend that you to shut off the power once in a while to let bugs crawl all over you while you read a real book ( that is one printed on paper).

Obviously the park is not without interruptions but the occasional skirmish, unwanted social activity or show boating is far less common than the beautiful silence and breeze under a tree. The silence too is not wholly impenetrable but the truth is that I actually enjoy the sound of the acoustic guitars and the occasional banjo. However I have encountered an increasingly aggravating trend which often passes as music but comes from no instrument. It is a little clicking and clacking muffled by a static buzz and it has perpetually grown and haunted my life. I tried to ignore in and at first assumed that my ears were out of sorts, possibly as a result of my years working the loud metropolis as a professional street artist. But alas as the buzzing and multiple clicks insisted on invasion I soon identified the sounds. They were activated by people and playing out of small phones as I finally correlated the noise to certain bobbing movements among small packs of pot smokers.

The static obscenities, which sound like nothing more, were apparently on purpose and as I have been informed, entitled electronic music whatever that is. Never mind my criticism though I am not here to discuss taste nor talent for what truly bothered me was the fact that these devices were being used in the park. Maybe it is music after all few people can endure the Stravinsky or Miles Davis that I’ve come on to depend but from a safe distance the sounds sound a lot like the city, an endless distortion and conglomeration of noise. I’ve been hearing a lot of phones lately but this afternoon was the worst.

There were at least three of these devices crackling from varied directions when as though to add insult to injury a new sound joined the party. Pulling up right beside me a car slowed to a park and the driver got out of the vehicle leaving his door open and radio on. He actually laid down in the grass with his bass hideously blaring and started to read the paper though I do not know how. Shortly thereafter a large tour bus pulled in and decided to idle. The vehicle easily two-thirds the length of the small park just kept vrooming and vrooming. The driver of this vehicle also got out and sat down to enjoy a cigarette in the now volumous park. Three phones playing static clicks, a car with popular music and a perpetually revving giant noise and pollution machine had me surrounded and had I not a coffee and some food to finish I’d have already left.

Then to my dismay as I forced down my hot drink another addition to the line of inconsideration. Some ---- brought in his electric guitar plugged in a bunch of laser beam effects and cranked out a programmed beat. Not only was he loud enough to be heard above all the rest but he was completely incoherent by any standard of song. I don’t favour speed death metal but I can understand it. This player however couldn’t even make the scene in a Japanese experimental noise band for the deaf ( just for the record I know deaf people actually do enjoy music by grooving on the vibrations but the analogy works well).

So there I was burning my mouth on the coffee while laughing to myself at the entire absurdity and even more so at the anger telephone owners who couldn’t enjoy there buzzing noises any more. Though not a single one of them relinquished there sonic projections and the fun just kept coming. Now if you think all sounds crazy you’ll scarcely believe what happened next. A couple sat down beside me gossiping aloud about some magazines, reviews and photo shoots when out of nowhere they produced a small screen. They turned on the laptop and video screen and started to watch a reel of commercials while laughing hysterically. COMMERCIALS! Not a show or a concert or even a moving but one after another they entertained themselves boisterously watching commercials!!!

Phone playing music, a car blasting beats, a huge bus running it’s engines, and a television playing commercials all at the same time while I was sitting in the park. Sitting in the park on a hot Friday afternoon eating my lunch under the trees, drawing reading and watching the birds no more. With not other choice but to find a quieter place upon which to rest I walked into the middle of the city, down Spadina avenue and sat under the Gardiner Expressway. Noting there were no devices nor people nor ads, I fell peacefully asleep hoping, if only just a little, never to waken again.

more art ar http://www.heyapathy-comics-art.com/

Alternative Comics SURREAL INNOVATIONS

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics SURREAL INNOVATIONS

I had the unfortunate mishap of losing an entire nights sleep after perusing several catalogues in search of a phone. The research ended early enough but the possibilities left me hyper sensitive and excitable to an extent preventing slumber. I had, for the first time, just heard of this strange and absurdist device which actually permits people to take their telephones outside. At first I laughed and envision an endlessly obtrusive stream of mingling wires leading back to their ports with polite pedestrians lifting them up so others could pass. I thought of skateboarders getting stuck and flying vigorously head first while jay walkers would be frequently towed down the roadways like a hero from a run away wagon in a western. Ludicrous! Phones that can go for a walk! What science fiction will perverted capitalists try to sell us next?

Asides from the improbability of such a phone, the more pressing question seemed to me to be why would anyone want to take a phone around with them. Understandably others, unlike my self, do have communications of a social parameter and often appear to even enjoy the company of others. But still, to have one’s associates able to find and talk to you at any given time? Absurd, not even the loneliest nor most talkative people in all of the lands could have such a desire or so much to say. Besides is not the phone primarily a tool for discovering the whereabouts of meetings and business?

At any rate I found the additional features of these "phones" quite startling as well. Some of them played music and others viewed films. I have used the telephone to make concert and theatre reservations but how on earth could it be used in their place? The device also promised to deliver me mail, let me surf the net, excel at social networking and replace my aging epidermal covering with that of an eighteen year old!

 On top of all this the phone could play games, a handful of math puzzles and extensive collection military training programs were a part of the deal! My phone would even be a book as long as it wasn't a controversial, independent, or good one. And for an additional monthly fee and a subliminally increasable rate, this new technology could regulate my diet, eat and digest all of my food, find my true love, and replace the English language with a newly improvised simplification entitled "texting".

So you might surmise that as a result of discovering all these amazing innovations I became excited to the point beyond rest. But alas I must say that it was not all this fictional nonsense which kept my mind racing all night but it was in fact a creeping revelation dredged up from the study. Only a few minutes passed before I started  putting the pieces of the mystery together. I started thinking about all the unusual people I'd seen out on the streets. There seemed to be more and more crazies talking to themselves these days. I had also noticed a strange affliction in which the denizens of the gear were rendered in an awkward position, holding their hands to their ears with bent over postures. I had disregarded both of these peculiarities many times over assuming that Toronto was simply insane or that the elbow to ear epidemic was a side affect of SARS, MAD COW, or some TERRIBLE FLU. I even disregarded the perpetual ringing of alarm clocks that I'd heard at the movies and on the tram as some sort of hip new musical trend. So why was I thinking about these things? How came it that incidents I'd all but forgotten had tenaciously resurfaced after reading up on futuristic phones?

My eyes burst open and “E equalled MC squared” as, in a feverish sweat, I leaped to my window. Pulling back the blinds I glanced out to city. I squinted my eyes at those strange human afflictions I'd so readily ignored and low and behold they were not of diseased mind, nor body, but each and every last person was holding a phone!

more surreal satire and strange comic strips at http://www.heyapathy-comics-art.com/

Alternative Comics The Centrifugal Eye!

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics from the City of Gears

Caught in the vortex of routine, the city spirals inwards blending billboards with reality and mixing method with madness. The faces blur together as each individual's actions exert macrocosmic ramifications. Made up of all the diverse, unusual and unique experiences the monstrous metropolis collides as a unified entity contradictory to the apparent divisions. The shoppers affect the commuters, the business people are related to the homeless, the young to the old, and this metropolis to all metropolis‘. No event, no matter how deceptively insignificant, is unto itself in the City of Gears.

 In the center of the order of chaos lies the centrifugal eyeball of consciousness. Surrounded by an obscured truth, the giant eyeball represents our collective hopes, dreams, goals, and unconscious. A this deep epoch of the gyre the solitary and the uniform become equally important and exemplified.

 But beware the technological tentacles have attempted and succeeded in many instances to attach themselves to the symbolic oracle. The technological tentacles have corrupted many of these giant eyes leading the spiral into oblivion instead of insight. 20 x 30 inch pen and ink drawing made on location at Queen Street West and Soho during my street art and performance exhibitions. The “eyeball of consciousness” has become a major symbolic character in the HEY APATHY! Mythology.