"21 Journeys" launch party Sept. 10th

Join Cloudscape in launching the wanderlust-cious comics anthology 21 Journeys (I'm in it ...Oh I already told you that? Ok.)
at Ayden Gallery (International Village mall), Vancouver, on Saturday September 10th 7PM--10PM.

Party foods, comics, cool attractive people. We supply the former, you the latter.

The "21 Journeys" anthology is here!

I'm one of the contributors to the fifth and freshest Cloudscape Comics anthology, 21 Journeys, which is finally available to order right here!
Accepting only PayPal, sorry. But if you're in my vicinity, buy it with cash and save on shipping costs.

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...Although with my eCrater shop you're already saving a bit, due to my not bothering to make the accurate rounding up to USD from CAD, and my laziness in calculating weight-based shipping.

The anthology will also soon be available at the Cloudscape site, but that money goes to Cloudscape as a society, whereas the money from my personal shop goes to me. I assure you my shop's not only legal but fair, since it allows me to finally observe rent-paying rewards for this thing I worked on for long nights.

However, obviously "THIS THING" gave me much more than it took from me. I think I'd be happy that you want to read it, wherever you ordered it from.

Linkage

You might like to see these.

"Horribly Adorable", a kids' book concept by Dave G. Derrick I WOULD BUY THIS!

Nathan Fowkes strikes again -- every day.

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Sorry for not posting what I've been drawing. I am scannerless in Finland! But you will get a batch of amateur photos of snow soon, consider yourselves warned.

Conan, POLL, and Muddy Colors

Like the title says, three things are on my mind.

1. CONAAAAAAAANNNNANANANANA! CONANCONANCONANCONANCONANCONAN CONANCONANCONANCONAN! Back for his "2nd Annual First Show" (---heartheartheart)
   *INCOHERENT*
   
   
   
2. I have been thinking about throwing some of my more embarrassing old drawings out of this blog. Should they stay or should they go? If you have an opinion please vote in the poll in the sidebar (below my profile).
   I wouldn't be asking if I knew which I wanted, so you truly have a chance to make a difference *srsbsness*
   
   
   
3. Oh... my god. Look at what these people can do. *speechless*

Were you ever sponsored?

By the way, I was incredibly happy with SPARK, as expected! Saturday in particular. I'm grateful to all the presenters for sweet inspiration.
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I just want to make an inquiry, in case any other international students have figured out how to work this situation.
The facts: I have a work permit, a diploma, and I work full time and pay taxes in Canada (though said job is mostly unrelated to my education). But I am not a permanent resident.
That it might actually be more expensive for creative employers to hire me due to my lack of permanent residency is something I didn't realise until recently, because in my current retail job the brass doesn't have any extra expenses from employing me.

So I set about trying to obtain a permanent residency as soon as I can. There is one studio (that I know of - might be more?) that would actually be willing to sponsor its international workers for a BC "Provincial Nominee Program": basically you'd get a speedy treatment by promising to work in BC.
I was wondering -- if it so happens that you are an "international" who's had experience about this Nominee thing or sponsoring in general, I would really appreciate it if you let me know how you like(d) it. I'd appreciate even a brief answer! Thanks and good luck to you all :D

Bulletin ( & blab)

Sadly I have no doodle to post right now. Just wanted to tell all y'alls who've been pestering me to get you a job at Opus ;) that North Van Opus' annual inventory count is coming up and if you're interested in a day's wages and a discount coupon (I can't remember how much of a discount off the top of my head), let me know. Here's what the day entails: counting how much stuff we have in store. Here's when: Wednesday, June 30th. The store is closed during the inventory count, so you WON'T have to deal with grumpy customers ( :P ) -- not to mention, if you're applying like half of North Vancouver's youth seems to be doing right now (what's up with that??) you can try and use this opportunity to impress the management with your AWESOMENESS. ...At counting stuff. Or you can just work the one day and walk away.
You feelin' it? Contact me. (...IF I know you IRL. Anyway it seems they need quite a few people so even if you don't feel like letting me forward your info for this, you can probably go ask from the store directly.)

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BLAB ATTACK!
What did I start doing with my time after grad? I read even more than I usually do. I'm going through such a great bunch of comics and books at the moment, I can barely get any sleep from the excitement. ("SAD?" Me? What? Sad in what sense?!) Most importantly I'm trying to make sense of the handwritten pages of the unfinished 21st Aubrey/Maturin novel. In the end notes for the posthumously published manuscript, this one kook says how rewarding it is to have gone through all the trouble of deciphering O'Brian's handwriting to find out what his final pages on this dear subject held. Uhhh... If he already deciphered it, why in BLASTATION couldn't he type it down in legible text, publish that instead of this twiggy crawly insanity?! KOOK! Help your fellow fans out a little! D: I demand instant gratification.

I finally got around to watching Legion, which was a more successful scarefest than I expected. Another thing I really didn't expect: guys with giant wings = hot. Don't try to understand it. I hope this doesn't mean I'm secretly into furries.
Plus, I saw it at the Hollywood Theatre on Broadway, which I really have to start going to more often because I only went there once before and I forgot by now that it has this weird, cool old-fashioned otherworldly atmosphere going on. I felt like I was in a dream sequence about the 30's. Also, their popcorn is really good, they sell cake at the concession stand (I don't know why someone would want a slice of cake to eat in a movie theatre but it's cool) and there are these velvet curtains everywhere, even in the bathrooms.

My cat must be the only cat I know who prefers dry kibble to mmm-mmmoist canned catfood. When my mom was visiting recently, she even bought my cat some of those single-serving treaty meaty catmeals, how fancy is that, and my cat just stared and asked "WHERE'S MY KIBBLE?" (She's the only cat I know that can talk, too. :P)

How To Train Your Dragon Widget

Yeah I totally jumped on the BANDDRAGON! Aaahaahaa... Grabbed the widget from Terra's blog (dappled studios) :D
Hatched! My dragon is now called DAFFY NIGHTMARE.




Oh but anyway I saw this movie on Friday and I was very surprised to be that visually stimulated, entertained, and just basically to NOT have to sit through a crappy Burger King toy advert.
Again, it's not Meatballs but it's still easily the best Dreamworks digitally animated movie. (When am I going to stop bringing up Meatballs?!)

The story is extremely simple but at least it made sense - not something like "if you start out as a total loser but you get your ass kicked long and hard enough, you become a kung fu champion." It's just a kid trying to get acceptance, realising that he can't agree to the things he has to do for that acceptance, and it is up to him to do what he believes right - whatever the downside.
On top of it others end up seeing things his way, which is more of a stretch (I would have been pretty happy with the first part of that as a movie plot) but smooth, not grating, and hell who wouldn't want what those lucky, lucky SOB's get for their "happily ever after"?! I have nothing against a good dose of wish-fulfillment in my movies.

Most things on my cons-list are quite inconsequential, and I'm so shocked to have liked this movie this much that I'll let them slide. Except Baruchel's voice acting. I can't really call that inconsequential. It could have been a lot better, but in "serious acting" sequences - in a pivotal argument with his father, threatening situations and so forth - he was great and I totally felt his panic. Everything else was so flat I could have sworn it was a Kaurismäki film :P

Unproductive interlude

Nobody's going to understand what the holy hell I'm talking about, but it really doesn't matter, it's awesome. There's this loopy British kids' show that I kind of LOVE called "Young Dracula." It's the story of how the Dracula family moves to a modern-day English town, Stokely. (...Not Stokley.)
Somebody went and combined Young Dracula with the title song to a somewhat similarly themed show from back in the day, and all I can say is, IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE.

"That's just weak songwriting."

Aaagh, I'm post crazy but I couldn't wait, just like I couldn't wait to see Fantastic Mr. Fox tonight. There are two things you need to know about the movie:

-It's different from anything you're EVER likely to see.
...Including Anderson's other movies. The themes that run through most of his work are a whole 'nother trip when it's all puppets and a lot of puppet violence.

-It's not an adaptation. It has even less to do with the book than I expected (and the trailer had already eroded my expectations on that front drastically).

I loved it, not as much as Meatballs, but it's still wonderful. What a year I've had at the movies :D

ANYWAAYYYY...

Art later! For now, if I know anything about the kind of people I know, my friends will enjoy this. A character based stand up -bit by Andrew Daly (Reno 911!, Lewis Black's Root of All Evil, Eastbound & Down etc.) appearing as "Bang Bang Ellington."

Vid's in two parts -- if you only have time for one, watch the second one! Oh, and [EXPLICIT]

1/2


2/2

"I wonder if it would have anything to do with that guy that I met PROBABLY NOT"

Obviously UCB has been operational for a long time so you probably know about them already, but I only just got on it, so, just in case: check out their website for further superb weirdertainment :D

Hey, don't clear my desk!

I can't be there on the first two days of school. :(
Enjoy your brief respite, classmates. I MISS SCHOOL. (Wow, I really just wrote that didn't I?) AND I MISS YOU. (Wow, etc.)

Have a video in the meantime.

Sounds Good To Me: Remastering The Sting



It's about a crucial part of filmmaking that's sometimes overlooked by the audience: sound design.

I just love saying it

"OHHH SHI-YAH! You make me feel like a schoolgirl again!"
That's the only part you really need to hear.

(You're bound to hear it from me at some point whether you watch the clip or not, so ...I guess that means you don't need to watch it. Talked myself into a crappy corner!)
Maya Rudolph is one of the lights of my life.
The clip is on YouTube too, but They're not letting people embed it! :C

Somebody very literal-minded (I love them) wrote a new version of a-ha's "Take On Me" that actually fits the music video:



"I'm gonna kick some a** with my own pipe wrench..."

Meanwhile, sunglasses continue to epitomise Cool, this time in the world of mathematics.

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Some people could be under the impression that I have something against Shia L. because I make fun of him at every opportunity IRL, but they'd be dead wrong. He's likeable, and yes he manages comedy, and something about him just invites ridicule (I mean, even when he's not getting arrested). Which are awesome traits in a celebrity. Imagine you cast him in a remake of Ferris Bueller's Day Off -- you can see he would obviously be Cameron instead of Ferris, right? And Cameron is ♥.

(Not that I want a remake.)

(No pictures in this post)

In case someone is actually wondering, I haven't forgotten about this blog -- and being an aspiring artist I know there's no excuse for not drawing, but my lame excuse for an excuse is that I've been accepted to an animation program abroad (Canada, specifically), and I have a ton of bureaucratic hurdles to jump before I'm ready to migrate there (from Finland, yeah).
I'm ecstatic about becoming an actual animation student this autumn, but it also means that a lot of tiny annoying things require my attention Right Now.
I'll try to stop lazing around with the sketching, though. ...Perhaps this would help me?

OH! AND I've also started a very non-impressive journal comic. Again, this link appears only in the case that someone's wondering if I ever, ever, draw anything anything anything at all (you have to chant that for the link to appear, in fact). Not that I need to prove myself to strangers AAARGH .....Do I?

Just a footnote (WATCH THIS OR I'LL KILL YOU WITH A TRAY)

More on Reepicheep: he will be voiced by Eddie Izzard. Adoration :D

I promised I wouldn't start down this spiralling Viral Path, but this video is the most adoration I have experienced in weeks, so I have to spread it for the benefit of Star Wars fans everywhere. (You've seen it before? Well watch it again.)
Eddie Izzard's stand-up skit "Death Star canteen" as an ingenious Lego animation.



"Death by tray it shall be!"