Nick Craine

SUSPENSE!

2009-11-03T14:08:00.003-05:00

HELLO GOOD READERS. I'm going underground and am not sure when I'll be back up for air. It's been wonderful to share and correspond with you in this way. I hope to meet again down the line.

Very Best, Nick

Quill Hair

2009-11-02T08:56:00.003-05:00

Squiggle Finger

2009-10-30T08:51:00.003-04:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME. Eric Carle eat your heart out.

Sketching While Waiting For My Kid at the YMCA

2009-10-29T09:10:00.002-04:00

Cheers!

2009-10-28T08:57:00.005-04:00

IN THE VEIN OF FOUND ART let's look at the Cheerios box. I enjoy looking at commercial photography and trying to discern the subtext. TD Canada Trust is the best. They've got a whole slough of questionable images. Or how about the Rogers adverts that come in the mail filled with images that make television watching into this amazing group participatory love-in. This content affects human beings. Eye contact is everything.

Quill Head

2009-10-27T08:59:00.004-04:00

I MISS THE CROW QUILL. I spent 3 years of my youth drawing exclusively with a crow quill following Dave Sim's technique. I drew 5 issues of my black & white indie road movie comic, The Cheeseheads.

This photo was taken of Max MacDonald as a cheesehead circa 1993.

PHOTO BY HOLLY CRAINE

Hungry Ghost #2

2009-10-26T12:15:00.002-04:00

HERE'S MY OWN HUNGRY GHOST image. I drew this up and pasted it to the inside of a file drawer. Whenever I'm turning into that vacuum flaky artist person I try to ponder the content of this hasty sketch.

Patty O'Toole

2009-10-23T15:56:00.002-04:00

SOMETHING ABOUT THIS NOSE makes me think of the 1970's. Can't quite put my finger on it. I know I'm remembering something perhaps it's cute little Patty O'Toole that I was in love with in kindergarten.

Would You Like Cheese With That?

2009-10-22T13:43:00.004-04:00

HERE'S ONE THAT'LL MAKE make you groan. Do you think Botticelli envisioned this future? I saw the original Birth of Venus in Italy along with a whole body of Botticelli paintings and I have to say I think he was an illustrator first, painter second. The white caps on the waters in the background of Venus are so representational. In a time where painters were rock stars and all working for the religious state it is interesting to see what has distilled the test of time.

Apologies for the lack of Blog specific creations. I must say the schedule is too full for that extra 1/2 hour a day these days.

HERE'S A DETAIL FROM THE ORIGINAL.

Talk to the Hand

2009-10-21T11:16:00.002-04:00

MY COLLEAGUE, DAVID CAESAR HAS just launched his great website. If you want to get blown away with some super-sureal-ism go to:

www.davidcaesar.com

Hank

2009-10-20T11:43:00.003-04:00

AN OLDER PORTRAIT OF Hank Williams the third for EXCLAIM Magazine. Turns out Hank is interested in taking down the country royalty of the Williams name. His live show is 10 times as vile and whiskey fueled ad any ACDC/Whitesnake/Metallica/Judas Priest concert. One of his more memorable lyrics:

"I put the dick in dixie and the cxxt in country."

Absolute Denzel

2009-10-19T09:19:00.010-04:00

FOR YEARS NOW I'VE WANTED TO CREATE a feature film that splices together all the performances of one actor into a single narrative. (I'm sure it will be done before too long in this age of deconstruction and the DJ). The idea is that you sequence his like emotional performances together. The effect would be an psycho-emotional strobe ala Herbie Hancock. Here's a series of Denzel Washington photos overlapped to contain Denzel's full range inside one figure. Great actor.

Also came across these incredible photoshop images of celebrities put together.

ELIZABETH HURLEY & NICHOLAS CAGE

LETTERMAN & LENO

JOLIE & PITT

PITT & CRUISE

To see where these came from click HERE.

Ronin

2009-10-16T10:02:00.002-04:00

When I was 12, Shane Kenny held at drawing contest at the local comic book store. This was my submission for the reproduction category. One day I'll find my submission from the Marvel Try-Out Book and post it also.

"Who you callin' a fuzz ball!?" or Attack of the Tiger Striped Gulab Jamun

2009-10-15T09:18:00.004-04:00

Show and Title

2009-10-14T10:02:00.007-04:00

BEEN HAVING FUN WITH hand lettering. Here's something that's on the drawing board at the moment. It's for a hard cover edition of a novel I illustrated for Daniel Wells at Biblioasis -- Terry Griggs', Thought You Were Dead.

Here are couple other covers for Cormorant Books. I love hand-drawn type!

King

2009-10-13T10:19:00.005-04:00

LISTENING TO DR. MARTIN Luther King this morning. I picked up a series of CBC Massey Lecture Series recordings from my local second hand book store, Macondo Books. Brilliant. Will listen closely as the days go by and share.

Ran the 5K 23 minutes and 26 seconds.

Running

2009-10-12T07:36:00.004-04:00

15 YEARS AFTER THE DEATH of Billy The Kid, William Robinson and Alex Petrie started one of the longest running foot races in North America. Today I'll be participating in the 5km Thanksgiving Day race in my hometown of Guelph, Ontario. They're calling for temperatures between 5 and 8 degrees. I'll let you know how it goes.

Here's a portrait of another runner. Daryl Hannah as Pris from Ridley Scott's masterpiece, Blade Runner. Incidentally, note the 1st person voice over in the vintage Blade Runner trailer. Not Harrison Ford.

That Disneying Feeling

2009-10-09T09:54:00.008-04:00

SO DISNEY BOUGHT MARVEL COMICS for 4 uncountable billion dollars. Does that mean we'll see Miley Sirus joining the X-Men? My spider senses are tingling with the post-modern, ouroborosian narrative possibilities at work here. Imagine the weighty Electra plot line you could weave with Billy Ray Sirus entering the marvel canon. There's plenty of Darth Vader dogma to mine here though somehow I can't imagine the accompanying amusement park experiential applications of the topic.

But forget H. Montana for a minute. I want Cher comics. Perhaps Disney could buy Cher, (born Cherilyn Sarkisian) and we could have a whole series of Diva adventures. They could opperate like that strange disco mutant from the 80's that could manipulate light. Dazzler I believe? The singing superheros would howl each other into submission. Mariah vs. Whitney special foil wrapped collectors edition.

But seriously. I do have an idea for a 6 page Cher comic. I'd love to go to Vegas, where she's booked for the next 6 months, and experience the legend and then report on it in comic form. It would be full of sentiment and metaphore. There must be a home for a piece like this out in the world.

REMEMBER THIS ONE?

CLICK ON THE SILVER SURFER TO GET THE LATEST INFO ON THE KIRBY ESTATE IN RELATION TO THE DISNEY ACQUISITION:

A Logical Fin

2009-10-08T01:15:00.002-04:00

THIS CAME UP AT OUR local 'Drink & Draw' event this past Tuesday. Sean suggested that Sir Wilfred Laurier looked more like Leonard Cohen dressed as Spock.

Moloch on My Mind

2009-10-07T10:48:00.003-04:00

Distress the Process

2009-10-06T09:41:00.004-04:00

EVER FIND YOURSELF leaning on old habits? Do you keep playing the same repertoire over and over? (the stuff you're good at?). Try distressing the process. The brain needs to be exercised. Give it a challenge. Take yourself out of your comfort zone and you will be rewarded. (See Picasso below.) I challenge any readers to create a portrait using ketchup and mustard. Have fun and see what happens. Send me your results and I'll post them here. (please do not send originals - ha!)

Call & Answer

2009-10-05T09:36:00.005-04:00

MY WIFE AND I regularly watch Grey's Anatomy and I have to say the level of gruesome loss and pain in Shonda Rhimes' hit television series and (subsequent follow up sister program, Private Practice) is unprecedented. The emotional pornography on display is becoming too much to bear. But the network is well aware and quickly inserts contrasting advertizing that offers remedy to the suspended ache of a commercial break. I know this isn't a new concept but now, more than ever, advertising is the psyco-salve that answers all of Seattle Grace's tears.

Mixed Marx

2009-10-02T09:31:00.006-04:00

HERE'S ONE THAT ISN'T CUSTOM FOR the blog but is very recent. The piece accompanies an article in a newish issue of, The Briarpatch about armageddon. Just saw a preview for the new John Cusack everyman film, 2012. What a crazy time to be alive.

Blinded by the Dark

2009-10-01T10:02:00.005-04:00

BEWARE THE HUNGRY GHOST. My old friend Peter Georgelos tells me of a Buddhist image of the insatiable wandering mouth. It's something that seems more present than ever in our spiritless modern world. I've always found it so compelling that Kennedy chose space as the key to new human frontiers -- a vast black emptiness. I suspect all our answers reside inside of us.

Todays drawing is built from the new 'Cashmere' special edition toilet paper. Special edition to raise awareness in the fight against breast cancer. Not to be a negative nelly but I've had it up to here with ribbons and the co-opting of the unarguable cause (Nick Craine! how can you possibly disagree with this!?). It seems that most charities exist to perpetuate their own existence. Take the magazine fundraiser at my kid's school. Once a year an army of children sign up their grand parents and neighbors for countless subscriptions to Reader's Digest, Chatelaine, Macleans etc. in a veiled campaign to raise money for the school. Meanwhile a year down the road the magazine people begin their own campaign with their new database of names and addresses and systematically start selling renewals with no thought of the school children. Just another example of an aspect of our society that is self governing consumerism. 'Let's use the kids to achieve our bottom line'. I know I'm oversimplifying things and yes I'm all for sincere efforts to create awareness and find solutions and cures.

My request is this. Could we please stop co-opting causes to borrow their empathetic capital? Otherwise we are merely wiping our asses with good intentions and continuing to live in the void, our lives unexamined.

Incidentally, the company that creates this product (Kimberly-Clark) uses vast amounts of paper each year to meet consumer demand, and more than 2.5 million tons of this paper is composed of virgin tree fiber. The company is guilty of sourcing from endangered forests and emitting toxic substances such as mercury and dioxin that have devastating effects on the environment and human health. One Kimberly-Clark plant in Washington emitted 26 pounds of mercury into state waterways in the year 2000 alone.

Beware the Tupperware

2009-09-30T08:57:00.002-04:00

HE WAS CRUSHED TO DEATH by a Tupperware avalanche.

Smooth Talk Show Host

2009-09-29T08:11:00.004-04:00

I REMEMBER A STORY SOMEONE once told me of a Christmas sandwich. This family had a joke gift of a peanut butter sandwich on wonderbread that had been circulating from family member to family member for over 15 years. The sandwich hadn't broken down at all beyond becoming a little lumpy from being wrapped and unwrapped for over a decade.

Here's Conan O'Brien made from Smooth noname peanut butter and wonderbread. I'm sure it's been done before. In fact I'm almost certain I've seen George Bush done on wonderbread or maybe it was an apple pie. Either way there was gingham involved.

Watch for the Signs

2009-09-28T08:58:00.004-04:00

My friend and colleague, Uli Walle from Old World Woodworking commissioned some signage for his shop. He had some extra space that begged for a second sign so here's what we came up with.

Not so much a DRAWING OF THE DAY but something I wanted to share none-the-less.

Wrumpled Writer (3 of 3)

2009-09-25T12:48:00.003-04:00

AND OF COURSE T. WAITS.

Click HERE for some vintage Waits concert footage.

Wrumpled Writer (2 of 3)

2009-09-24T09:38:00.004-04:00

"BORING DAMNED PEOPLE. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them.”
- CHARLES BUKOWSKI.

Wrumpled Writer (1 of 3)

2009-09-23T09:44:00.003-04:00

HELLO BILL. WHERE ARE YOU IN that body?

Helpless

2009-09-22T09:25:00.002-04:00

Saucey Quaker

2009-09-21T09:52:00.003-04:00

IF I RAN THE WORLD I'D create the truth-in-advertising commission. I picture the Quaker people all singing hymn's and grinding corn flour. Or the aunt Jamima lady stirring my cream of wheat. I'd love to see some truthful advertising when it came to food or perhaps the gaming industry. Can you imagine some honest ads for casinos? Photographs of the grown men and women changing their diapers in the casino parking lot, ill met by moonlight.

Any Quakers out there? Please don't take offense. This isn't about you. It's about the folks who have co-opted your identity. BTW. Check out the little heart shape on Quaker Man's cheek. I added some make-up to his face but the heart was there already.

Back to America

2009-09-18T10:27:00.003-04:00

AMERICA IS BEAUTIFUL. AMERICA IS HAUNTED. It's a culture of acquisition that has created a few of my favorite things. Comic Books and Jazz. Amy Winehouse seems to be a crest on the wave of the American broken poem. Her life, when viewed through the lens of her work is, in itself, high art. Perhaps it's all a con but I believe I hear the person behind her thick mascara mask in some of her recordings. It's as though she's living at the site of betrayal -- stuck in a groove with her parents music playing in the background.

Whale Music

2009-09-17T11:11:00.005-04:00

MY FRIEND, SCOTT DESCRIBES his workspace as a submersible. Life as the self-employed freelancer can be a lonely game. Every so often you tap the side of the hull to send a wee message to your fellow submariners. TAP TAP TAP. PAUSE (barely audible response) tap tap tap. (Translation = This wicked client is very close to hiring me -- I can sense it in the waters). We are like the wales in the deep with our common song. "Are you assigning?"

Here is a portrait of my friend, colleague and fellow gentleman of the deep, Gareth Lind. You will have seen his work in Eye Weekly. From 1997 to 2007 he published hundreds of adventures of the anxiety ridden, media saturated sad sack, Horst Weltschmerz. This well respected comic response to Canadian Politics has been recently revived inside the pages of The Canadian Charger (a very valuable creation!).

See The Canadian Charger by clicking on Horst:

Jack

2009-09-16T09:13:00.005-04:00

HOW ABOUT JACK PALANCE? I absolutely love his embodiment of Rudi Coxx in Percy Alden's, Bagdad Cafe. The films location is in line with My Own Private Idaho and Paris Texas. The empty sunlit basin quality of the landscape is a cinematographers dream assignment. I can't stand singing in films but I'll make an exception with this one. It's an incrdible fable where people take the small gifts they have and create something that wasn't there before.

The song from the film continues to make me buckle to this day.

Listen to Javetta Steeles sing, Calling You HERE.

Caricature

2009-09-15T09:07:00.007-04:00

WHEN WE WERE LAST IN NYC, my wife and I went to a production of, All My Sons by Arthur Miller. The show featured John Lithgow in the father role (fiercely committed), Patrick Wilson, Dianne West and Katie Holmes in her debut role on Broadway. Being my first time at a big Broadway show I foolishly started taking pictures of the stage and nearly got pumbled by an usher. Also in the audience was genius character actor, Doris Roberts.

Here's an incredible caricature by Jason Mecier from San Francisco. On his site he orders his portfolio by materials (Beans, Food, Yarn, Candy). It's fantastic!

For more of his work click HERE.

Veggiechrist

2009-09-14T09:14:00.004-04:00

ONE MUST TRY TO REMAIN POSITIVE as much as one can in these complicated times. In this blog it's been a goal of mine to focus on the positive but in this instance I have to shake my head and say, "come on . . . you've got to be kidding me."

How is there any will to accept this impression of humanity. We as bobbing anthropomorphic (?) smiling food objects running through human situations in a retelling of the bible.

The industry built around this concept is a bit mind blowing. When you go to the site for the production company that creates this content (Big Idea Inc.) there's a 'Do They Know It's Christmas Time' video single from the latest computer animated Veggietales effort which features money shots of the poor -- they're more like landscape paintings of African heads hunched over Christmas gifts cross cut with singing shots of Matthew (I'm-gonna-steal-your-girlfriend) West in a duet with Amy Grant. I see this and I wonder why we have not yet evolved past this sort of exploitation. We are constantly appropriating the poor to advance something else in the narrative and it's usually cash. Isn't there some sort of moral bylaw in the world to protect the young from this propaganda? I think I know what Big Idea Inc's big idea was.

I was reading my son a Franklin book at bedtime. Franklin is the young middle class turtle who has questionable self esteem issues. He and his school mates are collecting gifts for "The Poor" as part of a Christmas drive. In the narrative it's clear that the poor are no where near the centre of the story but merely the device used to instigate Franklins own examination of conscience and meaning. The poor somehow don't even go to the same school as Franklin. Just another instance of White-man-as-the-protagonist-of-human-history.

If you'd like to see Saturday Night Live's parody of the Veggetales click HERE.

Schedule

2009-09-12T00:03:00.001-04:00

So from here on in I'm going to post from Monday to Friday only.

Talk in 2 days.

Best, Nick

The Crunchy with the Smooth

2009-09-11T00:48:00.004-04:00

WHEN I WAS A KID my mother would play these Joni Mitchell records over and over. She would dance around in her mo mo and get super sentimental and it would drive me insane to hear, Blue over and over again. Fast forward 30 years and here I am wearing out, Hymns Of The 49th Parallel by KD Lang. It's probably old news to everyone else in the world but I've only just discovered this fantastic recording. I love KD Lang and I'm pretty sure I'll drive my son up the same wall with it.

See her perform Leonard Coen's, Hallelujah by clicking HERE.

On a more strained note we have Larry Gowan performing with the STYX reunion. Have a look at the photo below. This image describes the opposite of KD Lang.

Slutty Rooster

2009-09-10T08:50:00.002-04:00

DON'T ASK ME.

. . . ?

Harry Dean

2009-09-09T09:11:00.004-04:00

SPEAKING OF ECONOMY OF LINE, HOW ABOUT Harry Dean Stanton? Him and Anthony Hopkins are two artists that understand the power of stillness.

ON HIS ROLE IN, PARIS, TEXAS

"The whole film evolved on a very organic level. It almost had a documentary feel to it. It wasn't odd to be in the lead, I took the same approach as I would to any other part. I play myself as totally as I possibly can. My own Harry Dean Stanton act . . . I don't know whatever happened to Travis. I'd say . . . it's me. Still searching for liberation, or enlightenment, for lack of a better way to put it, and realizing that it might happen, it might not."

First Response

2009-09-08T07:11:00.001-04:00

RESPOND TO THE MATERIALS at hand. What do the materials suggest? More often than not our brains get in the way and try and retool our natural response into the illusion of "style". Follow that response uninhibited by the thinking mind and see what you get.

Economy

2009-09-07T10:01:00.003-04:00

LUCKY LUCKY, KITTY KITTY. (As named by my kid).

A group of us get together once a month to drink beers in a pub downtown and sketch. It's all about being quick and not letting your head get in the way of your intuition. I find that often the 1st thing that comes out of the pen is the best. It's our hang-ups that come in after conception and start to fiddle -- trying to bring 'intelligence' into the picture (or some other form of artistic capital).

FOR THE GROUPS BLOG GO TO:

GUELPH PEN CLUB

PORTFOLIO DAY #2

2009-09-06T11:11:00.004-04:00

{ EVERY SUNDAY FEATURES A RECENT COMMISSION }

ART DIRECTOR, KATIE MATHEY FROM The Atlantic commissioned an illo for the 2009 Fiction issue. The piece accompanies an essay by Tom O'Brien about the importance of the imagination in fiction writing. O'Brien sites a short story by Luis Borges entitled, The Aleph, a fictional point in space that contains all other points.

". . . and if you position yourself on the cellar floor, you will see a tiny sliver of light that contains everything -- everything that ever was, everything that will be".

FOR A FULL TEXT GO TO:

http://theatlantic.com/doc/200908/tim-obrien-essay

Here are the various stages of the piece from rough to final. A very reference heavy piece. Because of the subject matter I built the whole substructure on The Golden Mean. (SEE BELOW). The red circles represent specific objects that needed referencing. Workin' hard for the money.

Dog and Drapery

2009-09-05T08:22:00.005-04:00

SLEEPING WITH THE DOG or -- the illustrators ongoing struggle with drapery.

Dylan Horrocks from New Zealand is a drapery king.

See:

http://www.hicksville.co.nz/

Nice Package

2009-09-03T14:17:00.007-04:00

THERE ARE CANVAS' ALL AROUND US. I've been studying the patterns of nature and it never ceases to amaze. Although I have to say I'm taken aback by the imagery portrayed on my box of Soy milk. Don't get me wrong -- I understand that there is a tradition of hiding naughty imagery inside the sweaty ice cubes of a glass of Brandy but this is what I'm seeing when I eat my Shreddies with my kid at 8:30 in the morning.

Georgia O'Keeffe eat your heart out.

Hands Heart

2009-09-03T00:03:00.005-04:00

I HAVE A REAL PROBLEM WITH DISNEY in that all of their content distorts human experience at the expense of those who are not equipped to defend themselves against it. Worse yet, the problem has spanned 3 generations of viewers, all glued to the developing plot and desperate to find the resolution of the ever-present abandonment narrative.

That said let's look at Amy Adams' hands. I've never seen such energy diverted to someone's hands before. Adam's impersonation of an animated Disney figure is Herculean and deserving of an academy award for hand acting. As an illustrator I've always found hands to be the most useful prop (outside of the facial features themselves) to provide a window to the heart.

Time Traveller

2009-09-02T07:08:00.006-04:00

GUITAR VIRTUOSO, KEVIN BREIT CAN travel through time. Sounds flaky I know but if you've ever seen him play you'll find it hard to keep up. His musicianship is more intense than any musician I've ever encountered. It's as though there is no physical interruption between his thought process and the sound that comes out of him. He's better known as the guitarist who played on Norah Jones' smash hit records and his smooth soulful playing is equally intense as his 'Folk Alarm' playing. His own song, Humble Me on Jones', 2nd studio album, Feels Like Home demonstrates his incredible use of white space.

SEE NEIL YOUNG'S SOUTHERN MAN AT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAXK_rZdJu4

Somewhere around the 3 minute mark he goes off into the light. Apparently the human eye, in concert with the brain, can absorb and process the equivalent of 16 frames of information (per second). Motion pictures are shot at a frame rate of 24 frames a second hence the miracle of movement as our minds are slower than the flicker of the projection. The ear can carry on listening to several conversations at once and is able to sort the various meanings into place. Kevin's playing is such that you can't process the content as quickly as it arises. It's like looking at a fire when you see him play, 'a force of nature' as my friend Jeff would say.

Sexy Jesus

2009-09-01T07:03:00.008-04:00

I OFTEN WONDER IF, AS I COME NEARER TO DEATH, 'Will I embrace religion?' (will religion embrace me?). As a child I used to get dragged around to all these prayer meetings/events/trade shows. I have a very sketchy memory of a biker getting up and telling his story of redemption. It all began at the pit of his lowest point of his own moral pendulum swing. Addicted to drugs and women, he closed his eyes while sitting on his parked Harley Davidson and just as he was about to be killed by oncoming traffic, Jesus (or a force) lifted both him and the bike to safety and he found himself now on the sidewalk beside the road. These stories repeat themselves over and over as disfranchised people look for forgiveness or a sign or perhaps a devil to blame.

I also remember 'Jesus 76'. It was like an outdoor music festival all about Christ. I remember seeing people get baptized and speak in tongues and I myself faked speaking in tongues to see what might happen. I was scooped up in a cruller of Christians and lifted, blessed and given mass approval. (Years later my sister confessed to have instigated the same experience that weekend).

Religion seems to give structure and adds comfort where it's needed. I'm no Christian. Was an alter boy as a 11 year old much to the pride of my mother and grandmother who tried to foster my christian roots with comics about Pope John Paul II (SEE BELOW).

. . . And another piece my mother found at a Saint Vincent de Paul shop.

That said, I'm always very curious about Christ depictions. They say so much about the world.

Curious Pajamas

2009-08-31T01:30:00.006-04:00

LAST CHRISTMAS MY FATHER-IN-LAW GAVE MY son a pair of Curious George pajamas. It wasn't until February or March that I actually realized what was printed across the front. (SEE ABOVE) The articles of clothing came from Walmart and no doubt had their beginnings in Haiti, Bangladesh or Nepal at the hands of some young sweatshop worker. I'm not certain if this is a genuine typo or if there's some kind cultural inside joke going on here. I've googled Goorge and I get a smattering of Facebook listings. Perhaps the misspelling was intentional due to unauthorized copyright use? H. A. Rey would be none too pleased.

One step further in this cultural disconnect is my CANADA shirt, (SEE ABOVE) knit in U.S.A. and assembled in El Salvador. I may be naive in this age of globalized labor driven manufacturing but the irony of my 'CANADA' shirt is too much.

. . . George could load the spool very well. The man in the Yellow Hat will be proud.

PORTFOLIO DAY

2009-08-30T07:11:00.001-04:00

{EVERY SUNDAY FEATURES A RECENT COMMISSION}

EDITOR DAVE MITCHELL FROM, THE BRIARPATCH, commissioned a cover for their special Education Issue. The piece is all about how Canada's Education system is stiffing the student population with standardized testing. The 'EQO's' are designed to produce statistical data that can be used to justify any action on the part of the Ministry of Education. God help the kids when they arrive on the worn out doormat of the 'real world' and they haven't any critical thinking skills. My goal in the illo was to portray a young person Who's on the cusp of realizing there's no invisible hand guiding the things.

Since 1973 The Briarpatch has been one of Canada's most important socio-political voices. The sub-heading reads, 'Fighting The War on Error'.

". . . fresh, imaginative and tough. This is writing by free thinkers for free thinkers. Canadians are lucky to have a magazine so committed to truth, justice and inspiration.”
- NAOMI KLEIN, author of The Shock Doctrine

FOR MORE GO TO:
http://briarpatchmagazine.com/

Location Scouting

2009-08-29T07:15:00.000-04:00

MY FAMILY AND I WENT FOR A CANOE paddle out at the Rockwood Conservation Area. As we came down the valley towards to beach we encountered a beehive of construction activity. There was an entirely new kids camp, complete with 5 fully functioning cabins that weren't there a week before. I saw an artist hand painting words on the side of each cabin and I realized that this must be a complete break from reality. Turns out they're going to film a daytime feature here come September. The area is a perfect stand-in for Northern Canada with those crazy Group-of-7 pine trees and Precambrian rock. (Apparently A.J. Cassen lived here between ages 9 - 14).

Afterwords we went into town for sandwiches and the woman there let us in on the rumor that this was to be a film staring The Jonas Brothers. I immediately scrolled through the list of tweens in my community that I could share this with. The sandwich woman's 13 year old daughter is not at all impressed. According to mom she is more interested in Neil Young.

VIEW FROM THE BEACH

Unrequited Geek Love

2009-08-28T11:02:00.002-04:00

WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL ALL THE pretty girls would get me to draw their title pages. All the jocks would get me to draw pictures of naked girls. I was (am) the nerd who could draw. That was my capital. Many people have this notion of the creative person as this inspired lofty human who has 'special' qualities but the reality is most of us are the socially stunted, alienated, friendless quiet ones at the back of the class drawing in the margins of our math duo-tangs.

You may have seen the Zwigoff documentary about Robert Crumb. I recently found a beautiful Crumb still-life that blows me away: The drawing below of a simple French doorway. The cement is crumbling, the paint peeling. It strikes me in the way that Crumb took an empty frame of a man and sublimated him with his artwork. If you see the documentary you'll note that Crumb comes from such an unlikely beginning and just as easily could have ended up on the street instead of becoming the voice of 1960's counterculture. Like the French drawing, he takes this empty space (a doorway no less) and creates beauty in the decay with his rich wobbly-old-peanut-butter-sandwich line work.

My wife and I have recently purchased a Crumb Serigraph of the 1971 cover to, San Fransisco Comic Book. (SEE BELOW). Excited for it's arrival in the post. Also excited to read his new work -- an adaptation of, The Book of Genesis.

American Sex & Poetry

2009-08-27T09:32:00.000-04:00

MY WIFE AND I HAVE BEEN BITTEN BY the HBO True Blood series. The Allegorical possibilities are endless. Vampires can be substituted for homosexuals, African Americans. The work is a wonderful critique of white America. The mix of sex and violence is shocking but I can't look away. Director, Alan Ball is some kind of artist. I'm not much into vampires or gothic this-that-or-the-other but the narrative textures in this program are very rich.

HE WRITES:

"When I was 13 years old, I was in a car accident with my sister, who was driving the car. It was her 22nd birthday, and she died. She died in front of me. She died all over me. Death stuck its big old ugly face in my face and my life changed. That's why death seems to be a theme that appears in all my stuff".

AND

"Beauty is in the strangest places. A piece of garbage floating in the wind. And that beauty exists in America. It exists everywhere. You have to develop an eye for it and be able to see it".

The title sequence is an Incredible Haiku that sums it up beautifully.

ANNA PAQUIN AS SOOKIE STACKHOUSE.

First Light

2009-08-26T09:36:00.000-04:00

MY OLD COLLABORATOR, BRUCE MCDONALD HAS A repeating motif in his work of the sleeping female being observed. SEE: Roadkill (1989) as the director, "As Himself" pans the 16mm camera from a mirror onto the sleeping figure of "Ramona" played by Valerie Buhagiar -- SEE: Picture Claire (2001) as Juliette Lewis' character, Claire, is the subject of a photo exhibition that consists of mural sized images of her face as she sleeps. SEE: Highway 61 (1991) as Don McKellar's, Pokey Jones watches Valerie Buhagiar's, Jackie Bangs character asleep in the car after an all night drive on their way to the birthplace of Bob Dylan in Duluth, Minnesota. Subsequently one of Bruce's earliest shorts, I believe it was, Knock! Knock! (1985) began as a quasi documentary where he filmed the inside of people's bedrooms. He got as far as his parents' and then the narrative devolves from there. Bruce was in town a few weeks back to promote his latest film, Pontypool. We caught up for drinks and I asked him about this repeating image in his work. He hadn't noticed the pattern but I take Bruce for a far more complicated fellow than he would have us believe. I suspect there's a much larger narrative purpose at work here.

WAITING FOR MY SON TO RISE.

The Hirshfeld

2009-08-25T16:40:00.001-04:00

LAST SUMMER MY WIFE SON AND I SPENT the most lovely day in Niagara On The Lake where the Shaw Festival was holding an exhibit of some of Al Hirshfeld's theatrical caricatures. We ate chocolate bread and checked out the 'Line King'.

My good friend and animation powerhouse Sean LeBlanc turned me onto this clip of Hirshfeld drawing. I particularly love the moment when he follows the imagined line of drapery behind Paul Newman's pointed finger.

99 years old. I have so much to learn . . .

Go to this address:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC1t2DmCeAU

The Inciting Incident

2009-08-24T21:12:00.000-04:00

OFTEN ASKED, "HOW LONG HAVE you been drawing?"

I've been an illustrator as far back as I can remember. As a young boy I used to keep myself occupied during the Sunday mass in Exeter, Ontario by sketching with a ball point pen. My mother would give me her miniature 3 ringed vinyl notebook and I would illustrate the gospel as it was spoken from the lectern. Candle wax and slow moving promenades of alter boys is what I remember -- dirty running shoes and the earnest balancing of the long gold crucifix. My school was, "Precious Blood Catholic School" who's team shirt featured a Shultz drawing of Snoopy aboard his doghouse/Red Baron. The possibilities of this white line drawing on a blood red shirt with the words' "Precious Blood" in capitals were all too deep and lost on me. I'm 5 years old sitting among the curl of smoke and Brylcreem creating tiny Old Testament comics and trying to figure out how God could be at once all-loving and damning.

I'm sure the idea of comics was implanted there before I ever knew of Archie Andrews or Richie Rich. I had my own experiences of sequential art with the morbid and redemptive stations of the cross which lined the walls of this small town Ontario Catholic Church. These were carved from wood, 11 x 17 (standard drawing size for most comics) and followed the relentless downward spiral of the lamb of God as he carries his cross to Golgotha and is subsequently put to death. The images were gruesome tableaus and somewhere here I began to understand the power of the space in between the panels. I stared at the gaping misery and couldn't understand what we were all doing here when we could be out eating popsicles and wax pan flutes oozing with translucent saccharin gel.

Drawing has always been with me. More to come.

Best, Nick

Mary Mother of Jesus circa 1977 and . . .

. . . from my strange black & white effort, "The Cheese Heads" issue #3 circa 1991 - Tragedy Strikes Press. (50% Dan Clowes, 10% Dave Sim. The rest was me).