Will 2009 be awesome?
Magic Eight Ball says..."YES"
The Magic Eight Ball never lies!!!

From our home town of Ottawa...Kodos, Kang and I hope that all of you Quantum Presbyterians out there have an excellent Holiday season.

My good deed of the day (or week...or month...possibly longer) was to walk around my neighbourhood for a bit today, getting the new Mayfair schedules into some places of business and into people's hands. When I first saw the schedule a couple days ago, I became a little spellbound. On this one month of movies alone, the first of many schedules to come, the Mayfair has I think become one of the best movie theatres not just in Canada, but anywhere.

Check out the Mayfair website for more details on the screenings. And be sure to come out on January 2nd for the grand re-opening, featuring a free screening of some local shorts and the classic film 'Metropolis'.

The Killer63 screening is tomorrow. Go see it!

I have three things that I love about Halloween nowadays:
1) There's the eating of all the candy leftover from my friends house 'cause there's hardly any trick-or-treaters.
2) All the great old horror movies on TCM.
3) Girls in skimpy super hero costumes.
Happy Halloween!

In association with the comic strip PVP , there's a Flickr site about Skull the Troll and his travels around the globe. Where-in fans of the comic and owners a of Skull (doll? stuffed animal?...not sure the proper term) send in pictures of their toys travels.

A friend of mine recently made a trip to St Petersburg, Russia. And seeing as she is a fan of PVP as well, she was cool enough to drag along my Skull with her on her voyage. I submitted the picture to the Flickr site ages ago, bit seeing as it hasn't been updated in a couple months, thought I'd post it here.

Been horribly busy the past six weeks working at Cirque du Soleil here in Ottawa. Which was great, but very time consuming and distracting from other stuff that I should've been working on. So, now I'm back to work on various projects, mainly getting the Killer63 Fest, and my short film contribution for it all done and ready.

And, another important endeavor, is an attempt that I'm undertaking to bribe a friend of mine into naming his soon to arrive new baby son 'Optimus'. It began with me jokingly saying I'd give him $20 bucks to do so...word spread, more folks chipped in, and now I'm suddenly up to $400 big bribery dollars. Now that my time has slightly freed up a bit, I'm going to try to raise that number to as big a dollar amount as I can manage. If you'd like to contribute to the cause, lemme know. There's no better bribe you could possibly donate to.

Mayfair marquee for Killer63 year one

It looks like the Mayfair Theatre is closing in November. I spoke today with someone doing an article about the theatre (since I've shot movie stuff there and screened Killer63 events there). The news saddens me to no end. Especially so if it's destined to be replaced by another Starbucks or set of condos.

I have endless Mayfair stories I could tell. The first time that I went to the Mayfair, my uncle brought me, and introduced me to Monty Python. And since then, I've seen hundreds of movies there, double bills for the most part. I've happily wasted the day there watching a Star Trek marathon, shot cap guns at the screen of John Woo films, experienced horribly offensive Japanimation and classics the likes of Wizard of Oz.

It's awful that repertory theatres nation wide are destined for extinction it seems. The Mayfair is one of my favorite places on earth, and I will miss watching movies there very much.

Catwoman (Darwyn Cooke style) at the Fan Expo

My friends, this image above is prime example number one why comic con's are awesome. This was the view from behind Howard Wong's table on Sunday afternoon at the Fan Expo. If you can pry your eyes away from Catwoman for a moment, you'll notice his 'After the Cape' comics there at the bottom of the picture (both trades currently available from Image Comics...go buy 'em now!) .

A fun weekend was had by all. I got to see a bunch of comic con friends and acquaintances, got a bit of schmoozing in, got to chat with some geeky heroes of mine the likes of (Commander) Rick Green, Keith Giffen, and the folks from Mirage Studios amongst others. And went see 'Evil Dead the Musical', which I'm pretty sure was the greatest thing ever produced by human beings in the history of the planet.

I filled up my second sketch book (well, exept for two pages that are on reserve for friends that I have to get in there). So, I'll get around to a scanner sooner or later and show off some of the new highlights of my collection soon.

This is rather old news I'm afraid...the old complaint of being horribly busy and not having enough hours in the day (plus my internet connection was down for a week...horrible stuff). But I wanted to put up a little bit of a comment on the most awesome of film festivals in all of the land anyhow. Lat week I hit Montreal for 5 days of an overdose of genre bent movie watching madness. If you're a movie fan, if you love obscure martial arts movies, horror, bizarre documentaries, and the like, then this be the fest for you.

Seeing as the thing runs for a staggering 19 days, and I was there for 5...there's plenty (dozens) of movies that I didn't get to see. Without even making a stop over to drop off luggage or anything, headed straight to the theatre to meet up with friends and watch 'Akanbo Shojo'. An evil twin tale featuring a cleverly demonic little baby monster. The most fascinating of a documentary I saw, featuring train-wreck human beings as subject matter was 'I Think We're Alone Now', which was about Tiffany stalkers (yes...former teen pop star Tiffany). The best thing I was was a Thai horror anthology called '4bia' (which if I remember correctly translates to 'Crossroads'). I thought all 4 chapters were just great. It's so new though that it doesn't even seem to be on imdb as of yet. The worst thing I saw was not so shockingly enough, the new Uwe Boll opus, 'Tunnel Rats'. Within the first 3 or 4 minutes, I was in a haze of denial, thinking "Hey...this isn't bad, maybe the bastard's finally done it! Maybe this is gonna' be ok!". Things quickly went downhill from there from average to terrible to horrendous.

So, the festival has come and gone. Do go and check out the website for the 2008 Fantasia Film Festival though for a long list of movies well worth tracking down.

Starting to get plans going for this years Killer63 mini-fest of doom. There's a Facebook thing and a blog where one can look for updates and post questions or comments. Currently...nothing really on the blog about this years event...but soon...soon...

My friend Howard, who is also my current writing partner (on that thing that I can't tell you about) has gotten himself nominated for a Shuster Award. That magnificent bastard! The nomination is all fine and good for him, and as an added bonus it helps me out since now our pitch can have "from the Shuster nominated writer" in it. There's an online vote that can be checked out right here. If he doesn't win I'm flipping over a table.

Happy Free Comic Book Day! Oh man...how I do love FCBD. It's my favorite holiday of the year. If you're not familiar with this wonderful annual event held by the comic book industry, go and find yourself a comic book store and check it out. Free comics! What do you have to lose?

Raphael by Kevin Eastman

Last batch of sketches for now. Hope to have more worthy additions to show off post NYCC. Above is a sketch of Raphael by TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman. I love the Ninja Turtles. Especially those characters as published in their original Mirage Comics incarnations. Now I've met pretty much everyone ever majorly involved in that run past and present. Kevin isn't involved in TMNT anymore, but you can tell that he still has a real love of the characters. And I got to give him my card and explain to him the origins of Batturtle Productions. He complimented the Batty design, really liked it a lot.

Lobo by Simon Bizley

The other star attraction at the Heavy Metal booth was Simon Bizley. Biz is one of my comic book hero's. His run on 'Lobo' is one of the defining memories of my high school geekyness. He wasn't about, just an empty seat behind the table, with a bunch of doodles on the table-cloth in front of it. I asked the nice lady in charge of the booth if she knew when he'd be back. She said he was just out having a smoke, and should be back soon. Right then he appeared. If you're familiar with the character Lobo, well...that's EXACTLY what Biz looks like. Well, except for the pale white skin and the things over his eyes. Besides for that though, mirror image.

I went over and said hi. He was surprisingly pleasant for a big scary monster of a drunk-ish British fella. I asked if I might be able to get a sketch from him. He said sure, paused, then asked if I wanted to go out for a smoke (except, where Biz comes from, they call them 'fags'...yeah yeah, very mature, stop snickering). I don't smoke. I've never smoked. I've never had the desire to smoke. Right then, for the first time ever, I really wished that I smoked. I told him I didn't smoke, he said join him anyhow. So I followed him outside. He's a giant lumbering Frankenstein's monster of a man. He basically walked in a quick straight line, and people dove out of his way. We bumped into an old lady who gave him cookies, which he politely accepted (not sure who she was, but they knew each other).

After his smoke...he said he wanted a drink. We headed for a nearby hotel bar. He asked me what I wanted to drink. And once again, having never drank or had any desire to drink...now I wished that I did drink. He commended me for not drinking, and bought me a Coke. We sat and chatted about everything from Canada to history to politics to comics to the Ramones. An hour later, we left the bar. He said he needed more cigarettes. And at the nearby hotel store they had those, and they also had beer (they sell beer all over the damn place in the States). I had my backpack on (which Biz called a rucksack), Biz noticed this and asked if I would mind smuggling in some beer for him back into the Con. I can neither confirm nor deny that I did this for Biz.

Two hours after having initially asked Biz for a sketch...I finally got my sketch. I can also neither confirm or deny that Biz gave me some free books.

Later, my friend asked why I missed the George Romero panel. This was why. My friend Tom claims that this was the greatest Con story he has ever heard.

Tick by Gabe Crate

More sketches! Oh what an age of wonders we live in! Above, I'm sure that you will recognize the mighty blue force of justice himself, The Tick. In my first Year visiting San Diego, I was lucky enough to meet and get a sketch from Tick creator Ben Edlund (he also directed maybe my favorite 'Angel' ever). Year two, I got another sketch of the character from another fine Tick artist, Gabe Crate. He also gave me a copy of his comic, 'The Flickers'. Which I highly recommend you track down. It's funny and evil and actually made me laugh aloud while reading it.

Deadpool by Rob Liefeld

Ok...I know that hate is a strong word, but I hate Rob Liefeld's artwork. As should any other rational comic book reader with anything close to the smallest amount of good taste and reason. With all those teeth, scratchy ink lines, awful anatomy on everyone, panel to panel continuity thrown out the window. BUT, I would feel really bad if by some fluke he stumbled on this lil' blog, read that, and that my statement hurt his feelings. 'Cause he is likely the nicest comic book guy that you'll ever meet. It has been my goal to acquire a sketch from him for quite some time. Not sure why. Some kind of ironic, humorous take on my enjoyment of the world of comics. Like a fan of Elvis getting one of those velvet Elvis paintings. Or I'm just a jerk. Or a bit of both. I'm sure that Rob's millions of dollars and mega success keep him unworried about critics though.

Batman by Grant Morrison (!)

I showed off this Batman sketch to my friend Tom (who draws comics for a living), and he was unimpressed. Then I said "Grant Morrison drew it!", and he thought it was much cooler. I had gone to a DC panel solely to see Grant. As per usual, he has a tendency to blow yer mind with his stories. If he ever starts up a crazy cult, I'll be first in line to sign up. Later in the day, I was at Dark Horse Comics land, and my friend ran up yelling that Grant was signing at the DC area! I immediately sprinted my way over. I had nothing for him to autograph, so I was just going to get him to sign my sketchbook. Then, next thing you know, he's drawing me Batman. How did he know I liked Batman!?! THEN, he drew my friend Al an Animal Man. Which is Al's favorite Grant Morrison related character! He truly has magical powers greater than we average humans can understand.

Grifter by Travis Charest
Impulse by Todd Nauck


Humpty Dumpty by Tony Akins

Sketches! Forever and a day ago (ok...well, more like nine months) I was in California for the San Diego Comic Con. At which, I got a bunch of cool sketches to add to my collection thanks to the ever so nice comic artists in attendance. At the request of a few curious geeks, I had intentions to put some of these new treasures up much sooner. Alas, I don't actually own a scanner, and time flies. With the NYCC on the horizon, it was on my mind though...so I finally got around to the deed of going to a friends place where-at there was a scanner. And much scanning commenced!

So, here's three for now. The first: Grifter by Travis Charest. A character he drew during Alan Moore's writing stint on Wildcats (which was a great run). More recently he's done a whole bunch of amazing Star Wars covers. Next is Impulse by Todd Nauck. Todd has drawn a lot of Bart Allen in his day, and we lamented over the characters death. And third but not least, Humpty Dumpty, as seen in Jack of Fables drawn by Tony Akins.

More sketches to come (have to go be productive now).

Yesterday, my pass for the NYCC arrived in the mail. They don't have their complete schedule up just as of yet as I write this. Two things to do right at the top of my list though are going to be: trying to get an Ambush Bug sketch from Keith Giffen, and a Blue Beetle sketch from Kevin Maguire.

This has reminded me that I've totally dropped the ball and have neglected to put some drawings that I collected down in San Diego last year up here. Have to make sure to get my sketch book near to a scanner so I can do so.

I try to make it a habit of attaching pictures to my blog updates. Just to make the page more interesting, so it's not text from top to bottom. But no pictures this time. Why you ask? Because evidently it's a horrible world that we live in where people rip off ideas and concepts from other folks all the time. Which I guess is true...that's why you get movies like 'A Bug's Life' and 'Antz' coming out so close to one another...when up until that point, there had been zero animated feature films starring ants.

The news that I have to pass along is that I got to look at some artwork today for an upcoming project. The one that I'm working on with my friend Howard (see previous post). And, said artwork inspired me with geeky glee, and filled me with inspiration to get back to writing. I wanted to put some of the drawings up here, but Howard nixed that idea (with logical reasoning). So, they'll just have to wait to be posted until the project is a bit closer to actual realization. Keeps things all nice and mysterious I guess.

In unrelated news...all the comic books I bought today were $2.99 US/Canada. People smarter than I have tried to explain that the faltering of the US economy can have bad repercussions all over the place in various aspects of life. All I know is that my comics are like 66 cents cheaper. And that's all good by me.

This is a picture of my friends Howard and Rosario. Ok...fine...I don't know Rosario. Didn't even get to meet her dammit! That Howard bastard was just in the right place at the right time last year in San Diego. I was probably off donating blood or doing something else equally unimportant.

Anyhow, Howard and I are working on a project together that seems to be actually making a lil' bit of headway. Wheels are in motion towards it actually reaching a completed point. Just can't really talk about it quite yet. I know you want to steal all of my ideas...you can't trick me.

Made it into the comic store today for the first time in an age. Bought a giant stack of comics. What do I need to save money for? I'll just spend less money on food and bills and rent, put less money in the bank...everything will be fine. All very well thought out.

In another small geek accomplishment, I got a letter published in 'Angel: After the Fall' #4. Further proving that Joss Whedon is my best friend. Ok...fine...it doesn't prove anything...but it pleases me. Very easily kept happy I am. The interesting thing is though, is that they only printed half the letter. The half in which I praised the current run of 'Angel'. The editor chose to take out all the parts where I trashed the previous attempts at Angel comics that IDW released. Clearly not very good with criticism. Anyhow, current run (co-plotted by Joss) and the couple other mini-series by Brian Lynch and Franco Urru are very good stuff. Love this era of Joss in comics.

Forgot to mention that there'll be a couple of short films preceding tonight's screening of 'Dead of Winter'. Just like the good ole' days of big screen movie presentation, when they used to show serials and other such things in front of movies. Well...kind of like that. The two shorts are: 'Cassandra' (that I directed), and Anne-Marie Frigon's 'Scare Bear'.

Friday night (the 11th) marks the premiere of 'Dead of Winter'. A movie that I worked on some time ago that's finally all edited up and ready to be released upon the horror film enjoying public. The event happens at the National Archives (395 Wellington) at 7PM. You can check out a trailer over on the ole' YouTube.