Creating Peter & Ernesto!

I thought I'd take a moment and reflect. I'm not the best at reviewing and analyzing my process but I get asked enough about how did I make a graphic novel that I figured it may be wise to just write it all down here. As best as I remember it!

How did Peter & Ernesto come to be an early reader's graphic novel published by the wonderful people at First Second?

Well, it started with Goldilocks and the Three Bears I believe. I did a silent take on that classic story for the anthology title "Fairy Tale Comics" edited by Chris Duffy. It was published by First Second and so I lot of folks there quickly became familiar with my work and style. I suppose it also helped that I had been doing indie comics for the last decade or so before that too under the title of Grickle.

When I first set out to tell a story for younger readers I initially thought I would do a completely visual, wordless book. But I soon found that concept a bit daunting and in struggling with different ideas my thoughts became focused on Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel. The Frog and Toad stories are absolute classics in the kid lit world and rightly so. Their brilliant simplicity and complete sincerity are a wonder to behold. I wanted to see if I could create something in a comic format that would come even close to how good those books made me feel when I read them to my kids.

That is how Peter & Ernesto began. Two friends, much like Frog and Toad, working through problems together. I wanted a story that showed the differences in their approaches but emphasized an equal value in those different outlooks.

When I start to create a comic I usually build it up with little sketches and a lot of notes written around them. Stuff that pretty much only I could decipher.

Once I've got a general idea of a beginning, middle and end I doodle out really loose, tiny page layouts and try and push the story forward from start to finish. Usually a couple hours a night where I'll hammer out 3-4 page layouts and that's it. It's like eating a meal very slowly. Just small bites, then put down the fork and think about how that bit tasted. Wait a little bit and then begin a new bite until after a month or two and you've finished the meal.

These doodle layouts are done on paper with either pencil or pen (whatever is nearest to me). Once that stage feels complete I'll use my paper layouts as a guide and recreate them in Photoshop, drawing on a Cintiq monitor. At this point many little changes will occur as I've had further time to refine thoughts and get a grip on how the whole story is flowing. When I've got the entire book up on the computer and generally feel okay with it, I'll bundle it into a pdf file and send it off to trusted friends, my editor, and agent and get feedback.

People send me notes and I gather them all up and mull over which things make the most sense to me. I tweak the stuff that my editor and I agree needs to change and then it's time to ink the book! Oh! And do the lettering! Actually, the lettering comes first.

It used to be that lettering was the most tedious part of making a comic for me. I understood it's obvious necessity but I really had no interest in wasting valuable artistic energy on writing words in my story. I wanted to focus on expressions and characters, not spend time dotting i's and crossing t's. I'm happy to say that these days lettering is but a blip in the overall process now thanks to John Martz! A fellow cartoonist who masterfully created my own personal font file of my lettering for me to use. Now lettering just involves typing in the words and drawing balloons up! It goes so quick and with the clever way that John designed the font file it looks every bit as natural and varied as it would've if I had painstakingly lettered it all out by hand. Total game changer for me.

So, yeah, lettering is done in a matter of days now and then it's onto inking.

Calling it inking is a bit misleading in this case. There is no ink involved actually. I do the final line work on the Cintiq monitor once again so maybe I'd be better to call it the "final line work" stage. This is definitely the longest and slowest part of the process for me! It's akin to walking a long path that I've already hiked before but now I've got to travel it again and go at a careful, meticulous pace. One foot in front of the other. Page by page, carving out the rough doodles and turning them into clear, concise images but not losing the 'life' of the original sketch underneath. This is the part where I definitely procrastinate the most.

When the line work is done I usually send out another PDF to the editor and make certain that everything is feeling good before hopping into color. The color stage has the potential to be as tedious as the line work stage but it isn't for me. It's the final step and it's like putting the icing on the cake! You have to go slow and be methodical but now you are seeing the completed image with each page you do. It stays exciting all the way through for me!

And then that's it! All done!

Well, sort of. Actually, not really.

The final art files are sent off. And then there is a bit of time waiting. Then notes from editors and design staff start showing up in your inbox. Also the planning for the cover image, extra interior pages, and book flaps happens. Lots of discussion occurs at this point as we all try and determine what the most effective cover image would be and there's a bit of fussing over all the peripheral imagery.

Then things get quiet again.

And you wait.

Then you receive a digital proof of the layout of the interior pages and everyone gives one last comb over to make certain we haven't missed any visual mistakes or grammatical errors. Once that stage is signed off you wait a little longer until one day a package arrives on your doorstep. The physical proofs of the book! Printed on the actual paper the book will be printed on! Woo! It's the absolute last point there can be any tweaks or changes made and it's super exciting to see the story in a nearly book like format!

Then things get quiet yet again.

Really quiet. And you wait. Again.

Then another magical day happens where you get a few comp copies of the book! It's hard to breathe at this stage because you've waited so long for this to happen that most of your major organs stop functioning as you page through the book. It's terrifyingly exhilarating. In the most awful best way.

Then you wait for awhile again. And suddenly it's your book release day! You visit schools and talk to kids about your process and story! You do interviews and tweet, facebook, and instagram your face off about the new book! People email you about it! Dioramas are built! Kids do drawings of your characters! You obsessively look at Goodreads to see how it's doing out there! It's all glorious and overwhelming.

You return home exhausted and sit down with your book. And as you leaf through it you realize that it's probably time to start making a new one again.

And that's how I create graphic novels! Whew! Thanks for reading everybody!

Win a naked turtle! Original Grickle art giveaway!

There's never been a better time to become a Grickle patron than now! Beginning this March I will be giving away a piece of original Grickle art (as seen on my Instagram) on a monthly basis to patrons at the $5 level or higher! Each month a raffle will be held and I will select one winner! Come join the fun!

Grickle Television!

With the demise of Vine as we know it I've decided to give my Grickle loops a place to live on Youtube. Take a break from the madness of headlines and enjoy the madness of Grickle Television! A place where Vines are preserved and new bits of Grickle oddness are added in!

Volume 1


And Volume 2



And don't forget to support Grickle and enjoy sneak previews at the Grickle Patron Channel!

https://www.patreon.com/grickle

10 years of Grickle Halloween cartoons!

I'm happy to announce there is a long play collection of ALL the Halloween-themed Grickle shorts from the past decade on Youtube! There is even a little NEW material added via a spooky intermission located in between the cartoons!

Relive the nightmares on the Grickle Channel!


Happy Halloween, everyone!

Lunch

I've got a NEW cartoon up on the Grickle Channel! It's titled "Lunch".


Perhaps it will serve as a welcome distraction from the insanity these days or function as commentary? I'll let you be the judge, but hopefully it provides a moment of pleasure either way.

I've been working hard on a BIG Grickle short and there is finally light at the end of the tunnel! If you're already a Grickle Patron then you'll be hearing more in the near future about that! And if you're not a Patron yet then have a peek at the perks and consider supporting Grickle!

Hope everyone's week is off to a splendid start!

Dummy

The latest Grickle cartoon is up on my Youtube Channel. Have a look and then sit and think about it. Or just go on with your day. The choice is yours!

The motorbike that became a computer

My Dad was really into motorcycles.

He grew up fixing bikes and taking apart motors all the time. He loved it. Very mechanically minded, my father.

Me, not so much.

When I was 11 years old my Dad surprised me with what I think he felt was a monumental birthday gift.  A Yamaha MX 80cc motorcycle was propped up on its kickstand in the backyard. My very own motorbike! All for me. To learn how to drive on. Change gears. Change oil. An engine to care for.

Pretty cool.

I liked the Yamaha. I learned how to drive and got to understand the notion of gears. I was aesthetically pleased with it's yellow and black gas tank. We went on a few father/son fishing trips, each of us on our own bike, driving deep into the backwoods of Northern Ontario. Good times. Looking back I realize that it must of made my Dad so proud and happy that his only son was embarking on a tradition of loving motorcycles just like he had.

It was short-lived.

The early eighties were a time of change. A time when the idea of having a computer in the house was becoming the norm. A home computer. I became VERY obsessed with the idea of owning a Commodore Vic-20 home computer. It was hands down the coolest one out there in my mind. It's warm, off-white, creamy-colored base with striking black keys set it apart from the pack. Plus it was LOADED with an astronomical 5 KB of RAM! It was all I thought about. I pestered my parents relentlessly.  I remember visiting the little computer shop on Queen Street in downtown Sault Ste. Marie and just salivating over being surrounded by Commodore products. My parents could see how much I wanted one.

At a certain point my Dad approached me about one path towards purchasing a computer. With a heavy sigh he explained to me that, if I was willing to, I could sell the Yamaha and use that money towards a computer. He must have hoped I'd say "No way! How could you even dare propose such a thing?"

Instead I jumped at it instantly. No hesitation whatsoever.

His face didn't show it but I'm sure that stung him.

My father listed the bike for sale and within a week it was gone forever. The following week we got the Vic-20.

A REAL computer! In our HOME! It had a datasette for cassettes, a cartridge slot for cartridges, and you could write code on it and everything! Nothing could tear me away from the Vic-20 for the next few months. I'd play Snack-Man until I couldn't see straight. I'd be writing "10 GOTO 20" and all sorts of other magical phrases as I attempted to bend the computer to my will. The Vic-20 was the King of the computing world and I was part of it's royal family!

Then the Commodore 64 came out.


The Vic-20 was last year's news. A glorified calculator with crappy knock off games on it. I'd gambled a lifetime of motorcycles on the Vic-20 and lost.  My beige, has-been, archaic computer paled beside the Commodore 64's steely grey tones that just screamed "new supreme power." It didn't have just a datasette, it also came with a FLOPPY DISC DRIVE! It was unstoppable and I was never going to be in a position financially to upgrade to a 64. I was stuck in an obsolete class of computer owner shamed to the shadows of insufficient coding capacity. I could barely muster the enthusiasm to load up Snack-Man anymore on the datasette. Life had turned cold and grey.

But then the storm clouds parted somewhat. A friend of mine down the street got a 64!

I pretty much began to live in his basement on weekends. The world of the 64 was so much more vast and populated than the Vic-20s'! There were games upon games upon games! AND a lot of them weren't even just cheap imitations of arcade hits! They were genuinely built for the 64!

My friend actually didn't have a ton of store bought games starting out. But that wasn't much of a hurdle because he had a connection in our neighborhood. An older kid who was a computer whiz with an apparent disdain for authority and law. Once every month or so we'd make a trip to his house with a stack of fresh floppy discs. And hovering over his shoulder while he sipped a Coke, he'd fill my friend's discs with all manner of the latest 64 games from God knows where. He didn't tell and we didn't ask.

We'd then run back to hole up in the basement and try out the discs. There seemed to be about a 60-40 % success rate with whether a game would load up or not. But there were so many to go through it never mattered much. If it didn't load we'd just move on to the next.


One game that we always held our breath on while it booted up was Karateka. It worked about 50% of the time and it always felt like winning the lottery if we got it to load. The intro was SO dramatic and intense (check out the above Youtube video). It still gives me chills! So many hours of my life were spent just sitting there looking at a comic with the buzzing and ticking of a floppy drive in the background. Interrupted by anxious glances at the screen to see if a company logo or menu had popped up yet. Glorious and formative years.

My Dad still loves motorbikes. He's still very mechanically minded. I've never owned a motorcycle in my lifetime since that Yamaha MX 80. And I'm most definitely still not mechanically minded (just ask my tolerant wife). But whenever we visit my parents these days I do manage to sit down in front of my Dad's Playstation and play many, many rounds of whatever video games he's into lately with him.

It's not exactly a father/son fishing trip but it's a trip of sorts I suppose.

Become a Grickle Patron!

Hey everyone!

I've created a Grickle Patreon Page! It's been a long time coming! Over the last year or so I've been quietly weighing the options of how best to fund my ongoing efforts in the Grickle Channel and Patreon seemed like the smartest option!

I've really struggled with how to properly monetize Grickle. Initially I'd been considering a Kickstarter campaign but the more I researched it it felt like the wrong structure for what I was doing. I plan to create Grickle cartoons for as long as I can keep breathing air and drawing stuff and Kickstarter is more tuned to single projects or finite endeavors. I long ago started allowing ads on Youtube thinking that the revenue would help in purchasing soundEFX and software upgrades. But man, unless you are PewdiePie I don't think it's possible to really sustain yourself off that. I even added the "Support this channel" on my Youtube page, above and beyond the ad revenue, but again things are structured in such a manner that by the time Youtube and Google have had their bites you really aren't left with much of anything. It's helped but it's far from enough to cover the costs and time I put into the channel.

So here's hoping that Patreon is the answer to allowing me to fund my current work on the Grickle Channel and provide a bright new future where I'll be able to justify turning away freelance work and other paying gigs to spend even more time making more cartoons! If you've enjoyed the animation over the last decade please consider becoming a Grickle Patron!

There's a bunch of perks to being a patron too!

I've set it up to provide an ad-free Vimeo channel with advance access to NEW Grickle cartoons before they appear on Youtube! A behind-the-scenes newsletter will showcase different past shorts with early sketches, storyboards and commentary! Higher tier patrons will get special postcards mailed to their home announcing upcoming cartoons and special events! There will also be a chance at winning original Grickle art! SO beyond supporting the channel you'll definitely be getting something for your patronage!

I'm really excited to kick off this new era of Grickle and I hope you are too!

Climb aboard!

The Hidden People are WATCHING.

I did a Twitter poll the other week asking what everyone's favorite Grickle character was.

The Hidden People won it by a narrow margin over Principal Skeleton.

So in an effort to utilize this new found data and also to help fund the ongoing explorations of the Grickle universe, I present to you a NEW Hidden People t-shirt! Now available at the wonderful new Grickle Shop!

They're watching you. They're always watching.

The Grickle Shop is OPEN today!

As mentioned previously there's a brand new Grickle Shop open for business today! There's a bunch of things I've never made available before! Stuff like MUGS! Grickle mugs! And debuting is "The Smartest Dog in the World" shirt! Available in yummy cranberry or olive colors!

I'll be adding new designs incrementally over the next few months! Keep an eye out!

I should also mention that I'm likely going to shut down the Grickle Store very soon. So if there are any prints, items, you were thinking of getting on there I'd do it soon! I've loved running my own store over the years but I'll be honest, the extra time and energy it takes to keep on top of orders has taken it's toll. I'm very happy to hand over the managerial reigns to Stash Riot and the new Grickle Shop.

On to a new era of Grickle items to fawn over!

The Grickle Shop!

Well as much as I tried to not let it happen, it happened.

I have severely lagged on keeping up on this blog.

But I'm here today!  Primarily to give a heads up that there will be a brand spanking new Grickle Shop this Wednesday, March 23! It will feature a completely new and exclusive "The Smartest Dog in the World" shirt, along with some other exciting Grickle-y items!  I'll be adding new designs in the coming months as ideas hit me. So keep an eye out for it! There will be a proper link as soon as the site goes live! But for now feel free to let the world know it's coming! Or you can just keep it quietly to yourself if that's more your thing.

Further updates! Life's been going well for the most part.

I'm deep into thumbnailing my first "Ernesto& Peter" graphic novel (which I will post progress pics on, I swear). So far so good, I think. I'm liking these guys and enjoying getting to know them and that's always a good sign.

I've been also quietly working on creating a Grickle Patreon account! It's nearing completion and I hope to launch it in the next month or so. Beyond just supporting me as an artist it'll offer the opportunity for you to become a patron of Grickle with such benefits as a secret, behind-the-scenes newsletter, sneak previews, ad-free content, and a chance to win original art! More on that as the situation develops!

I've been continuing to post doodles and animation on a daily basis to my Instagram account. So if you haven't checked it out you should! And speaking of animation I've been weekly updating a new Vine cartoon now for months! It's been fun to do and the 6 second parameter keeps my brain on it's toes!


Let's see, what else? Oh! I watched the new "Pee-Wee's Big Holiday" on Netflix last weekend. I'm a huge fan of "Big Adventure" and had thoroughly prepped myself to feel immense waves of disappointment while watching "Big Holiday." I was WRONG! "Big Holiday" did a fine, fine job! There are some really solid gags in it and Paul Reubens totally shone as Pee-Wee again. I was pleasantly surprised. Hats off to Judd Apatow and everyone involved in the production! I'd say my only minor beef with it is that I wished it had incorporated some nice stylized stop motion animation into the effects like the good old days. Otherwise, well done!

Okay. I'm putting down the mic now and getting back to work.

Thanks for reading everybody!

More soon!

Peter & Ernesto announced!

Hey everyone!

Just a short post to share some exciting news in the world of Grickle today! I'm working on a graphic for First Second called "Peter & Ernesto"! It's about two very different sloths who are the best of friends! And while it will be geared towards younger readers I hope that everyone will really dig the adventures of these two!

More news and work-in-progress images will appear in the coming months!

Very stoked to be doing comics again and extremely pleased to be working with First Second on this project!

Things are good! Hope everyone is doing well out there!

A New Year...again.

It's 2016 now.

The future is here. I've got a lot planned for this year and I'm excited about it BUT I'm not admitting to anything until I'm sure it'll happen. That way no one can hold me to any of it.

I'm a New Year's coward. It's true.

Although one thing I will admit to is exciting progress on the Grickle Gardens! For those of you who don't frequent this blog often, the Grickle Gardens is my customized table hockey set that I've been obsessing over the last few months.

I'm happy to report that the set is once again playable! I've pretty much completed adding all the decals to the boards. On the outside there's an arbitrary looking arrangement of old school hockey logos that I've admired over the years. Some are NHL but others are from the defunct WHA and junior leagues like the OHL and WHL. I even got some NCAA representation on there (Gophers, eh). There's still a little space left on either side that I may add further decals but those precious spaces will only be given to logos that have gone through intense scrutinization and vetting.

On the inside rink boards I've got a mish mash from Canada, Minnesota and California. I'm especially proud of getting a few specific Sault Ste. Marie businesses (my hometown) on there! Mrs. B's and the old Aurora's are looking good! And just for my wife I made sure to get the Triple Rock Social Club put on, a Minneapolis mainstay!

I've also got all the Rangers and Red Wings numbered and named now. It's an all-star cast from across many eras. A best of the best, with a few arbitrary abberations thrown in there. As stated in an earlier post, I went with John Davidson for the New York nets instead of a more obvious choice like Mike Richter or even John Vanbiesbrouck. His mask was too cool to not try and paint. I think he turned out alright, given my relative novice painting skills.

On the other end of the rink I have, who I'm calling, "Moderne Sawchuk" suited up for Detroit. Terry Sawchuk was the obvious choice to me for the best of the best Red Wing goalies. But the idea of trying to paint either a maskless version or that crazy fleshy colored mask he wore in the sixties seemed too daunting a task for my limited skill set. So I decided I'd attempt a fictional updated version of what Sawchuk might look like if he played nowadays. Moderne Sawchuk.

I've played a bunch of games with friends and my son and table hockey has lost none of the charms and thrills I remember from my youth! Such a fantastic game! The layouts and strategy are so much closer to how an actual hockey game is played, than say how a fooseball table relates to actual soccer. Superior, in my opinion.

I've now begun to strategize how to get some real nets with mesh made, along with purchasing some further teams that I'm in the middle of customizing. Next up I hope to put an early 80's version of the Minnesota North Stars on the ice. Dino, Meloche, and bunch of other old familiar faces will soon grace the Grickle Gardens with their esteemed presence. Here's a sneak peek of the work in progress.

Alright! I've talked your ear off enough about table hockey! I will now release you back into the internet wilds! Thanks for reading!

I'll post more Grickle related news as soon as it happens! Stay tuned! :)

The dancing beaver t-shirt!

Hey everyone!

Just a short post to let people know that I've got a new Grickle shirt available for the holiday season! The little dancing beaver from "We Sing the Forest Electric" fame is up on Teespring for a very limited time!

I know, like everyone else, it's always disturbing to have Christmas stuff thrown in our faces immediately following Halloween, but unfortunately if I don't do this campaign right now the shirts wouldn't ship in time for the holidays. So if you're trying to figure out a Grickle gift for any friends or family you've got about a week to order one of these!

Order right here!

I've been doing these Teespring campaigns over the last couple of years as a way of trying to supplement the time and resources I spend on creating original animation for the Grickle Channel. So if you've been enjoying my cartoons over the last decade on Youtube this is a great way to show your support! You can view all the past t-shirt campaigns here! If enough people reorder the older shirts than Teespring does a fresh print run! Have a look!

The Grickle T-shirt store!


Thanks, everybody!

How's that hockey table coming?

Nobody's really asking but I'm telling anyways.

It's my blog. And that's what a blog's for, right?

This post is primarily about my progress on my obsessive home project of customizing a Stiga Table Hockey set. You can choose to read it or not. Feel free to bail. I won't think any less of you. 

For those of you who happen to enjoy the sport of hockey or just like looking at people's odd hobbies please join me! 

Here we go.

So earlier I'd mentioned I haven't had a great history with model building. I absolutely love minatures and dioramas but I've never possessed the skills to build them. I just like looking at them.

I knew though that the day my Stiga Stanley Cup Table Hockey game arrived I wanted, no, NEEDED to customize it! Make it my own private shrine to the hockey gods!

Given my checkered past with decals and tiny things I entered into this journey with some trepidation. I really wanted this thing to look cool. I didn't want to eff it all up and be forced into a situation of slamming it into the garbage bin like that X-wing from long ago (see earlier post).

So far, I'm happy to report, that things have been going along relatively smoothly! I've been actually pleased by the results!

I suppose being a middle-aged adult has somewhat afforded me with enough patience and ability to follow instructions that I'm able to clearly out do my younger prepubescent self in the world of models and decals.

When the set first showed up I quickly assembled it. I had chosen to start with the NY Rangers versus the Detroit Red Wings as my beginning matchup. Stiga didn't offer a version that has a Montreal Canadiens team so I chose the least offensive pairing I could find. No disrespect to Rangers and Wings fans out there but these teams would serve as guinea pigs for honing my skills with model paints and decals.

My two sons immediately got into playing with the set! Even my youngest, who so far hasn't shown much love for the sport of hockey, or any sport really, was loving using the puck ejector and doing spinning slappers on it. After a couple of days of playing I shut the whole thing down. It was time to customize!

 My boys were not pleased.

One of my co-workers has started calling me President Business (ala the Lego Movie). And I guess it's not far from the truth right now. But dammit this was MY set and I had to get started on making it a mind blowing display of hockey awesomeness! They'll thank me in later years. I'm sure of it.

The first thing to be done and honestly the toughest step I've taken so far was to evenly paint the top of the rink boards red. I'd looked on the internet for reference and also remembered a lot of arenas I've played in, and red on top of the boards is a common color you see. Some places are blue and others yellow but red seemed like the right vibe to me. So I proceeded to take everything off the board and completely tape the whole set off. Just leaving the top of the rink boards exposed. It took me FOREVER to properly tape it up. I blew a whole Sunday afternoon on this step. Out in the back yard I laid it down on some plastic tarp and began spray painting as my family silently looked on from the window. At first the red looked a bit pink to me and I began to get nervous I'd already screwed up the project. But, after a night of drying in the garage, I was relieved to see it was a perfectly vibrant red and my taping job had been quite effective.

Step one complete.

I stupidly didn't take any photos during this beginning phase. I wished I had. It took so long to get that thing taped up that I completely spaced on the notion of recording the event. I was too eager to just get painting. I wouldn't make that mistake again.

The next thing to do was begin experimenting with decals on the players. I should mention that I found an amazing resource on the internet, a website, called "Table Hockey Heaven." The forums there have been an infinite source of inspiration and information on what to do with this set! I carefully followed the decal instructions suggested and began to put numbers and names on my Detroit team.

I measured what I thought would be the proper sizes for the numbers and names on the jerseys. The decals were so TINY! That actually turned out to be a good thing for my first foray into it. I've discovered that the bigger the decal the trickier it is applying it and getting it to lay flat. I was so glad I'd invested in a pair of really good tweezers for this! Made all the difference in accurately placing the names and numbers.

For Detroit, and I think for all the teams I assemble going forward, I'm kind of creating a "greatest hits" version. Regardless of era, I'm putting together an all-star team for each franchise. So for Detroit I've got Gordie Howe playing alongside Stevie Y and Pavel Datsyuk. Some choices are tough to make. I probably could have put Ted Lindsay in there but I will admit that I make some of my decisions based on personal nostalgia. There's no way I'm making a Red Wings team without Yzerman playing.

Next I needed to clean all the cheapie factory-made stickers on the boards and outside off. That took a bunch of nights of using water and "Goo be Gone" to get everything cleaned.

I then carefully taped off the boards and extended the red line and blue lines up the sides.

My son asks every day "When can we PLAY the game again, Poppa?" Patience, son, patience.

One of the funnest elements of customizing this set has been scouring the internet for obscure logos to put on the outside of the boards. I'm choosing logos based entirely on my personal tastes. There's no discernible rhyme or reason to any of it for anyone else. I'm lumping Junior A teams alongside cool WHA logos and defunct NHL teams purely for the aesthetic zeal of it all. And because they're logos I've grown up with. The Greyhounds were the local junior team in my hometown, the Nordiques were the greatest rivals of my beloved Habs during the 80's, the Portland Buckeroos were an incredible Oregon team based here in the 60's and 70's. I love all the individual histories they represent to me. Plus they look cool.

I needed a name for the rink. After many iterations in my head I settled upon "Grickle Gardens". It had the right old school flavor to it and I instantly knew of a logo I could create! I subverted the classic Johnny Canuck image by adding a Gricklized head and made sure to retain the toque, eh. Perfect.

And that about brings you up to date on my progress. I've begun printing out names and numbers for the opposing Rangers team. AND I'm about to begin sanding and painting the Rangers goalie which is VERY exciting to me. As much as I've been creating an all-star team for each city I've gone with John Davidson for my Rangers goalie. Not necessarily the best NY goalie of all time but definitely the coolest looking netminder they ever had.

I mean look at that mask! I hope I'm able to do it justice painting so damn small.



Look for another update in a few months or so! :)

The Webb.

Hi everyone!

This short blog post is solely devoted to the fact that I've got a new cartoon up on the Grickle Channel today. It is the longest short I've ever made thus far in the decade or so I've been doing this. It lived in scribbles and doodle and in my mind for well over 4 years before I finally completed it. It's creepy. It's scary. And it's just in time for Halloween. Enjoy.




Tell your friends and enemies out there! Spread it around, internet-style!

Models.

I was thinking about models the other day.

The models you build. Not the ones that strut around on catwalks and purse their lips for the camera.

Models that come in prefabricated pieces in cardboard boxes. Accompanied with step by step instructions on how to take it to it's final destined form.

I loved having models.

I hated building models.

I was lucky enough to hang around with an older kid in my neighborhood who was about 3, maybe 4 years older than me. He introduced me to music. I remember sitting in his basement marveling over album covers of KISS and Alice Cooper and listening to stuff that was 'cool'. He had a skateboard. I was never any good at it but I sure liked trying.

He was also into models.

Heavily into models. And he was super good at building them. I remember he had this HUGE aircraft carrier he'd built that I could never stop looking at. He put all the decals in the right spot, it was perfectly painted. An exact miniature of the real thing. 

I'd sit with him while he worked on some old WW2 airplane or tank. He'd be carefully following the instructions and bringing this amazing vehicle to life. He had a box of 'extras'. Pieces that were left over from previous endeavors, that I could mess around with. I loved just grabbing random bits of whatever I fancied and applying way too much glue to them. Building some unknowable thing until I deemed it was done. As long as there were no instructions to follow, model building was awesome. I never tired of that.

At a certain point my older friend and his family moved away. It was a sad day because our families were good friends and we spent a lot of time with them. As sad as I was to see my 'mentor' leave I will admit I was stoked to inherit his massive aircraft carrier! It immediately went up on top of my bookshelf where I looked at it closely every day. It was the object that inspired me to venture into a world of eternal torture. Building my own models.

For the next three years or so I was constantly buying model kits and attempting to build the things the front of the boxes promised.

I don't know that I ever completed a single one.

I just couldn't follow through on the instructions without messing up some major step along the way. I never had any patience to wait to apply the decals until the end. I was always irreparably gluing some wrong piece to another because I'd misinterpreted the illustration in the instructions. My models seemed to always culminate into a glue-coated Katamari ball of shit that didn't look anything like the well-lit photograph on the box. But within a few weeks, the frustration would always dissipate enough that I'd convince myself that "Yes, I could totally build that Husqvarna dirt bike with all the complicated wiring and motor parts". And off I'd go again down a dark, dark, road of glue and self loathing.

The ultimate end of my modeling days arrived when I came into possession of a huge X-Wing fighter kit. I wanted that ship to be displayed on my shelf SO BAD. I willed myself to truly follow the instructions and take my time to make it PERFECT. It was going to rival the aircraft carrier for sheer awesomeness in my room. But as I put it together the usual patterns emerged. My frustration built. And as I began to realize that I had, yet again, effed up the instructions and severely compromised my ability to complete my X-Wing fighter in the manner it was supposed to be done, I lost it. In a complete rage I scooped up my 3/4 finished piece of shit X-Wing and stomped over to the garbage in our kitchen and, in front of my parents and sister, THREW it forcibly into the trash. Immediately thereafter exploding into tears of anger and utter sadness that I just couldn't make that X-Wing happen. That was the last the model I ever attempted to make on my own.

After that I focused solely on drawing. And hoarding as many pre-built Star Wars figures and vehicles as I could throughout my childhood.

Things turned out okay.

I stayed away from models.

Until now. I recently purchased a Stiga table hockey set that I'm dying to customize. Put decals on. Paint. Make it nerdrifically pretty! This will be the first time, since those dark days of the X-Wing, that I will attempt to enter the world of model making again. I'm filled with an eagerness and anxiety I haven't known in a long, long time.

Wish me luck.

I really hope it doesn't end with my slamming the entire set into our garbage.

Time will tell.

Stress goalies

I'm a nervous guy. There's always been a healthy level of anxiety in my daily existence. It's just part of who I am. Nervous. Cautious. More nervous.

When you're an anxious person you find different ways of coping with stress.  You go through life trying and discarding many methods until you find the ones that work best. You create constants that you go to. Comfort food for your mind.

My comfort food has always been hockey. Goalies, specifically.

From an early age I was obsessed, like many other Canadian kids, with hockey. I collected cards. I checked the standings in the paper every day. I watched HNIC on Saturday nights. And I of course played in a house league hockey league. I also drew. A lot. I was a much better drawer than I was a hockey player. That balance in my life still hasn't shifted much to this day. Naturally these two worlds came together for me in a steady stream of goalie drawings. I gravitated to goalies for obvious reasons. With all the pads and mask they just looked the coolest. They were like modern knights in leather armour. The blocker was a shield, the goal stick a lance, the mask as a medieval helmet. Too cool. There was no way to resist drawing that when you're a hockey fan who likes to doodle. As a kid it became part of my daily routine.

As I grew older and life increased in complexity and responsibilities, the 'goalie' habit became a welcome refuge away from the swirl of challenges I was surrounded by. The familiarity of sketching out the pads, blocker, and glove had an instant calming effect on my racing thoughts. The way the equipment looked was very specific. I always remember getting absurdly irritated when I'd read a story in my Archie digests or some other comic about hockey and the equipment was drawn all wrong. The artist obviously didn't give two shits and figured just drawing a bunch of dudes with skates and wooly sweaters with pads randomly attached would suffice. It drove me crazy! All they needed to do was just a few minutes of research to figure out how the pants and socks worked and where to draw the tape on the stick! Gah! Simple!

The goalie pads (if they even realized there was a different position called goalie involved) were always the most horrendously effed up. Lumpy pillow-y pads and a ribbed back catcher's chest protector were standard misinterpretations of what actual goalie gear should look like. I knew that THIS was what goalie pads were supposed to look like:

Of course, all my preferences were based on the pads of the 70's and early 80's at the time. So, with the exception of Billy Smith and Grant Fuhr, pads were always brown leather. And goalies wore masks! I'm all for better protection and visibility for players but I do miss those days of the full face goalie mask. It's no mystery why Jason donned a hockey mask in the Friday the 13ths. Old school goalie masks were wicked. And honestly a lot easier to draw than the present day cage/mask combos out there. All those lines for the cage part are just tedious and confusing to render. Back in the day you had all these greats to draw:

As a young adult, and well into my thirties, I'd be the victim of seemingly random panic attacks. They were paralyzing experiences. Largely attributed to my naturally nervous demeanor, I'd try all sorts of things to swing me out of them. Drawing goalies or something familiar always helped. Whenever a panic attack began and there was paper and pen available I'd start drawing a goalie. Stacking the pads, making a glove save, or diving for a loose puck in traffic, it all helped steer me away from the madness. Working out the jersey to render and coming up with a design for the mask took me away from whatever freakout I'd been about to embark on. They weren't always the greatest drawings (a lot of shaky lines) but they almost always helped.

Thankfully I'm no longer the angst-ridden person of yesteryear that I was. Age, experience, a wonderful wife, and a general downgrade of energy, I'm sure have all contributed to the mellowing of my soul. Which is great and I'm thankful for it.

But some old habits do persist.

Even in a chilled state of mind I still enjoy doodling a good goalie every now and then. But only brown pads. I can't totally let go of the past.

A rock of an idea.

Good day!

First off I'd like to let everyone know that a brand new cartoon is up exclusively on the Grickle Channel today! Please watch "Soup Leprechaun" if you haven't already! And spread the word and links and stuff to any and all who you think might be entertained by such depravity! I thank you in advance.


Whenever I publish a new cartoon I get to enjoy that short lived rush of internet gush! That brief moment of satisfaction where you feel like it's "me"! It's "me" time! Everyone's looking at "me"! And inside you're giggling like a school girl. And then after about 5 minutes, amidst a flurry of comments and reactions, the internet moves on and you're left alone again. Left to begin trying to conjure up another idea that might garner you some "me" time.

You need more ideas.

Ideas.

I love them. I love when they show up.

Ideas are rocks. When you first conceive of them it's like picking up a rough stone. You hold it in your hand. You own it. You have it. But it's rough. The rock is right but the texture is too course. It needs to get smoothed out. So you begin to turn that little piece of stone over in your hand. You worry it. You think about the idea and you turn the rock over. And over. And over. Until all your holding and worrying begin to smooth out the surface. Sometimes you need a break from holding the rock so you put it in your pocket. Or you put it on a shelf. Maybe the next day you pull the rock out of your pocket again. Or maybe a year from now you take it back off the shelf. And begin turning it over in your hand again. Eventually it gets smooth enough that you decide to make the idea.

That's how I always perceive ideas when I get them.

Sometimes, of course, a perfectly smooth rock comes crashing through your window and hits you on the side of the temple. That's essentially the "Soup Leprechaun." It was pretty much as smooth as it was going to get the minute I saw that rock. Rarely that happens. But sometimes it just does. I have no idea who threw that rock. But I'm glad they did.

Next month's Halloween short "The Webb" is a rock I've been worrying in my hand for nearly 4 years.

Get ready.

Non laboring aka non labouring.

Labor day weekend just finished. Or as I used to say when I lived in Canada, "Labour Day is over."

And as a result I did very little laboring.

Including prepping a new blog post for this week. My apologies on that.

In lieu of a fresh new topic, I will instead ramble out a few words and post Grickle vines you may or may not have already seen. Stuff like this:




Or even things like this:


And for the few rambling words, this is what I've got.

Next week, September 15th on Tuesday morning at about 8am (PST) "Soup Leprechaun" will officially debut on the Grickle Channel!

Be ready. Tell your friends. Spread the word.

That is all.

Enjoy your post Labor Day weekend week doing all your laboring, everyone.