MONSTERS

Thirteen Stories, forbidden tales of the apocalypse

HEY APATHY! Independent Comics and Art

A plant has attacked a corporate office, a mad scientist and his twin assistants have set about replacing people of varied societal positions, a centaur is still chasing the supermodel, amorphous nightmares runs rampant through the streets and the city of gears spins on! The past year has been, well different, but it always is. One of the most significant of these “differences” has been my dedicated, though feeble, attempts at writing stories. As a street artist, 2004-2008, I had little use for the written word managing all my interactions verbally and with an experienced eye for unspoken communications. The streets are all about the eyes and body language which I would then perceive and create a verbal approach accordingly. Around the fall of 2009 I started building a website and all of a sudden there were none of these options forcing me to use the only means available for online communication, words.

I made a number of failed attempts at essays and descriptions for my site but found the work overwhelming, scattered and ultimately poor. I put that project on hold and started with something smaller, little blog blurbs, but on a daily basis. I made sure to do about 200 words everyday and started working with little structures. I’d do 100 words on the story in the art, and 100 on the story behind the processes. Soon the word count doubled, and while still not satisfied with the finished paragraphs, the ordeal slowly became easier and was soon a regular in my daily routines.

Prior to this it must have been 10 years and the only writing I’d done was papers for an art school. Nevertheless what choice did I have? On Tuesday April 12, I ran out of things to say and started making things up. At this time I’d never actually written, or properly considered writing, a stories with words. When I “write” graphic novels I do so directly with the ink on paper. They are basically composed like silent films and the dialogue/text are the last thing on my mind. Animations are made the same way, I just make it up as I go along. Telling the stories on the streets is again, entirely contradictory to the written version. For example I can change my choice of words on the spot depending on the demographic of the viewer. You can’t do that online or in printed text.

The process of making things up proved immediately gratifying. Although I have been putting a some efforts into producing drawings this year, my primary focus has been on developing new animations. These things take for ever and you don’t really get to think about the narrative developments because so much attention I required for every 2/22 seconds of the film. Basically in the same time it takes to illustrated a single panel artwork telling a world of stories, the animation might only get the characters from one scene to the next (if I draw fast). Knowing full well that I can’t make animations and comics at the same time, the written stories really fulfilled a need to produce ideas rapidly while engrossed in such a technical process.

So I decided to write 13 stories with illustrations to use on my site. I think there are 7 posted and few more hanging around the blog. I maybe only edited 2 of them properly but I won’t start inserting scolding coat hangers in the veins beneath my toenails if that doesn’t happen before the new year. If I can get all thirteen ideas into pages, I’ll be satisfied for now. I’d love to see the work published in a little black hardcover entitled “Thirteen Stories, forbidden tales of the apocalypse” or something like that.

WEEKLY WEBCOMICS

Alternative Comics Surreal Webcomic

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics

Busy week in and out of the comics laboratory. I've been pounding away at the animation but had so many other odds and ends that  time is slipping by fast. I did a lot of research ( with the aid of my father) into getting proper prints done. I haven't been able to meet the needs of my customers because of various technical difficulties regarding print production. However this past week has been really successful and I've been able to find a few really nice prints at various price points. I got some glossy posters done, which will probably sell for less than $60 and some really high quality arcival giglee prints. The giglee prints aren't cheap, but damn they are striking. I am really happy with the work and will be making up a couple of new editions next week. This weekend is the Nuit Blanche festival so I also spent many hours editing the animations and music which are going to be projected on the front of 401 Richmond Street. I'll also be performing /projecting out on Queen West as an unofficial part of the program. The worst part about editing was that not only do I not know what I'm doing, but I installed a brand new video editing software in my computer that was totally awesome, until it crashed my system. Nothing, not even my documents folder, would work properly until I uninstalled the new system. That was a rotten 6 hours. Nonetheless I got the weekly webcomic finished and posted. The prologue or first vignette, is now complete. So that's one exhausting week with many other things still unresolved I move forward towards Saturday's exhibition, an entire night, from sunrise to sunset, of live painting and projected animations in the middle of the streets. OTHER STREET ART EXHIBITS

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Surreal Webcomic

HEY APATHY! ALTERNATIVE COMICS

I can’t believe it’s almost October already. Two days ago it was 30 degrees humid and warm all night. Today it is fall. The wind is howling the nice temperatures are hiding with the sun and we are all that much older. Without getting too morbid or macabre ( giggling already)I can’t help but to repeatedly envision my final breaths and I  feel closer  and more terrified of them than ever before. The end of the summer will do that to you. Working hard despite the ominous premonitions and got another page of the surreal comics up as well as this little promo drawing. I wouldn’t really call this the cover because it only took a few hours and was drawn in my sketch pad. I’ll take some time to do a real cover someday maybe when it’s not so cold out but hopefully before those horrid, gasping, conscious and absolutely enlightened last breaths…



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 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 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 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 Hell on Earth

HEY APATHY! SURREAL COMICS

Alternative Comics Strange Faces

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

Alternative Comics Creature Visions

HEY APATHY! Surreal 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 Surreal Stories

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

The new HEY APATHY! Surreal comics are basically a side project while I work of the upcoming animation. In order to keep practicing comics while otherwise involved the recent drawings have primarily been created on a small scale and in sketchbooks. The works suffer technically from time restraints and materials but do however offer an unique approach to story telling and imaginary investigations otherwise unobtainable.

On the one hand I’ve no time to develop the scripts and the sketch book paper does not lend itself to fine detail. The drawings are restricted by the size of the book and the type of paper being used. 8.5 x 11 is approximately half the size of a regular comics page. The paper also has a tendency to bleed slightly which, in combination while the scale, makes it nearly impossible to render intricate imagery. An obvious example involved drawing the eyes of the character. In the sketchbook the addition of the iris always results in a blurred mess around the pupil. Therefore the new strips don’t have any iris’. The sketchbook medium frees me from technical and conceptual concern. Even though I’m going to post these strips, it really doesn’t matter what I draw. There is often a pressure associated with creating works for exhibition, publication, commission or on expensive materials. None of these factors apply to the sketch book. In fact the finished drawings become of little importance and the imaginary scenarios take precedence. (Which is weird because none of it makes any sense).

Despite the technical restrictions the sketchbook permits an immediate, intuitive and meditative approach to the pages. Often stories that are to weird to think of, or would never have been made upon further deliberation, come to life regardless. I devised a sort of literary device. The format follows that each page functions as an entire story, like a news paper funny, while simultaneously revealing a larger narrative. This technique works as a guide for the drawing and story telling and is intended as a weekly web comic in which each instalment is self contained and continuous. I also pack a lunch and go to the park which, although technically problematic, is a very quiet and productive place for me. Once I get there I really don’t have any thing else to do but work. These elements, in combination with the oddly beneficial limitations, really allow me to attack the blank pages and dive deep into the world of the weird. see 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 The Mad Scientist

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

An unfinished comic page in which a demented scientist experiments on himself. Having devised a solution capable of unleashing the most powerful of evils, the doctor is determined to wield the energy. He has grown tired of military experiments and human specimens and thirsts for something more hideously thrilling. Shortly after the injection the patient dissolves physically melting into a puddle of gore on the floor, yet instantly is reconstituted with terrifying force as one of the worst creatures in existence… himself! 8.5 x 11 sketchbook comic from the slowly evolving HEY APATHY! web comics.


 The web comics are a bunch of shorts based on the characters, themes and imaginary landscape featured in the full length HEY APATHY! alternative comics. I’ve got 17 pages like this one done, without the lettering, but haven’t got the time to finish and post them properly so I’ll start that up in the fall or early winter ( whenever the animation is complete) . The only concern I have about stock piling these comics is that it gives me an opportunity to censor the works as the fables progress. I already feel displeased with some of the earlier pages but am going to try and resist editing them out. I feel the possibility of re-examination can detract from the experiment of a daily surreal comic because some of the disorderly weirdness that makes life so interesting might get cut out. I’ll do my best to keep all the comics and am looking forward to doing a daily online this winter.

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Surreal Stories

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

Since my primary attention is currently being given to the development of an extensive hand drawn animation (sponsored by the Ontario Council for the Arts) my current artistic practice is rather repetitive and mundane. It takes at least thirty similar drawings to make a character move for a couple of seconds, so you can imagine it can be days of work before the concepts or technique evolve even slightly. However to keep my imagination from slowing to a factory like pace I am producing a number of short comics in my sketch book on the side.

These comics are turning out to be really fun. I have often kept a comic-sketch book as a means of stream of conscious expression. The idea is basically to use up a sketchbook entirely with comics so that the completed book could be presented as a work of art ( wouldn’t that be funny?). I tend to use a single page technique wherein each page is a whole strip or series of funnies. The cheap sketch book works well because it eradicates any intimidation freeing me of all preconceptions of what the drawing should be. I know that these cartoons have to be done quickly and are on low quality paper , therefore I needn’t bother with planning, revisions or technical fidgeting. The work just really let’s me explore my weird brain, letting whatever happens happen and try to figure out what it’s all about later.

I’ve done this experiment at least four times in which I produced two volumes of STUPID COMICS, a tastelessly twisted homage to Crumb and the underground comics movement of the sixties, three issues of DOWN, a surreal creature feature about men as monsters as well as machines, and a large graphic novel entitled THIS DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE. For the most part these books are compiled of single panel or page cartoons involving specific thematic and technical explorations using an unplanned free form approach. One of the most interesting aspects of each of these projects is how that despite being entirely unscripted and often plotted as individual parables, the books always end up stringing together chronologically to reveal a hidden narrative. I say hidden because one, the larger story-arcs are not always easily apparent and two, because I didn’t even realize I was writing them at the time.

The panels I’ve posted today are about the Mad Scientist and his two strange Assistants. The Mad Scientist started about a few weeks ago in a single page strip wherein he experiments on himself. It was just supposed to be a silly short comic but oddly enough the character has perpetually resurfaced. The Mad Doctor, now with two unidentifiable medical assistants, seems to be meddling in the affairs of some of the other characters. I don’t really know why yet or what the purpose of these re-occurring characters, but I’ll admit Im kind of interested in the outcome my self. Can’t wait to get back to the drawing board tomorrow so I can find out what happens next...

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

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

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

Another unfinished one pager from the surreal sketchbook. I haven’t the time to work on full scale comics so I decided to keep a sketchbook of weird short comics. The project is really fun because of it’s freedom. Though the sketchbook sized works sacrifice the detail and the smoothness of fine paper drawings the interesting part is that it doesn’t matter what I draw. When I work on a HEY APATHY! Book, I’ll do a script, some preliminaries and research but these strange cartoons are just off the top of my head. Free form comics just start drawing and hope for the best. The only rule I am following is that each page tells one story. What is also of interest, and entirely unplanned, is that all of these vignettes are started to connect together in a larger plot. I want to revamp my Surreal Comics page on my site and add these comic strips but that won’t happen for a while.