13 Stories, Forbidden Tales of the impending Apocalypse

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics

In even the most pessimistic of tales, therein lies the brilliance of hope. For the act of putting pen unto paper is expressively optimistic, presenting others an opportunity to grow. That being said, I made a goal for myself to create 13 short illustrated stories before this upcoming New Year. I’d no real intention towards developing such nasty and hopeless fables as I did, in fact I’d no inclination towards writing anything at all,  it just sort of happened. Having abandoned street art performances as a means of promotion/communication in favor of working online and with arts councils & committees, I discovered a sudden and urgent dependency on the written word (stumbling through these poorly conveyed thoughts it’s a wonder I’ve survived this long!).

At first this meant endless hours of essay writings attempting to explain myself and persuade investors or patrons to give me money. That got boring but I knew my writing needed a lot of work so I started making things up. I decided to practice writing the same way tht I approach the development of visual artworks and decided on a series of 13 stories which, theoretically, could be compiled as a print publication. The process then involved a lot of sketching, unedited writing done directly in this blog. After a while some of the stories sort of stuck with me so I’d proceed to do drawings and prepare them for the “online book”. I went through a number of my drafts this evening and think I’ve all the shorts sorted now. Very early this January I’m going to take a few days to edit the h—l out of them and post all the work in it’s intended  format. Inspired by the prospects of completing this little experiment I laid down a quick pen and ink illuminated text drawing and a couple of weird faces (above). The rest of my day was spent working on animation stills and thinking about the “City of Gears” cartoon show pitch.
Here's an index/blurbs of the 13 stories:

1) SEEDS A commercial traveler searches the world over for new and marketable anomalies. His investigation eventually leads to a tribal village hidden deep within the jungles of Africa. Here he learns of secret vegetations capable of unimaginable feats. The discovery may prove enormously profitable, but can these surreal vines be safely transplanted back in the City of Gears?


2) THE ELEVATED CITY A sociological imperative to exist beyond earths’s capabilities has driven the soil barren and left the air void and toxically malodorous. In our infinite brilliance, man has moved upwards, away from his mess, developing a new architecture sprawling heaven bound. Levels upon levels of strange apartment communities annihilate the skyline as the sun fades into myth and nature is a forgotten word.

3) A TALE OF TWO TREES As the all encompassing MAKINGLIFEPERFECT Corp. reaches new scientific heights, useless and manipulatively destructive lifestyles rein supreme. However the industrial success has attracted unexpected enemies. Hear the cries of nature for two trees have assimilated a mechanical foliage battle armor in order to survive these terrifying technological times!

4) A SHOPPING SPREE NIGHTMARE A Surreal shopping spree incites strange nightmare visions of an amorphous globular macroverse. Enthusiatically overwhelmed, an unsuspecting shopper engaged in a world of unobtainable satisfactions becomes psychically imprisoned in a sanatorium padded with buyer's remorse!

5) BRIDE OF THE WORKHORSE An unusually surreal comics adventure involving a genetically modified centaur romancing a artificially ameliorated runway model. Can the fated love affair consummate or will mechanical deviations consume the once illuminated passion? Another strange and unrealistic interpretation of the way things actually are.

6) SHADOWS A young artist experimenting with shadow and light accidentally unleashes insidious creatures of the night. Are these nightmarish forms a merely imaginary brushstrokes or has the painter depicted something far worse?


7) THE AMORPHOUS GLOB MACROVERSE An apparently insignificant opaque puddle spilt in the night malignantly mutates proceeding to commit horrific telepathic invasions. The irregular and intrusive messages sent from the glob, reveal the most damnable and unforgettable of all unwanted insights, agonies and revealing reflections.

8) FASHION SHOW NIGHTMARE A Fashion shoot turns monster as the latest trends reveal mutilated depravity, terrifying trims, and people turned inside out. A step by step must read for all young upstarts entering the fashion business!


9) DIARIES OF A DEAD MAN An excerpt from an anonymous diarist regarding an extraordinary and hallucinogenic experience as a devout atheist witnesses firsthand the power of the almighty. A frightening account of religious awakening and the prowess of true faith.

10) NOTHING MATTERS An aging litterateur reaches an inexplicable enlightenment through a life time of meditative studies. Having finally read all there is to read and written his dissertations, the man becomes ill and for the first time, realizes how lonely it actually is inside the old and extravagant library.

11) THE BRAIN WORM THING Following an exclusive invitation a skeptical consumer attend the unveiling of an intriguing new digital breakthrough. The MAKING TECH PERFECT company is introducing the worlds smallest, most advanced and intelligent, virtual serfing technology. But will this new device impress our disgruntled protagonist or simply turn out to be another scam.

12) ANDROID MAN In the span of a few short weeks a successful landscape painter finds his business and his life going digital. With the aid of modern computers the artist rises to fame and fortune discovering, piece by piece, that he no longer needs his paints or even the landscapes he once rendered.

13) AFTER THE HARVEST Surreal Aliens invade earth only to question whether or not our planet is fit for assimilation! What will these beings make of mankind and what are their diabolical plans for earth’s future? Beware, these extraterrestrial vegetations having been plotting for millennia from way-outer space to the skyscraper skylines of our monstrous metropolis!

Just made this as a personal checklist but it's kind of interesting so why not share. I didn't actually "finish" all these but I do have at least solid 1st drafts and artwork  for every one. A few of them have been polished but I am happy that I got 13 of them done, I've had so many more important ( less amusing/ more lucrative) things to do over the past 10 months. Lot's of editing and more than likely a few new fables before I try to put the whole thing together proper like. See more work Heyapathy!

Android Man -Comics Online

HEY APATHY! COMICS ONLINE

This may sound odd to many people, especially to younger audiences, not that I’m old or anything it just happens. Suddenly most of your hair is gone and what is left is grey, you get tired and can’t move so well on rainy days. Without warning all the new music and movies seem stupid but it doesn’t matter because you can’t remember them anyways. You also begin noticing that supernal luster of life and vitality in the skin of the young though you’ve no memory of such a glow in your own youth. But here I go jabbering like the old fool I’d sworn never to be! What I meant to say is most of you might find this strange, being accustomed to such things, but I have finally become an android.




For the better part of my long life I have earned an honest living as landscape painter. As you can imagine most of my time was spent outdoors. I passed hours messing with thick paints on some of the world’s most striking hillsides. Many of these subjects were quite isolated but frequent trips to towns and cities kept me satisfied for both supplies and socialization. One of my favorite excursions was to the artist’s district where I used to have professional slide photography taken while I mingled with the creative denizens of the west side lofts.



After the travel friendly season of sketching and experimentation was completed I’d return to the metropolis to hold up in studio for the winter. In the middle of the city it was easy to get around regardless of weather and the frequent trips about kept me in touch with reality until the bright spring time sun returned. This lifestyle suited me for a long time and the probabilities of anything else seemed nil.



Again, sounds silly doesn’t it? I mean we all know there aren’t any landscapes anymore. Nevertheless after the forests were all gone business actually improved rather drastically. People longed for nature scenes and even though I couldn’t actually visit them anymore, I didn’t really have the time anyways. The paintings sold for what ever I asked and as often as I felt inspired. Soon the business was at such a pace that I started having my supplies and groceries delivered. With seldom a break nearly six months had past and I never set foot outside my building.



After the extended period I completed enough of the work for an exhibition. I got very excited about the event because it meant going down to the old artist district for some slides and a few pints. However when I called in for an appointment I was told the lofts had all closed. My art dealer told me it didn’t matter and sent me a small camera to do the shots myself. He said he’d come around to gather him but on the date he was expected I received a package from him instead. Inside was a computer and instructions on how to email him the photos. So I did and that was that.



Some time passed and I continued working alone and indoors when one day I received a phone call. It was an automated message from my dealer requesting that I mail him a signed copy of certain form I’d find in my email. I then realized that I didn’t have a printer and finally had an excuse to leave the house. I got dressed and strolled down to the nearest internet café. I thought about how this would be a nice part of my routine. I’ll go for a walk and a coffee any time that I need something printed. When I got to the café it was closing, they said business wasn’t any good. The movers handed me a free printer and continued to clean out the shop.



Some more time passed before I received further news from my agent. This time he’d struck a deal to mass produce prints of the art. I was instructed to do away with my painterly materials and given a state of the art drawing tablet in their place. All of the work is now done directly in the machine.



Still business is booming and all I ever have to do is paint. There was a time when this would have been a dream come true but the repetition and isolation is growing wearisome. I thought that maybe I’d go seem a movie or peruse the local book shop. I might entertainment shipped me another device. This time it was a smaller computer designed exclusively for reading books. While I examined the thin and foreign object, he set up a “stream” on my desktop (from his remote location) which endlessly plays movies. Now I never have to go out.



It is absolutely incredible all these machine around my chair. I can access anything I want or need to within a 3 foot squared space. All my business, all my pleasures, all my necessities, available in this tiny room. I know it all seem so normal to most, but to me it has been sudden and strange. One minute I was standing in nature’s open valley and the next in an electronic world. I realize I am now an android; a prisoner … at least the landscape business has never been so damn profitable.

MORE PEN AND INK ILLUSTRATIONS

Toronto Artist "A Paper-work Nightmare"

HEY APATHY! Comics Online

My Toronto artist studio floor is camouflaged with forms, essays, applications and endlessly bureaucratic pages of budgets and text. Hardly a drop of ink to be seen, the spots now entirely engulfed by the chaotic compilation of documents accompanied by randomly scattered brown envelopes and data discs. The theme to Gilliam’s Brazil echoes through the hallway as I dodge spelling errors, wrestle resumes and struggle to defeat the deadline horizon of this years granting season. The accumulation of two months worth of typing, reading, writing and rearranging words, numbers, pictures and accomplishments shuffles about slicing my ankles, stifling my every move. Duplicates, triplicates, multiple copies and only 1 copy of each form, sent to various addresses, all labeled with the artist’s name and the title of the proposed program of work or proposed grants program, each asking for the assistance in the development of a socially satirical body of animated atrocities. A little odd isn’t it? As one who spent most of his life perfecting a humanist art form derivative of folktales, street performances and the inspirational chaos conjured out of random experience, the penetration of paper work made me feel as a surreal Sisyphus might if only the boulder was a cabinet of forms which could never be completed. But alas I conquered the nightmare and that work is done.

As the opening description might suggest, the completion of said task was not an easy one. In order to get all this stuff done, and to the best of my abilities, I decided to make a meditation out of the event. I refrained from all drawing, recreational reading, and leisurely use of the internet. The only exceptions would include a late night cartoon or two after I’d exhausted my ability to produce proper essays and forms. I did get into one short discussion about the Justice League on facebook, but it was completely by accident as I actually went there for business purposes (I don’t usually chat on that forum).Abstaining from these small pleasures wasn’t too difficult because they all involve using the computer. After 8- 12 hours of working on the machine the last thing I felt like doing was traveling anywhere online. The most trying factor of the ordeal was suppressing the urge to be creative.

I stayed focused throughout the work but was perpetually taunted by my imagination. As soon as I’d step away or lie down the stories would start to flow, ….a tale of a dead man kept in motion by larvae and vermin feeding on genetically ingrained experiences, missed opportunities, broken dreams and embarrassed emotions… and things like that kept popping into my head. The next page of the comic, the animations, an idea, all crashing at my psyche attempting to overthrow the mathematical and essay driven obligations I’d imposed upon myself. It is certainly a strange battle, the artist, itself an anti-established deviation who throws paint on walls and lives free from all anxieties, forced to wade knee deep through imaginary paperwork in order to continue his mission of making a mess.

Despite the contradictory nature of the artist seeking finance from a world that he/she cannot help but criticize, the process is actually quite logical and certainly fare. Most of the applications require a brief, yet succinct, written account, some visual support material and summarized budget costs. It is amazing how many forms and copies you have to fill out in order to convey that simple information, but in the end if one knows what they want to do, and the work is of any cultural value, then one probably stands a good chance. At any rate finalizing all this organization of materials proved far more rewarding than repulsive and seems to have ended much swifter than it began. Well the letters are all sent and the remaining papers brushed to one side, so I think I’ll spend a day or two cleaning before doing whatever it is I’m going to next. HEY APATHY!

Alternative Comics Sound and Visions (Update)

HEY APATHY! SURREAL COMICS

Some new music for the City of Gears timelapse video. This film shows a day in the life of a street painter following a 3.5 hour, 12 x 12 foot mural. The drawing was made on the corner of Queen Street and Soho , downtown Toronto in 2007. I’ve used various different scores for the presentation of this video but, like the animations, have been struggling a lot with sound issues.

I like this track because it was programmed entirely into an old synthesizer keyboard enabling me to add it to the video without any editing or degenerative interference. With my limited technology, or at least limited knowledge there of, I can’t seem to get a professional sounding recording consisting of more than one track.

This loop was created for my animation reel which will be featured at this years Nuit Blanche festival. It worked  so I thought to add it to this video as well. Sort of a theme song, but really it’s the only clean recording I have right now. There will be more. Music by Narsen Osutei, Mark vanZyl, and me.

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Surreal Interiors #3

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

A potted tree and the robot gardener.

Alternative Comics Weird Interior #2

HEY APATHY! SURREAL COMICS

Following a round sample of a fashionably alluring strange elixir the board members slip into euphoric state awaiting the presentation. As they slouch into a woozy oblivion, the meeting room shrinks from comprehensive perspective take the shape of a small stage with the table as a platform while the southern drywall ripples like a drawn curtain. As the lights lower and the pit orchestra moans, an oddly unfamiliar rendition of Punch and Judy begins. Groaning ferocious the deviant headmaster reaches from behind the drapery, and from beyond the wall of sleep, demanding a living sacrifice from the disillusioned jester and his arsenal of hench-creatures. The horrific ceremony unfolds and the drug breathes a stimulated relaxation into the the beings of the board/ Without a second thought a conversation erupts and intoxicated means of marketing the weird terrors a hand fly freely from the brainstorming sect.

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 Surreal Nightmares of a technological nature

HEY APATHY! SURREAL COMICS

Oh how sad a day it was when on this, Friday the 20th of August 2010, the heat finally broke. For weeks now the city has been sweltering under a blazing sun and suffocating humidity. The effects of the climate on my own little existence have been vast and varied as my studio apartment has been less than tolerable during the hot season. Despite air-conditioning, several fans and attempts at an open window, this top floor lodging refuses to resist the extreme temperatures which were amassing outside. In fact on numerous occasions I nearly passed out at the keyboard, dripped sweat over animation stills, or simply gave up and had a nap. For the most part however, I resigned to developing a work schedule accordingly so as to remain productive throughout this summer spell.

As a street artist’s I paid particularly acute attention to the weather. Alas the livelihood of a busker or vendor depends on the sun. Shoppers are like weeds, if the conditions are right their bags just grow and grow. I’ll never forget the time one of my prints went into a London tourist’s large plastic bag which had two other items in it; Frank Zappa’s Orchestral Hit’s and a Spider-Man comic. What an honour to join such magnificent purchases (there is no escape). At any rate as I worked the streets for five consecutive seasons, I became quite familiar with our city’s weather patterns. Each year, between 2004-2008, Toronto would suffer a brief humidity strike reaching temperatures in above 40C heavily influenced by humidity. These waves always lasted for about two weeks before a more reasonable climate would settle in. Oddly enough this summer set out in a common fashion, only at the end of the two week duration always haunted by the heat wave, we saw little relief. I can estimate that the wave started around July 10, and only let up in the past couple of days based on my journal entries. Since the city and my studio heated up I have had absolutely no desire to write and can trace the forced paragraphs back to the aforementioned date. Not to say that the writings are any worse ( how could they be) than those written before the humidity, but they are shorter, generally technical and inspired by commitment rather than by muse. This entry marks the first time I’ve gotten an “urge” to actually do this in quite a while.

Like the disturbance of my daily journal, the heat has also dictated my drawing schedule over the past few weeks. In order to maintain a comfortable work environment I’ve had to rearrange my practice, location, and hour operation. During the day I retreat to a shady spot in the park were I read and sketch. Unfortunately the animation cannot be produced in an uncontrolled setting and I’ve had to limit my daytime drawings to short comics and small pieces for the website ( the ones posted hear over the past couple of months). Though nothing could be more pleasant than an afternoon in the park doodling, I often got frustrated by the limitations of the park process but could not bare the hellish studio. This problem was solved simply by rearranging my molecular structure and forcing my self onto an unusual sleeping schedule. After the park I tend to sleep a few hours off before dark. Then went the cooler night arrives I brew a fresh pot and hit the animation stand. These late hour have proved immensely productive but physically draining often putting me out of commission during the day. During those exhausted hours following a hard night’s work, I’d take to reading in the park as opposed to drawing. The days have had a tendency to work like this, 10 am rise, 11-5 sketch or read outdoor, sleep until 8 and work in studio from 9-4am. Weird? Yes I feel a little weird and sleepless but I’ve conditioned my self well and have been extremely productive.

So after all this complaining and inconvenience why, might you ask, would I mark the end of the heat as a sad day? Well, I suppose I’m really enjoying the freedom to work, read, sit outside, and create. So I’ve had to risk my health and compromise the work a little, summer air is fleeting and not to be taken lightly. The park weather will be gone soon and so will the money. Everything is about money. I made mine in the spring and soon I’ll have to make some more. Life is very different as a legitimate professional than it was on the streets. Sure I get up 50 time as much for some of the work but the money comes in distanced chunks as opposed to a steady flow. The streets were very reliable and constant, as long as the weather held. I guess the big difference between the two techniques of marketing could be defined by a sort of “putting your eggs in one basket” analogy. The streets offer multiple chances at reasonable rewards, if one day is bad you get to try again on the next one. Doing shows, on the other hand, often brings in much greater rewards although if a presentation fails, it could be months until the next one. As silly as it seems I spend far too much time selling and budgeting that sometimes I think it’s a wonder I get anything done. Stronger men than I would have choked and gotten a job along time ago, but I’m way to stupid to do that. Besides the shows always go well and I don’t stress nearly as much as I used to (flashback in my mind to me sitting on Queen Street selling drawings on a cold February morning 4 years ago) . On that note I’ll be performing / exhibiting at the Scotia Bank Busker’s Festival from the 27-29. I’ve never done the show before but am aware of it’s reputation and expect an amazing festival. Did anyone actually read this whole thing? Well I’m sorry if you put yourself through all that, I suppose I’ve been collecting a lot of ramblings behind my eyes and I’ll try to make a regular effort of typing again so this doesn’t happen again.

Oh yeah the drawing is a new illustration for the Amorphous Glob Macroverse, one of 13 stories I am  making as a part of the new HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics.

Alternative Comics Surreal Monsters

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

Another Amorphous Glob talisman for the 13 stories. I think this one is going to go with the little poem in "The shopping spree nightmare". I have extremely limited knowledge and tools when it comes to web design so quite often the images are not fitting where I'd like them.

Lot's of improvising and compromising but sure enough the site is growing. It's not what I want but I'm learning. Eventually the damn cursed online representation of my life and art will actually look good, one day. Anyways spent most of the hot day scribbling in the park and took a rest from the animation, full force again tomorrow.

Alternative Comics Strange Faces

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

Alternative Comics Creature Visions

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

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics work in progress!

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 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 Mad Science

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics

Another panel from the surreal comics slowly manifesting itself within the pages of my apparently innocent sketchbook. This one's about a twisted doctor, his two assistants and some terribly mutated experiments.

ALTERNATIVE COMICS nature vs technology

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics

A nightmarish battle begins between nature and technology while a captive business man in forced to the front lines. This strange and hallucinogenic parable from the world of dreams is part of the new HEYAPATHY! Surreal Comics. The series is a sort of underground approach to the subliminal, the psyche and the monstrous metropolis.

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Ornamental Talismans

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics

Most of the day was spent hovering over the light table and animation stand, although I still did some comics sketching in the park and finished these little ornamental talisman's designed for wrap around like on a mug or a biohazardous chemical waste cannister. From top to bottom the symbology is as follows; the machine as being, the black arts, the face of the metropolis, a surreal incident, and life and death in the city of gears.