HEY APATHY! The Inkmobile

Alternative Comics The Inkmobile

A little internet fun with the folks at Whitechapel.The truck was made by Mr Fred G. and posted with a blank side panel for left for the rest of us online arts people to fill in. I prefer interacting with real people but really enjoy some of the online communities, especially in the winter when there aren't many people wandering around.  Here's another one for the whitechapel remake contests ( it's just for fun no prizes except conversation).

The City of Gears Kids Comics Online

HEY APATHY! Comics Online!

Maybe today was one for dreaming, but something about the holiday season, and in particular my 2year old nephew, has got me thinking a little more about comics for kids. As a public performer I have been interested in communicating to both the intellectual and younger viewers. Prior to my street and festival interventions, the artwork had a tendency towards a bleakness and horror much more nihilistic than the playful monstrosities I draw today. The last time I made something that was really geared towards younger audiences would have to be HEY APATHY! Book Two. While Book One, using superhero type imagery to tell a silent and symbolic parable, is vary borderline and can likely be appreciated by all audiences, Book Two was modeled after kid’s comics and cartoons. This sort of story telling might alienate “artsy” audiences (one artbook publisher laughed at me for making kid’s books) but they are not nearly as interesting or exciting as kids are anyways.

A little time before making the Samurai Comic (Book 2), I scripted and sketched out a children’s book entitled “The Sound of the City” based on one of my ink drawings of the same name. Although I haven’t gotten around to working on it yet, the script keeps making its way to the top of my pile of things to do and is really tempting. I think this book will happen soon.

Yesterday I did some drawings for my nephew. He likes to tell me what the pictures are,” Fish! Truck! Mommy!” and so on. It is really fun. These scribbles got me thinking and I decided to give a quick whirl at designing a “HEY APATHY!” kids cartoon. I did the sketch (above) in about a half an hour during which time I pretty much sorted out all the details. To make a long story short, these superheroes are basically vigilante law enforcement in the over-industrialized imaginary City of Gears. The city is on the brink of annihilation, though the denizens don’t realize it and the team has to fight various evils villains trying to destroy the metropolis. Sounds dull I know, but I was inclined to approach this as though it were a real show. This means within a set of rules and formulae. The fun will be in the symbolic narratives which I are festering in my sick mind.

The team consists of two kids, an artist and a book-worm computer whiz, a superhero, the old wise one, a female adult with musical magic, Audu & Jungle Cat (from Book Two). They have a giant robot which, once a diabolical business drone, has been reprogrammed for the better of mankind. The Robot is a key representation of the necessity to use, and not combat, technology despite all the inappropriate programming. The MachineHead corporate villain is continually trying to over-do consumption frequently threatening the well being of the city. Lastly the heroes know that they can not disturb the flow of the city for fear of chaos and must work entirely in secret. Blah Blah. Anyways I’m having fun with this today. I think I’ll flesh it out with some more drawings the next time I have free time. I think it would be cool ( and likely wise) to have a whole television series worked out. You never know when  opportunity might arrive and more importantly this is  just something I always wanted to do. READ WEBCOMICS!

Comic Drawings for Kids

HEY APATHY! COMICS ONLINE

Another busy day at the animation stand. Strange week this is leading up to the holidays. I’ve had a bit of human things to do, such as brunch with the family, some gift making and a small amount of shopping. The drawings posted here are for my 2 year old nephew Darroch.  He get’s a kick out of identifying the things in the pictures. These will get cut out and scattered throughout his gifts. Nevertheless I maintained a solid work schedule and should get a lot more done before I start touring dinner parties for the festive season. So far I made 110 animation stills as well as  a bit of drawing done with the goal of making it to 150 and finishing the weekly webcomic before Christmas. Otherwise the primordial vascular and clawed limbs protruding from beneath my bed at night have not been able to find me when I am under the covers and I think the cat has figured out a way to get rid of them. Life is good. VISIT HEY APATHY.COM

Metropolis Animation Drawings

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Animations

The City is a giant gear spiraling infinitely around and around. At least that’s how it feels today. I’ve been working on an animation sequence involving the symbolic city of gears. This was probably one of the first uninterrupted studio sessions I’ve had in a while. There always seems to be something else to take care of. I took full advantage of the open schedule and have been producing frames rapidly pace since noon. After this short interlude for eating and typing, I’ll put in a few more hours before calling it quits. If I’m lucky I might get 10 frames done. (That equals less than 1 second of film) Each frame is almost exactly like the previous. The image depicts the metropolis rolling around in a gear like formation. The process involves two basic steps, a brief under drawing and a final rendering. This means that after I drawing the whole thing once, I actually have to go back a re-draw it all again. The short loop is going to take at least 200 frames to complete but I am just stubborn enough to enjoy the doing this kind of work.

In fact I more than enjoy the work and have become a bit obsessive about the films. It takes so long to draw a single idea that the ordeal is simultaneously meditative and exhilarating. The animation itself requires immense attention, single ideas remain prominent (almost static) for extended periods of time, yet I can barely think about anything else. I’ve come to this sort of slowed down thought process based around movements equaling 1/22 of a second while attempting to physically transcribe these movements as quickly as possible. Meanwhile my conscious attention remains focused on the gear, each building and how they are going to move in the next few 1/22ths of a second and where they need to be 2 or 8 seconds from now. Occasionally I flash to future scenes or other stories, though through necessity, I rein in those wandering thoughts and drive them  swiftly back to the gear. Sounds all fragmented and crazy, it feels like that a bit too, however when the damned thing starts breathing… well that’s something I can hardly wait to see.

FREE WEEKLY WEBCOMICS



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

Alternative Webcomics Superheroes vs the Robots

HEY APATHY! WEBCOMICS

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…



Surreal Alternative Comics

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

A Kid and his War Toy. This 8.5 x 11inch sketchbook comic features a little boy with small strange devices attached to his temples powering a giant mechanized war machine complete with multiple fire arms and monstrous tentacle legs. Basically I just felt like a drawing a robot and my mind started sifting through all my childhood toys, and eventually to the more modern ones and those strange Japanese kids shows where the children fight robots like sports. Any ways I  added three more panels and made up a narrative for this image turning the doodle into a comic or something like that. It is an odd artist’s process but interestingly enough, though all my pictures have stories quite often I’d no idea of the narration until the work is all done. more HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Technologically Natural Mutations

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics!

On the left two people can be seen growing and flourishing among the plants and foliage, peacefully moving through wondrous cycles. As a distorted reflection their counterparts lay entangled, dressed in suits, amidst a metallic cluster of technological tentacles. Each side embraces it’s unusual predicament yet in the center the two worlds collide with evolutionary results. The vines and computers meet head on, mixing and mutating into a strange new form. As the opposing developments amalgamate in bizarreness, one of the electric tentacles breaks free from the form. Swinging uncontrollably through the air around the newly conceived creation the wire persistently spews black liquids throughout the open sky. more at http://www.heyapathy-comics-art.com/

ALTERNATIVE COMICS in SPACE!

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics

ALTERNATIVE COMICS A Robotic Romance

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics

In this part of world, a strange as it is, there is little room for anomalies and everything is pretty much the same. All the houses are similar, the cars and the schools. And since the library only has online books now a days there is little left to remind us of the past. There is however one odd piece of land north about an hour drive through the suburbs from the city. Up there the whole landscape has been developed into homes with the bizarre exception of a few tiny acres. Surrounded on all sides by new homes and backyard fences sit’s a little farmland untouched and still used. An aging old man gets up every morning and works in the fields as though nothing has changed. He doesn’t care that all our food come from laboratories nor does he mind that he is able to produce very little. It seems that it is the habits and chores that he loves and has stuck to his calling for longer than I remember.

The man rarely leaves the grounds except for a Sunday mass and breakfast. Only a small convoy of trucks have ever entered which transport his goods to the hills. No developer, nor lawman, or even a guest was ever welcomed into his small private land. That is until recently. Lately the farmer has been seen relaxing a bit in the company of a young woman. Rumours have it they met at the diner after church. She was a charmer and apparently from a family of farmers so the old man was taken and took up a friend. Within weeks of her presence the farm started changing, the grasses grew longer and certain area’s turned unkempt. The farmer and the lady were seen more often in town and the eventual marriage came of little surprise.

After the wedding the farmer resumed his regular chores while his young wife seemed to scold him secretly and spent all her time on the phone. It was a hot sunny morning when the situation had escalated and the whole town had known of the newly weds incredible fight. Witness, and there were a lot of them given the houses around the farm, saw the women running across the fields yelling after the man as he near unconsciously ploughed. She was citing certain legal phrases no one else could understand and the farmer snapped out of his daze looking fearful and angry. That is when the accident occurred. His wife fell forwards and landed close to the plough which caught her hair violently shaking her about. When the farmer pulled her out there was no blood, nor bodily damage but her face had removed revealing a mechanical shell! The wife was made of metal and wires! Nothing more than a machine! Some of the witnesses claim that she even had electric tentacles under her false wig of human hair.

Nevertheless the couple have been in court ever since attempting to sort out the details of their inevitable divorce. It would appear that with out prenuptials the robot women is entitled to the farm though the farmer has taken up arms and refuses to finalize the divorce. At best he may win half the land but these proceedings get quite complicated and his case is a rather difficult one as the laws of robot right are still vague and open to interpretation. But for now the farm is quiet and still sitting in place. The farmer is tending his fields and the neighbourhood is watching curiously and wondering if the new houses destined to grow beside them will be bigger and better equipped than the ones they already own.

visit 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 in Toronto Magazine

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics in Toronto Magazine

I received a copy of the latest Dandyhorse Magazine today from contributing author and editor in chief Tammy Thorne. I've done some illustrations for the magazine in the past and was interviewed by Tammy this past winter. The article was published in this new spring issue along with a new illustration based on the primary themes the periodical references. Dandy horse is a cyclist and bike oriented fare which discusses personal, political and all issues concerning bicycles and their positive impact on our urban center and the environment in general. The articles look also at various social issues with an enticing a activist ideology. For this particular publication the major thematic hypothesis revolved around different interpretations of the term “social justice”.

HEY APATHY! Social Justice Superhero

The article discusses my evolution and experiences as a street artist as well as some of my insights on the metamorphoses of Toronto. Not to many people ( actually absolutely no one) had the same unique vantage as I did on the streets to witness our big city get bigger. The article gets down to my interpretation of social justice which fittingly runs throughout all my stories and artwork. The basic idea is that the city is a giant gear but it is up to all the different individual character’s to make that gear spin. Basically a call and a warning for each of us to slow down and take note of the import of our actions on a day to day basis. Thanks Tammy for the awesome  article, I think you expressed my expressions without even the slightest of misinterpretations ( though I never actually graduated from O.C.A.D. which keeps popping up in all these articles, maybe they should just give me an honorary degree!).

I was proud to get involved ( and not just because of the interview) and created my own “social justice” hero with a bicycle for a head. Dawning a flowing cape and an insignia initialled S.J. this weird little superhero is ready to ride. The connections between cycling, the environment, mass transit and humanity are readily discussed through out the magazine. I found some really interesting information about Toronto’s new large scale environmental centre as well as an enlightened comparison between T.O.’s and Vancouver’s approach to subsidized housing. Anyways you’ll have to go out and buy one I’m not giving any more away.(Viva Capitolismo!)

Cover of Dandyhorse Magazine

In a similar fashion to the SPACING Magazine, in which another HEY APATHY! article was published earlier this year, I was extremely honoured to be part of a socially driven and political publication. It has always been my mission to create artworks of social significance which can be used as a means of discourse and potentially incite change. Neither Dandyhorse nor Spacing are driven by celebrity or known to be exploitatively fashionable. In fact both magazines are intellectually charged and designed to perpetuate dialogue and information of the utmost relevance to the learned Torontonian. Though I’m not one to turn away art or fashion press exposure, I am incomparably proud to be part of these more important magazines.

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

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Metropolitan Castles

HEY APATHY! ALTERNATIVE COMICS!

The magnificent metropolis has developed to an unmatched pinnacle boasting towering castles and systems of mass production. The denizens are influenced by controlled basic necessities and through the use of magically flickering and utterly unobtainable fantasies. By means of their servitude progress and wealth are in abundance and the prosperous city is ever growing sprouting concrete extremities out in every direction and across many distance lands. Functioning as an enormously intricate vascular structure the road ways provide the city with all the necessary provisions. To and from an apparently endless source trucks travel with the resources empowering the metropolis’ hunger and strength.

 

Though psychologically detached from world of rock and soil the castle rely heavily upon the earth to survive. Asides from the oxygen and water given freely the planet also harbours multiple secrets which are not as easily sought. In fact the skyscrapers, the servants and the vehicle are all dependent on the earth’s blood as the primary fuel source permitting the endless consumption but mother nature protects her life force with deadly defence. The blood although quit useful when handled properly is seething with toxins best left beneath the ground. However in all our ingenuity man has managed to extract the fluids sacredly horded under ground. But as with all things human error is destined to occur as one of the large blood tubes has recently failed.

 

Exploded in retaliation the pipes has burst forth seeping an environmentally fatal curse upon sea and land. The black liquid gold is quickly turned the colour of death as a seemingly unstoppable plague devours entire gulfs. Many animals and ecosystems not mention financial sectors have been crippled or extinguished by the devastating ooze. Fear not young metropolitans for the castles will still stand and likely feel little of the terror resultant of the catastrophe. And besides it is known that this disaster can be easily remedied since those responsible determine the most appropriate means to profit from the supposedly insignificant horror.

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

ALTERNATIVE COMICS STREET ART CHRONOLOGY 2008

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics

I spent the fall and early winter of 2007 preparing for a large scale drawing installation. The show opened on the first of December and ran for an entire month at the Resistor Gallery on College Street, Toronto. The new years cold month were spent at the Kensington Market studio producing a series of 3 extended and extremely intricate pen and ink drawings. I returned to the street for my last full time season during the late May of 2008. In this my final year I had mastered my performances. I had overcome territorial battles, imitators, city by-laws and perfected my display. However despite conquering many of the streets obstacles there was one battle which could not be won. The 2008 street season proved to be one of the most gruelling of all as Toronto was swamped with unseasonably wet weather.

Last Street Drawing The Corner of Queen West & Soho

Though it was my practice to produce smaller detailed drawings during the week cumulating with weekend performance extravaganza’s the was not a single live painting produced on the streets in 08. The warm weather came late after a harsh and cold winter and was dampened by constant thunder storms and rain. In fact it actually rained every single Saturday and almost every Sunday for the entire spring and summer that year preventing all my public painting. The weekdays weren’t much better as I found myself perpetually closing up shop midday to avoid being drenched. Business was great when it was sunny but the clouds were relentless. A picturesque example of my street art that year is the image of me and two customers trapped under my umbrella waiting for the storm to pass so we can close the sale. I produced approximately 30 15 x 30 “ detailed pen and ink studies including my last street drawing depicting the landscape around me. Frustrated by the rainfall I found the season more contemplative than progressive and decidedly started illustrations regarding my evolutionary course. The diptychs explored comparative imagery of similar landscapes drawn in my initial hieroglyphic style and my more modern comic book renderings respectively. There were not many crowds and nor live paintings in the streets and having done some final analysis’ I decided it was time to move on.

CITY OF GEARS from a far and from inside.

Fortunately and fatefully cosmic at the same time I as the streets were fading I received three invitations to work at gala events. I painted at a huge fundraiser at the Don Valley Brick Works and at a Queen West Gallery Event, followed by a commissioned clothing design for the Art Gallery of Ontario and a performance in the storefront window of Toronto’s Hudson’s Bay Company Store. All the cards were lining up for me to move on as I found my street art exhibits landing in the most unusual of places. While the outdoors grew less friendly and workable due to the poor weather, many new doors were opening up and welcoming me inside.

The City Fish! HEY APATHY ink drawings 2008

I had expended much energy trying to work around the awful weather and found that my time was more fully consumed by this irritation than by the act of creation. I stopped working the streets in Sept of 08 though the transition was as natural as necessary as I’d already spent the better part of the season indoors. Feeling satisfied with my investigations I resided to start focussing on certain more detailed and sustained projects which could not be made in the streets. Not only did the rain dictate the amount of work being made but so to did the wind, dirt, and bird droppings which often plagued the streets. The life span of an illustration board being worked on in public is approximately three days. After this time the dust and moisture begins to take it’s toll. The tree I depended on for shade and shelter from the elements also had a tendency of releasing particles of sap across my papers. Therefore any drawing had to be completed quit quickly so as to be wrapped protectively under plastic before the streets ruined the piece. This meant no sustained artworks and absolutely no comics for such projects require pristine environments for production.The rain also played a huge part in determining the work for if the skies looked threatening I had to work on a small scale. No brushes or wet inks could be used on such days and as a result I worked exclusively with technical pens through out 2008.

THE CITY MONSTER!

 

In the fall I resigned and retired from my full time venture in the streets and decided to pursue the development of the HEY APATHY! comics. Having learned many things about architecture and others I set up my studio to start my surreal memoirs. The new comic book series would be a simultaneous exploration of my true life experiences and the mythological illustrations I created on the streets. The goal being to share my experiences of strange interactions with my sociological symbolic superhero drawings. Even though I was now well researched and certain that I’d learnt all I could from the public venue, I knew that I would miss the constant exchange of ideas so I started to plan ahead. Instead of working the streets I started booking a number of public festivals ensuring that I would perform at least once a month throughout the following year. Today I am still working at numerous festivals while simultaneously maintaining a ridged studio schedule. The result has been more comics and animations but no of the stories could have possibly sprouted with out the 5 years worth of investigative interventions which I performed in the streets.

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

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Street Art Chronology 2007

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics STREET ART

       

The 2007 was by far my most exciting as well as one of the shortest in the five year experiment. Having the luck of a profitable Christmas, I passed the 06 -07 winter indoors working on the pages for HEY APATHY! Book One. At the time of the March holiday, which often started my spring performances, the weather remain vicious but I was content to remain inside until midway through May when the spring finally sprung. I dove right into my new large location across from the Silver Snail and started painting enormous murals at a previously unmatched pace. Every weekend of good weather I made 10 x 12 foot ink murals live on Queen Street West. The new drawings were the biggest of all my performances and could be created in as little as 3 hours. The new season, new location and new performances generated new success.

      

Weekend Performance Painting on Queen Street West

           

I had used the area out front of the Black Bull Pub across the street from the Silver Snail for about a month the previous winter. The location held many advantages including shade, space, and the inability for other artist to intrusions but I knew that there would be certain political grievances ahead if I was going to maintain the spot. First of all the location was often used by a seasoned professional who is famous in Toronto for his enormous chalk renderings. However I was aware that he’d primarily relocated to a busier corner in front of the Eaton Center. I hadn’t seen the Chalk artist on Queen for at least 8 months so I had little concern of offending his seniority. Oddly enough on one of my first days in the new spot I returned to my table to find a set of earplugs sitting mysteriously by my pens. I had already started wearing plugs on the street as a result of experience and had a strange inclination that the gift came from someone else who was aware of the noise. I instantly thought of the chalk artist, the only other person who could possibly know how noisy that corner is over the course of a day. Obviously this is purely speculation but I like to think that the ear plugs were a sort of permission or changing of the guard giving me the approval to occupy the space.

               

ATTACK OF THE CN TOWER! Ink Drawings from the streets 2007

                

Though I never actually encountered the chalk artist I did run into territorial problems with another vendor over the space. For the first few days of the spring a sculptor named John started to compete with me for the space. He would come over a start yelling but I’d argue with my licences which I could tell at a gaze that the apparently derelict sculptor did not possess. One morning he actually picked up my table and smashed over my head and shoulders while I was knelling down to unpack. In another instance I had plaster shattered all around me and my work. Eventually through much peaceful negotiation John and I resided to accommodate each other and share the large space. Some how we made friends and enjoyed a very peaceful comradeship though the space was not fully ideal for two. Fortunately as my business picked up John too had some good fortune selling several sculptures at gallery rates and he retired early giving me the whole space. Despite our vagrant introductions, I am still good friends with John-Paul who ultimately proved the old adage that you can’t tell a book by it’s cover.

Working on some small canvas' during he weekdays

            

By the second week of the good weather I was running a tight ship. No one else disturbed or distracted me and the show went on full force. The CN Tower turned into an eyeball and heroes fought endlessly with villains. The city was a gear and it was being spun by all kinds of people. During the week days I worked on small canvas’ which were selling from $300-500 and in high demand. On Saturday’s I would paint large performance murals gathering enormous crowds and painting up a frenzy. I addition to the Queen Street performances I also did 6 paintings at various P.S. Kensington Car free Festivals totalling 27,10-12 foot ink drawings for the duration of the season. One of these incredible feats was captured in a time lapse video by photographer Craig Boyko. Entitled 3.5 hours with Mike Parsons featured a 10 x 12 foot depiction of the city of gears created one Saturday afternoon out on Queen Street West.

             

Live Painting at Kensington Market Street Festival

                   

Having worked as hard as I could and near perfecting my street art I retired for the year on the 1st of September. In a short 4 month season I’d actually talked to more people and sold more paintings than in all of my previous years combined. Instead of $10 sketches, I was selling paintings and my full line of merchandised comics, t-shirts, and prints were always running out of stock. My performances were becoming powerful as I attracted more and more onlookers and most importantly of all the summer weather was immaculate. At the end of August I booked an exhibition space for the first time in years, and retreated to the studio to develop 7 new pen and ink canvasses.

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

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Street Art Chronology 2006 part 2

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics Street Art

Part 2 continued from yesterday

The 2006 season lasted well into the fall with a brief relapse in good weather in time for the holiday season. Following the Edward Day show and the Cambridge Galleries Solo Exhibition, I continued to work on the streets performing weekend murals and working on pen drawings. The weather remained friendly until late in October and I happily held regular hours on the sidewalks of Queen West. It was an incredible experience to sit comfortably out doors in the fall as I witnessed the city change seasons and faces. All sorts of new people had arrived from all over as new students and new businesses started their year. The leaves changed slowly but assuredly though the temperature remained seasonably remarkable until the sudden November winds.

MONSTER COMICS STREET ART 06

Without warning the streets turned cold and uninhabitable, the likes of I’d not seen for near two years. I returned to my studio satisfied for the season and decided to work on HEY APATHY! Book One. However the monstrous gusting passed rather quickly and the dampened weather recuperated in time for the Christmas shopping. I got back out on the street mid-way through November and found the holiday season worth weathering the colder weather. I would work until 7 each night with a lantern after dark. It was certainly getting colder but business was booming as many a weird drawing went off as gifts.

The most unusual occurrence erupted during my winter street art exhibits as the weather took a strange yet welcome new course. The winter let up and the sun started rising beaming temperatures in the low teens reminiscent of spring. For the last two weeks of December I set up a 12 x 12 foot display on Queen Street West across from the Silver Snail and painted giant pictures under a beautifully sunny and windless sky. It was as warm as 10 degrees Celsius and the streets were consumed by pedestrians more than in all my previous encounters. It is a very rare occasion for Toronto to experience such fine weather during the busiest shopping event of the year and every one took advantage. Including me, thanks to the unseasonable warm and dry climate I was able to do live paintings all throughout the month of December. It was like fourteen busy Saturdays all strung in a row. I never met so many people nor received such excited reactions, especially those from the younger awestruck viewers. Following a two week long street art extravaganza I finally retired to my studio for the winter and started putting together the artwork for my first HEY APATHY! Comic. The weather stayed relatively mild for the better part of the winter but there was no way I was going back out on the streets until spring. more at HEY APATHY!

 

Cover of HEY APATHY! BOOK ONE/13

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Street Art Chronology Stories from 2005 part 1

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics

Here's some more accounts of my experiences as a street artist, the last few days I wrote about 2004 so here my initial recollections from the second season which took place in Toronto through out 2005.

My second season working as a street artist proved unbelievably progressive as my artistic vision, technical skills and public performances were developing at a rapid pace. Although the drawings began in a similarly monstrous fashion as those from 04, by the end of the 2005 summer I had intuitively and entirely reinvented “HEY APATHY!” as a result of the public processes. I started making quick live performance artworks and engaging the audience in more and more parabolic conversations. The weather was perfect, the city was busy and working the streets became a full time gig. The reactions were easily tenfold those of my previous venture and soon thereafter many other artists started to join my crusade. As a result of the booming business and incomparable inspiration the size of my display, the intricacies of the illustrations and my ability to interact with viewers all drastically evolved.

The winter of 2004- 05 was probably one of the worst times of my meagre existence. I had rented a 5 x 8 foot room in the basement of a boarding house for something like $150 a month. I remember breaking the ceiling lamp with the top of my head on several occasions simply by standing upright in the mornings. I had managed to pre-sell a large body of ink drawings and was basically living off a small allowance divined out by the patron on a bi-weekly basis. This business arrangement kept me productive though I can no longer stand the sight of canned chilly or instant rice. Needless to say that as the spring of 2005 sprung I was anxious and excited to return to the streets. I wished desperately to reinitiate my experiment where I could stretch, breath, and create freely while generating a more steady income.

As enthusiastic as I’d been I could never have imagined the results my second season would unfold. Instantaneously I discovered success both in productivity and reaction as I started working on larger scale ink drawings sprawled out on the street. I remember those first days absolutely unlike any others as the sidewalk was crowded from the curb to the stores. The sun was blaring a peculiarly beautiful yellow as I weighted down some poster sized papers with bricks from the street. Before I even really knew what was happening I had incited a crowd and was talking about and selling drawings. I made more in sales on the first weekend of 2005 than I the whole season of 2004 and more importantly I had initiated a dialogue with the city. Monsters, Robots, and Exploding buildings were flying hot of the concrete at about $40 a piece. Of coarse even such small successes always come with a price as the sidewalks were soon cramped by other artists and the city by-law enforcers took notice… continued tomorrow

            see more of the 2005 drawings www.heyapathy-comics-art.com/street-art-comics-2005.html

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Technological Talisman

HEY APATHY! Surreal Alternative Comics

Yet another unusually hot spring day in the city of Gears. The thick air and burning sun pumped us up around 30 degrees Celsius as the sluggish denizens filled the early morning streets. At first the metropolis was energized in every sense as people flaunted and strut in their scantily summer fashions fully ready to make use of the fine weather. However as the sun continued it's climb and the heat crept steadily upward, the excitement became filtered and numbed by the inevitable  stroke and dehydration. The parks filled with bitterness and irritation from any who tried to move.

By noon the temperature had risen and though I did not check it, that heat was more than abnormal and relentlessly rising. I heard bickering from the benches and witness no less than three fights as my neck started reddening forcing me into the shade. It was at about three in the afternoon that I found my self seeking shelter under a large tree from the sweltering rays. The heat kept on creeping and I found that I could barely replenish my perspiration by downing several litres of water.

At four o'clock the concrete stared to melt peeling back layers and revealing strange thoughts. The air started to waver as though it was water and those who were left standing were in the utmost of rage. Car horns could be heard , along with much yelling , from all perceptive directions of the urban landscape. Still getting hotter at five in the late afternoon, I found my self caught in a daze completely incapacitated while stuck to the tree. It was here in the mucky humid waving heat of the city that I nearly passed out, but it was not from the heat but from something I saw.

From across the blazing park a figure stood alone and idol, easily noticeable as the only person unaffected by the heat. As the blurry grudged air slowly subsided the being appear ever slightly more clear. At first the only peculiarity seemed to be the tall strides, as absolutely every one else was incapacitated by the humidity. Then I noticed the beings head like a bull only with four horns and three faces or possibly four. The movements of the creature became smoothly surreal as it moved closer and closer until I was most certain it's legs were in fact constructed mechanics resembling tentacles and tendrils intertwined yet mobile.

I squinted to view this atrocious absurdity and though it appeared to take no notice, it continually approached. Now the faces were moving and intermingled forming and reforming before my very eyes. Amazing the effects of a hot humid vision, an hallucination for sure brought about by the sun. The creature got closer and I could see that it's hips were made up from small screens projecting strange expressions and I almost laughed as I was compelled to smell my water for a spike.

At last the monster arrived only inches before me when under all the animalistic mechanizations I saw some thing more terrible. It was a man in a lab coat and large rubber gloves wearing the cape and cowl of a hero with his arm spread wide apart. His teeth were gritted and hissing and I could hear the sound of machinery from under his breath. His torso was opened with intestines of computers and the bull's heads seemed to be one with his own. The strange scientist reached forward with one of his gloved hands and made a gesture as though he was turning a switch. "That's a wrap" were the words muttered out from the machine noises and all at once the heat and desolate weather system seemed to recoil.

The vision, the scientist, the sounds and the humidity all vanished at once. The temperature did not drop instead immediately corrected and the dehydrated irritations of the city had ceased. Who knows maybe I just fell asleep in the sun but that certainly doesn't explain how I finished the drawing posted above this weird account of today's heat wave gone wrong. Any ways I got back to my studio, ate some food and worked on the O.A.C. animation trying to forget that we are quite very possibly all rats in a lab....

 
 

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

ALTERNATIVE COMICS HEY APATHY! CHARACTERS

HEY APATHY ! ALTERNATIVE COMICS

Still plugging away at the Character descriptions and drawings for the HEY APATHY! comics. I've finished all the heroes except for BLACK BEARD, who I'll draw today, as well as most of the villains. Between animation stills, scanning and uploading, making monster comics, and these web drawings I am feeling a little overwhelmed. I've got to finish this little whim of a project today so as to get back to some more serious work. Here are a couple more of the drawings...

Studabaker Hawk, once an insignificant business person whose unwillingness to succumb to the technological and dehumanizing mechanized epidemic transformed him into an insignificant superhuman. Despite overwhelming odds and inevitably futile efforts this strange and generic hero fights to retain a balance between man and machine in the city of GEARS.

Master Kazou was once a legendary and righteous guardian to the city of Gears. While training the skilled swordsman was injured resulting in the loss of his left eye. Whether it was the injury or a technological infection on the part of his cybernetic optic replacement is unknown, but following the injury the former guardian became with drawn, devious and eventually vanished. Rumours have it that that Master Kazuo is now operating underground as part of some strange and diabolical society whose intentions cannot be understood by sane men.