Jenny Everywhere

Jenny Everywhere is a public domain super-herione, despite my satirical interpretation, I'd say one of the coolest characters ever.

Alternative Comics Street Art and Performance Video

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

Just finished putting together this video of street art, performances and mural painting. The video will be projected tomorrow night on Queen Street West as an unofficial part of the 2010 Nuit blanche celebrations. Officially a selection of my animations will be included in the outdoor installation taking place at the main entrance of 401 Richmond Street ( a huge arts complex featuring galleries, studios and office stuff.Here's the write up for the video:

HEY APATHY! is an ongoing investigation into the monstrous metropolis. In the earliest works the city was announced as a giant gear propelled by an endless sea of faceless denizens. In order to best understand the phenomena in question I developed a particular artist's process involving outdoor festival performances, public murals and street art. By means of this unconventional interview I have since talked to thousands of people from all over the globe and of all walks of life. As a result both the artworks and myself have evolved immensely. Today my comics still depict the city as an ominous gear, only now it is up to all the strange and unique characters, not anonymous cogs, who fuel the machine.

This video features several timelapse documentations of my live performances and graffiti work as well as a little animation. Artworks 2002-2007, video by Slavek Smeigel and Craig Boyko. Experimental Soundtrack by Narsen Osutei, Mark vanZyl and Mike Parsons. All new surreal animations, weird comics, and cursed contemporary art at  http://www.heyapathy-comics-art.com/



HEY APATHY! SURREAL COMICS

So I’ve been into some books as of late, just something I always promised myself to do but never had the time. As I’ve tread through the pages of some of the most wondrous works, Kafka, swift, Dostoesky and Orwell I’ve noticed an alarming trend. The hero ( a mockingly absurdist titile) is always a social misfit, a trouble unable to coexist in a world of false faces, weird logic, and the devious empowerment of high society and government. The hero always exposes the fraudulent world representing humanity, hope, and generally common sense. However, as I’ve already mentioned, these heroes are misfits.

In almost every case we, the reader, are brought to identify with these abnormal visionaries and learn to be sympathetic with their outsiderness. We, the reader, learn from the heroes follies of the problems of our world. We learn about good, evil, politics, control and we see the problems in a new light. A light which inside each of our isolated existences appears to make sense. We understand these miscreants and we understand the worlds they preside in as if they were our own. Didn’t you feel the cold grey hard cinder blocks being piled around you as you enjoyed 1984?

Herein lies the dilemma. Can we all really be Winston Smith, the Idiot, or Meursault? I mean these books sell, more than that, they are immortal, they are read in schools, they are everything. and everywhere. But if that is the case how can the world still be a the beck and whim of the diabolical demon? How can we keep on keeping everything down if we alll understand the outsider? It perplexes me to think that anyone who has read these books is anti-sympathetic with the hero, yet have these works had absolutely no effect on our behaviour? Are these works beautiful for their collective expression or are they merely celebrated in jest as of the words of madman. Maybe the are appreciated simply for being completely different, insane if you will, from the standard thought processes related to the human condition.

It is just a little paradox running through my brain right now. How can so much intellectualism be awarded merit yet so easily disregarded in practical terms. All the best literature runs the same vein. They all say the same thing and they are all proffering warnings. Warnings that seem to be lost along a shelf of dusty books. At least Orwell’s work won’t make it to the next generation ( copyrighted off of kindle as far as I know) so they won’t have any excuse for nt undstdn @ txt or subtxt. Anyways I feel as many of those characters did and I’ve spent all my time working towards a better existence. Mostly because I am crazy but also because I’ve nothing better to do with my time. Ps I’m going to try to approach this subject again but really wanted to see what would happen if I started randomly jotting some points on the subject)

Alternative Comics SURREAL WEBCOMIC!

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

Here's a panel from the SURREAL WEBCOMIC. Page three, entitled in transit, features a hideous globular orifice consuming unsuspecting subway travellers. One page ever friday over at http://www.heyapthy-comics-art.com/.  Just getting over the flu and have much animating to catch up on so probably not much else of interest til next weeks weird comics tale.



ALTERNATIVE COMICS New WEBCOMIC

HEY APATHY! Surreal Webcomic

This is page 2 of the new Surreal Webcomic I'm making over at HEYAPATHY. The series is set out as a bunch of one page weeklies that sift in and out of a bizarre and terrifying larger story arc. New oneiric experiments  every Friday ( or early Saturday Night).   

Alternative Comics GERM WARFARE

HEY APATHY  SURREAL COMICS

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the quality of my blog posts have been directly related to our strange Torontonian weather. During the summer heat wave I found it difficult to spend time at the computer but got inspired again as the temperatures cooled to a reasonably wam level. However since that time things have been topsy turvey and the temperatures fluctuated between a hot humid forty and a cold wet 25 several times during the course of one week. And like this journal, I was heavily affected by the weather. I have been so sick, fevers, coughs, conjestion, joint pains, you name it. This is the first time I've brought the fever down enough to actually type something. Damn it's tormenting to be ill when there is so much work to be done. New Surreal webcomic post tomorrow regardless of my health.  

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Surreal City Nightmares

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics!

I just finished the gatefold cover page for the upcoming SURREAL WEBCOMIC. The image features  an attack of the amorphous glob techno verse on a group of unsuspecting denizens in a high rise building. On each floor, and the ground below, other strange events are unfolding. Some of the images are from the first story arc but several of them never existed before. That means I probably have to incorporate them into the mythology or else this would be one of those crappy covers that shows things which aren’t actually in the book. I had originally planned on a cover image featuring an amorphous globular attack inside a mad scientist’s laboratory but my desire to draw some mock-perspective ache texture resulted in the sky rise landscape instead.

Thematically I’ve been toying with the idea of a high-rise cross section for many years but have never actually taken the time to try it in the studio before. This was a good test run as I plan to use two similar scenes in the new comics. Through this first attempt I worked out a lot problems and will have a much easier time render the future artworks. Two of the biggest problems I encountered have to do with the size of the original drawing and the resizing of the image for the online portfolio. First I learned that an image of this complexity requires a large drawing surface. I tried to do the image at 11 x 17 inches but found some of the small rooms in want of finer detail. There are eight rooms cover ¼ of the surface. For the most part an entire comics page would have a maximum of nine panels and would have been drawn at almost twice the scale I used for this piece. The second major, major, major, problem I have to deal with is scanning. All of my detailed and smooth line work is turning into ugly Lego block pixels when I post them online. I have to deal with this because most of my work looks a lot crappier than it really is.

SAMPLESOF MY BAD SCANS, the lines are all pixelated

and get worse as I retrieve the original tones

I’ll be starting the weekly instalments of the new web comic next Friday. Hopefully I’ll have my scanning issues resolved by that time but the show will go on regardless. The Weird Tales title is just wishful thinking but really helped me put my own project in perspective. I now realise that I really need to edit my writing and adjust my low quality images before I’ll be happy with my new Surreal Comics series. more at http://www.heyapathy-comics-art.com/

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Strange Day

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

Alternative Comics Strange Plants

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

Two diagram drwings of a strange plant assimilating human form from the HEY APATHY! 13 stories, A ciollection of illustrated works and weird tales from the city of gears. In my spare time between drawing animation stills I've been scribbling some small icons to enhance my surreal stories pages on the website. These images are from the SEEDS fable, one of my favourite ramblings from this blog I tried to edit into a story.

Alternative Comics Surreal Talismen

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

Some weird talismen/tapestry type things from the amorphous globular macroverse. Spilled water all over these drawings but amazingly the computer perserved the wrinkle scibbles. On the streets it use to rain on the work from time to time, so I've gotten use to this sort of thing and the ink never runs, and the paper can always be dried and restetched.

Alternative Comics Strange Faces

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Surreal Skyrise

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

ALTERNATIVE COMICS

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

Alternative Comics SURREAL PULP

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

A little surreal love story... a forbidden passion leads to a black magic double suicide and though the bodies are gone, their love will live on. Just added the old style headline for fun. more at HEY APATHY! ALTERNATIVE COMICS.

aLTERNATIVE COMICS Amorphous Glob Drawings

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

A little Amorphous Globular Macroverse portrait I did today based on the characters and themes from the 13 Stories and upcoming Surreal Comics weekly. I've been a bit frustrated with the fuzzy edges I've been getting from my sketchbook drawings so I thought I try a nice piece of drawing paper today just for fun. The image was easier and for the most part crisper than the recent doodles I've been posting. However I hit a big draw back when transferring the image to the digital world. Unfortunately the way the ink sits on the high quality paper causes a glimmer when I scan the work. By the time I've sorted out the contrast and glare in the computer the damn thing gets pixelated and loses it's fine edges any how! see more HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics.

Alternative Comics a Surreal Noir

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics!

Another creepy comics panel from the upcoming web presentation. This noirish wanderer is plagued by horrific visions of a monstrous metropolis engulfing the seedy city he’s  so accustomed to. The whole collection will include a number of one page stories and about three extended adventures. I had no intention of expanding the comics beyond a single page but  funny things keep happening. After I finish the short I start thinking more about the character’s backgrounds and futures and little histories start to evolve. I don’t have time to draw them all so many are forgotten or written poorly as prose . Well one thought led to another and a couple of the strips escaped the single page infecting any where from three up  five others. These extended shorts however, still follow my original literary attempt at single page stories and can be read either compartmentally by page or as a collective vignette.

To sum up what I just wrote, Surreal Comics! is a collection of single page comics in which some of the strips are connected narratives and the entire catalogue reveals yet another story. It as though there were  strips inside of shorts hidden in a graphic novel, kind of surreal. Just wrote that for fun. More ALTERNATIVE COMICS

ALTERNATIVE COMICS

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

A continuation of yesterday's office place hallucination.

ALTERNATIVE COMICS through Amorphous eyes

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics!

Another weird panel from the unpredictably disturbed Surreal Comics visions. This one is about those strange peripheral creatures that creep around behind us every time we aren't really looking during those long hours at he office. This on  I ran out of animation paper this afternoon so I spent a little time on line getting my site ready for the weekly posts in Sept. Follow ther above link to see the changes I made to the New Artwork section. Just because I was going I also built an ANIMATION page, once again in preparation for the upcoming new film. 

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Surreal Split

HEY APATHY!  Surreal Comics!

A surreal split instigated by a technological interface splicing communicative devices with organics, genetically separating the various facets of a human mind into individual physical entities. Hey what do expect from a web comic called Surreal! This is another panel from the ongoing collection of weird stories I’m making in between extended sessions at the animation stand. One of the bonuses of making the comics in a sketchpad is that it the book travels easily allowing me to enjoy some of the nice summer weather while remaining productive. The animation, on the other hand has to be produced in the studio and it seems unhealthy to be inside to much when I know that it will eventually be winter again. In the future I am going to schedule the comics in the summer time because I can make them out doors, and save the animating for the long boring indoor season. However this animation is being funded by the Ontario Arts Council and was created in accordance with to their granting schedule. Back to the drawing table… more HEY APATHY! ALTERNATIVE COMICS!

Alternative Comics an amorphous globular experience surreal

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics

 This is a little scene from the upcoming surreal web comic in which a somewhat unsuspecting shopper experiences the most horrific of hallucinations, maybe. This amorphous globular thing is one of the major symbols in a lot of my recent works. I won’t reveal it’s meaning here because it would spoil the fun and is clearly apparent in the short stories. The Surreal stories are illustrated fables combining comic book style imagery with the written word. It was really just a way to be creative when I was too busy to actually draw  comic pages last winter. Though I still don’t have the time for full explorations, some of the stories are being featured as vignettes in the new strips. The drawing posted above is based on the short story “ A Shopping Spree Nightmare”. Keeping this sketchbook of comics while working on the major animation, has really helped keep my mind flowing while tackling the enormously repetitive task of drawing the cartoon.