Sorry to Everybody on Earth.

Well, I've let this blog slide for about 5 months now... seems about time to update your Nine Curious Minds on the fascinating subject of What I Have Been Up To, Artwise. I'll be taking your questions now, and by you, I mean a voice in my head that I ascribe to you, the followers of my half-dead blog.

Where in the world are you, now?

Back at home for the time being. Australia was fun. Evidence:

Me, my sister and our friend Mitch out at the pub in Melbourne.

Venice was also fun. Evidence:

My girlfriend Michelle and me baring our teeth to express happiness.

But now, I have to pay retroactively for those adventures, by doing my Least Favourite Job on Earth, siding installation. It's not really the worst, I've just spent far too long installing siding for someone who has no aspirations to become a Full Fledged Siding Installer.

Will I be stopping this possibly-annoying Capitalization Habit anytime soon? You might wish!

How many websites do you have now?

Far, far more than any man should. I want very badly to have some kind of cohesive, consolidated web presence, but instead, I keep making new websites, giving up on/getting frustrated with them, and moving on. But humour me, and allow me to list the ones that I actually maintain, or intend to maintain.

twitter.com/blimpsahoy
Everyone's gotta have a Twitter. At least that's what they told me. So I made one. And I don't really know what it's for, so sometimes I post phrases that I think are funny, or links to the comics of myself or others... it is to be considered 'active'.

blimpsahoy.com
This is going to be my Main Official Portfolio/Webcomic Type Site... but my vision for it isn't quite clear and I have no patience these days for web design, an exercise that seems to be all about finding out how frustrated you can make yourself before you need a lot of fresh air and alcohol. So yeah, for the time being that is defunct... hopefully next time I post it will be working.

jamespencer.ca
This is the site I made like 3 years ago and haven't modified since. It's full of really old work (some of which I'm still really proud of), and once my new site is running,  jamespencer.ca will just forward directly to blimpsahoy.com.

blimps.tumblr.com
This is the new one. This one actually updates every single day! With full-colour comics, for christing out loud. So if you have a tumblr, go follow it!

From blimps.tumblr.com

missyoucomics.tumblr.com
Last but most, this is where Michelle and I take turns posting comics written to each other as a kind of illustrated love letter while she's in Venice and I'm still in Ontario. This one is currently active, too!

This is Michelle's most recent post to missyoucomics.tumblr.com

Okay so your website situation is pretty good. But how are your comics going?

Actually, excellently! For the first time in my life, I'm making daily comics, and getting them done every single day! I've been trying since October, but somewhere around mid-January, something just clicked and now the comics they are flowing like so much champage.

In fact, now that I've got 3 months worth, I'm collecting them as a zine and calling it Toony Quarterly. As the name suggests, it's a quarterly publication of 'toons that costs a toonie and a quarter. I'll be selling it at a couple of zine fairs and comic conventions this spring!

With so many websites and comics on the go, are you going to forget about this blog?

No! I am going to remember about this blog! From this day forth, I'll use it to update you monthly on the advances I make toward a Career in Comics! Promise!

Love,
-James

p.s. If you actually made it to the end of this post, I'd really appreciate a quick comment just saying you read it. It would help to know that I'm not blogging into a void.

Want to see something funny?

On the left is an old drawing of mine that my cousin posted to facebook yesterday.

On the right is the last thing I drew before seeing that old drawing on facebook.

Click the picture to see all the puny-human-devouring detail.

...aaand we're back.

Wow, what a hiatus!
I was gone for months, seeing animals and meeting humans in Australia!
I made a ton of autobio comics while I was there, which will probably be compiled sometime in the future.
Now I'm in Venice, because that's where my girlfriend Michelle is living.
Michelle and I went to art school together, and we like to draw together.
Here are some paper characters we made recently...

 This is a ghost I made to start us off.

Then Michelle made these cute creatures.

I made a chameleon dinosaur. Why not, right?

Michelle's self-portrait doll (check out those feet!) looks on as two of our reptile characters (fail to) interact.

This is an unnamed warrior character from a comic I was drawing this summer...

...and here he is on his gorillahorse, Appointment.

Michelle's pig-monkey-chicken hijacks Appointment.

Then we started to get interactive! The top two characters were drawn and cut out without being shown to the other person. Michelle made the rabbit-eared guy, and I made the spooky monk.

We then took the other person's blank cut-out and made a new character based on its shape. Cool, right?

And here's a pigeon creature Michelle made, and a little knight's helmet I made for it.

Finally, here's a little scene I set up with some of the stuff we'd made. Note the warrior's new expression- I made a removable second face for him- versatility!

I have been thinking a lot in the past year about image creation and the intersections between writing, drawing and playing. Michelle and I hope that these characters are the first step toward developing fun methods for some multi-author story creation. More on these plans as they develop!

PLEASE READ THIS

Hey everybody, I know I said this blog was on hiatus, and I promise it still is until I get back to my normal life. But I feel like this blog didn't properly link to my travelling blog, and there are some pretty rad comics on there now, so

PLEASE CHECK IT OUT!

WANNABE WALLABY

THANKS, EVERYBODY!

HIATUS ALERT

ATTENTION EVERYBODY

This blog has already been on hiatus for a few months now, but as of today, it's official.
I will still be pouring my blood sweat and tears onto the internet for your consumption, but on a...

>>>>NEW WEBSITE<<<<

...which will be announced at the end of this, the Last Post For A While!

But first: content!

gangLion comics is coming out with a new issue soon, and I just made a submission for them. I thought I'd share it with you here, so that it will whet your appetite to see it in print! And then you will seek it out, and get a copy of the amazing magazine for yourself! I expect this to happen.

READ ON, MACDUFF
(click the images to enlarge)

What do you think? I'm excited for criticism!

SPEAKING OF EXCITEMENT

Oh yeah, my sister and I started a new blog today because we're taking an epic journey. We're going to Australia for the winter, and we need somewhere to post all our photos, videos, stories, and yes, comics! Without further ado, I present to you:

(click that, it's a link!)

So go on, subscribe to that blog now, instead! Follow me around the internet like it's a slow, infuriating game of Whack-a-mole!

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

Exciting News!

Turns out I'm still doing those drawings every day. This is the longest I've ever kept up a daily journal project.

UPLOAD THEM, THEN!

I will, as soon as I get to a scanner.

WHY AREN'T YOU AT A SCANNER?

I'm on vacation with my family in North Carlina! I'm sunburned and sandy, and tired from digging holes. We're watching Coach Carter on TV, and it's okay. I'm making a journal comic of this trip. It'll be online when I get back in the middle of October.

PROMISES, PROMISES

Okay, here's something substantial:
I submit to an anthology magazine called gangLion.
Here are the first 3 pages of my 12 page submission to issue 2:


gangLion is awesome, because they accept and publish submissions from anyone, even children and animals! Check them out here:

http://ganglioncomics.blogspot.com/

and you can email them if you're interested in getting on the mailing list:

gangliongang@gmail.com

That's it for now, back to the basketball games.

A Week of Moments

Want to hear a story? I know you do!

Back in September of '08, my watch alarm would go off every day at 1:59 pm, and I didn't know how to turn it off.

So I decided to draw myself in the position I was in when my alarm went off, along with whatever I was thinking or hearing at that moment.

It was okay, but I wanted the drawings to be really high-quality, so (like an idiot), I made daily sketches that I intended to finish later. As you might assume, the pile of sketches stacked up, and I never finished them, and after a week or two, I got overwhelmed by all the drawing I had to do, and I called the project off.

I soon forgot about that project, and in January '09, started a new daily journal: Numbered Days. It was a 3-panel strip that I drew in a Moleskin daily planner that had really conveniently-sized spaces for each day.

It was pretty good, but I wanted the drawings to be really professional, so (like an idiot), I made daily sketches, and the rest writes itself. Needless to say, Numbered days (despite having several really nice strips), has gone the way of the Dodo, the Model T and the... previous daily journal I just wrote about.

But then, a few weeks ago, I was cleaning out my hard drive when I discovered the sketches for the first project, and realized I really liked reading them only a year later because they sparked my memory for what life was like last year.

So I have officially given Numbered Days the boot, and Re-instated the Original Journal, with one crucial twist- the drawings are crap!

By allowing myself to do quick, loose, occasionally sloppy drawings, I can ensure that I at least get something out every day, and it also raises the odds that eventually my ability to draw quickly and well will improve.

ON WITH THE NEW JOURNAL!

Whoa Nelly!

Here is the colour, as promised.

It's a colour comic, and it could be a huge thing someday:

CLICK HERE FOR COLOUR!

Just don't expect it to update anytime soon. I've got things to do!

Alright here we go

Things are really heating up over at Pulp Variety Hour, where there were two pages posted at once today! And only 2 weeks after the last post!

Clearly I have been doing a terrible job with the uploads, but I refuse to apologize. I've been writing a pretty long comic in my sketchbook, I just haven't posted it for some reason.

"Why?" you ask? Maybe it's that I hate posting my stuff in thumbnail form... I have to figure out a better website than this. More accurately, I am a pretty lazy guy, not gonna lie.

WHELP, HERE'S THE PVH STUFF:

PRETTY EXCITING, DON'T YOU THINK?
"YES"?
THEN GO FOLLOW IT ON TWITTER, IF YOU HAVE ONE!

'GIVE ME THE MONEY OR SHE DIES'...I think that's a pretty bad ass title for a story. Can't wait to see where it's going... I just have to keep drawing them, and Max will keep writing.

OH AND

The guy who writes Thog Infinitron (my new favourite comic), sent me some fan mail!

BE HONEST

Well, actually, he replied to my fan mail, but I'll take what I can get! And he told me to do something in colour! And since this is the internet and it doesn't cost any more than black and white, why the hell not?

GOOD QUESTION!

So the next post will have something in colour just for you, Riel Langlois!

Here's a preview:
RED
YELLOW
ORANGE
DIFFICULT TO DESCRIBE

oh and a comic

Here is some evidence of that comics-making I mentioned in the last post.
It's a new page of Pulp Variety Hour, my Twitter Comic which also still exists, despite having just been dealt a solid month of neglect. Enjoy!



Oh, fer cryin' out loud, this is the best I can do. Th' dang innernet's broken.

THIS BLOG STILL EXISTS!

Hey Guys! (All Five Of You)
(Hereafter referred to as AFOY)

LET'S TRY OUT THAT LAME ACRONYM, SHALL WE?

AFOY might be interested to learn that I am now constructing a LIST OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE EVER SENT ME FAN MAIL!

Since nobody has ever done so, that list is barely even existent. Here is a link to the warm divot in the internet's surface into which it will one day be nestled.

Oh, and if you've never seen my actual site, here's the front door.

I have made five spots in the list! Hint Hint!

Whelp, that's enough begging for attention. I don't even have any comics to show you.
I've actually been drawing comics like a madman lately. Buuuut... I haven't scanned any lately.

Hope you weren't expecting anything!

Weekend Comics!

Remember how I said I might make some comics on the weekend?
Well I made nine pages of them!
Just some crappy journaling-as-fast-as-possible comics, so they're a bit sloppy. But maybe worth reading? I was documenting the events of the weekend as they transpired... which basically boils down to a bus ride, then I wrote about beating up Scott McCloud, and then I forgot about the comic all weekend, and did a 2-page recap of everything that happened.

ON WITH IT!

Page One:

Page Two:


Page Three:


Page Four:


Page Five:


Page Six:


Page Seven:


Page Eight:



Page Nine:

Hope you liked it, despite the incredibly awkward pacing!
I've been working on a new Vorpbot and Bandana Girl that I might post later on.
(No, I don't expect anyone to know who Vorpbot and Bandana Girl are... but based on the names, I bet you can picture them im your heads.)

Better Know a Blogger!

Here is an anecdote that will make you feel like you know me (here I am pretending that there are people out there reading this who don't actually know me in real life).

AN ANECDOTE FROM YOUR PAST? TELL US MORE!

The year was 1999-2000. I was in a grade that wasn't high school yet. That's right, it was junior high. My friends Max and Andrew spent a lot of their recesses reading EGM- Electronic Gaming Monthly. Because they liked video games, and still do.

I liked video games at the time, and still do, but as with 22-year old James, 12-year-old James only sort of liked them in passing, hadn't really sunk his teeth properly into a game since Super Mario World for the SNES. (Which I had owned for 7 years at this point).

Point is, I got a subscription to EGM! A subscription to a magazine devoted to the latest news and reviews from the world of electronic gaming! News about and reviews of games that I had very little interest in playing, except for maybe at somebody else's house if they happened to buy them.

So why did I spend the 24 or 36 dollars for 12 issues of this rag? It wasn't peer pressure. I actually had a pretty good reason for wanting to receive the thing monthly:



That's right! I subscribed to the whole damn thing just to get the one bloody page at the back of the magazine! It was a comic, by the way, and a brilliant comic it was. I remember they lampooned the Pokémon craze by creating a Pikachu-like mouse with nuclear powers, and it was named Chernobyl! Classic!

Anyways the whole reason I told you this boring story is that I just found out Hsu & Chan is available online! In webcomic form! $0/year! Go witness its glory!

EPILOGUE!

Aaand in telling that story I just remembered what a huge role the Pokémon game, and the franchise in general, played in my life. I retract that statement about Super Mario World.

Now with MORE PULP!

Looks like things are HEATING UP! Now in its third page, I think this is the biggest project Max and I have ever collaborated on!

AND NOW A VAGUE AND POSSIBLY EMPTY PROMISE!

Come back on Monday, when I will post all the comics I draw this weekend! Maybe TONS, maybe some, maybe none at all... but I am seriously considering a sizeable project!

WE'LL SEE!