Best drawer.

Good day!

I was mulling over what to write this week and I as I started sifting through past memories and events I came upon one that I'm sure most others in my profession can relate to.

Being the best drawer.

For a good chunk of time I believe I held that title in my Northern Ontario elementary school. A solid run from about Grade 2 to Grade 8. I don't think I was cocky about it, but I sure did like having a 'thing' that set me apart from others.

It first dawned on me that I held this crown when I got my turn as student of the week in Grade 2. Each week our teacher would arbitrarily pick someone in the class as 'Student of the week'. This meant a small photo of you was pasted onto colored construction paper and then everyone in the class would write something nice about you around the photo. It was then pinned up on a board for all to see for the entire week.

When my turn happened I was surprised to see that nearly every comment was the same. "Best drawer". "Good at drawing", "I like his drawings", "He's good at drawing dinosaurs", "Excellent drawer", etc. 

That was the moment I realized I might be the best drawer.

It was a good feeling. And as much as I didn't like a lot of attention, I did enjoy my drawings getting attention. My focus at that time was mostly reptile in nature. I got pretty good at drawing snakes, particularly rattlesnakes and cobras. I always remembered to put those markings on the back of the hood of the cobra and I was very meticulous in drawing each segment of the rattle on the rattlesnake. I also did my fair share of dinosaurs. Usually that epic battle scene between triceratops and the mighty tyrannosaurus rex that was so popular in the late 1970's.

As I grew a bit older I expanded my skills into rendering Spider-Man swinging through mostly blank space (I really hated drawing buildings, still do) and NHL goalies making all variety of dramatic saves. I remember being so stoked when I submitted a Red Wings goalie stacking the pads to the local paper and it was actually printed in the "Kid's space" section the following week! My name and grade school were printed right below it. Further proof that I was indeed the best drawer.

As I mentioned earlier I never felt I got a swelled head about the whole thing but I will admit I got fairly comfortable with being the 'best' when it came to drawing. It was just what happened whenever I touched pencil to paper. The best. No big deal, just nature taking its course.

Then it happened.

My parents took my sister and I over to friends who lived on the other side of town. Their son was a year older than me. We didn't see each other that often but when we did we always got along well. He was a super interesting and crazy smart kid. Back when most kids hoarded Star Wars action figures, he had all these elaborate historical toys, figurines of classic knights and conquerors of the past. And he actually knew all the context behind them. Super smart guy. We'd usually just hang out in his room and get up to weird stuff like putting models together while listening to music on his stereo (he had his OWN stereo at the age of 10!). Sometimes we'd eat dog food. He convinced me that it actually tasted awesome and so we'd share a batch in his room that he'd snuck from the downstairs kitchen. His parents must have always been confused at why their dog went through food so quickly.

But this particular visit we didn't hang out in his room. Instead he invited me over to a nearby buddy's house to go do some drawing. My parents gave me the okay so we headed out.

When we got there I was greeted by another kid who was a year or two older than me and he seemed equally odd and smart like my friend. I still remember him looking a little chubby in a striped shirt and beckoning us in. Soon we were downstairs at a table, listening to music and enjoying some soda. There was a stack of blank paper and pencils ready to go. My friend and his buddy seemed very methodical about their drawing time and stated that we were going to be spending the afternoon illustrating airplanes. Specifically World War 1 era planes. I was a little confused by the exactness of our drawing mission. Usually when I drew there wasn't an outlined agenda that needed to be adhered to. If I was in a dinosaur mood I'd starting cranking out triceratops or get a little crazy and maybe pull out a stegosaurus. If it felt like more of a hockey type day I'd whip up a Tony Espo or Ken Dryden saving the game in overtime. Never before had I been with kids who organized drawing time in such a rigid fashion. "Oh well" I thought, this shouldn't be a big deal. I can draw some planes with these guys. It'll be cool. Something different for the best drawer to try his hand at.

So for the next 10 minutes the room fell into silence as we all began drawing our WW 1 airplanes. I noticed the other two had flipped open some reference books as they worked on their renditions. I wasn't much for reference at the time. I liked to just wing it. It was a more freeing feeling to just come up with the image that was cooking in my head instead of weighing it down by sticking to some pre-drawn image that was in front of me. I mean what's the sense of doing someone else's drawing, right? It's already been drawn by someone else, why make another one?

I started with a propeller first and then began drawing the body of the plane. I really didn't know anything about World War 1. I kind of suspected that Snoopy had been involved in it? I was pretty sure he'd mentioned World War 1 when he was fighting that Red Barn or Baron guy in Peanuts? That's about all the info I had to go on. So I added some wings and tried to draw a little pilot guy steering it. I will admit it was kind of a weird looking plane. And you'd be hard pressed to say what era it was from. But it looked pretty plane-like to me and creative, so I felt it was impressive enough to stand on its own merits.

As we all slid our finished drawings to the middle of the table for a little art review, I didn't feel any sort of anxiety at all. I was always the best drawer and nature would take it's usual path.

My blood froze when I saw the other two drawings.

The detail they'd both put into their planes! The linework and sophisticated design. The accuracy of the dimensions. Their drawings looked like they belonged in a professional history book on airplanes! They were perfect!

My strange lumpy airplaney vehicle stood out like an abomination beside their shining examples of wartime flight of the early 20th century.

There was a brief moment of silence as we all took it in. Then the laughing began. I don't think they intended it maliciously at all. It was just the utter shock of seeing my contribution relative to theirs. The complete unexpectedness of it. If I hadn't been so thrown off by this appalling reversal of nature I suppose I might have found the humor in it as well. But instead I felt for the first time ever, total shame and humiliation in my drawing abilities. I couldn't hang with these guys and their specific World War 1 era drawing skills. I was not the best drawer. Not by a long shot.

That was a tough but good life lesson. I realized, with some amount of pain, that I had been a big ignorant fish in a very small pond of other fish who mostly didn't bother drawing. And outside of that pond was a large ocean that contained highly skilled creatures who very much did like to draw and were quite adept at it.

It was good to know this and be aware of this.

I think it allowed me to survive art college and weather a career in animation.

As harrowing as that experience was I never did falter in my drawing. I enjoyed doing it too much. I continued to stick with dinosaurs, Spider-Man, and goalies and eventually into heavy metal covers and comic characters of my own creation.

But I will admit it was a long time before I tried my hand again at drawing a bi-plane or any plane for that matter.

I'm sure many of you who were former or are currently the 'best drawers' can relate.

Oh! I wanted to mention that I've strung together all my early Monkey Scream cartoons on the Grickle Channel. The resolution is better than in the original uploads from years past and I added in a little special Monkey Intermission bit to help spice it up (and to provide a slight reprieve from the onslaught of monkey screams.) Enjoy!

The world I live in.

Hello.

Every now and again, or actually quite often, I'm reminded about how little I know about the world around me. How I just function in my tiny narrow splinter of the overall pie that is this planet. Regularly using machines and inventions I have absolutely no clue about their inner workings. Or very vague overviews that I never really put to the test.

I was driving to an appointment the other day when my car did an a most alarming thing. Driving over a major bridge it began to scream at me. Not audibly but in text. The world had been perfectly normal one instant but in the next I was looking at my dashboard doing this!:


My car had never screamed at me before.

It completely unnerved me.

My stomach sunk into my shoes and my veins turned to ice. Things had been fine a second ago! Why? Why this, now? Didn't my car realize I HAD to get to this appointment? I was on a bridge. I couldn't just pull over. I began to try and subdue the panic inside. How bad was it really? Maybe just an internal computer glitch? Right? My car was just mistakenly crying "wolf"! I'm sure I could just keep going to my appointment. It was only 7 minutes away at this point. Car, you're just going to have to tough it out. We can talk about this later. Suck it up.

I kept driving. The motor sounded normal. The temperature gauge stayed in the middle. Everything was fine.

Except for the screaming.

Then I began to notice the distinct smell of melted plastic. That's not good. The car WASN'T just crying "wolf". This was real. This was happening right now! I was now a mere 3 minutes away from my destination. C'mon car. Keep it together. We can get there!

I was coated in a sheen of sweat. I kept imagining pulling into the parking lot and this would happen:





Thankfully I made it without bursting into an apocalyptic ball of flames.

I turned the key off and breathed a huge sigh of relief.

I went to my appointment as if nothing had happened. There was no indication on my face that I'd just challenged the Reaper and escaped without a scratch.

Later I spent the next 15 minutes just figuring out where the latch thingie was to open up the hood. As I peered into the sophisticated machinery of my vehicle I saw that the coolant tank, which had just recently been replaced, had a hose clamp-mijigger that looked loose. Coolant was lightly dripping from the connection point. Aha! That's the culprit I deduced.

I put the hood down and proceeded to drive the short distance home. Ignoring my car's screams as I went.

I then left the car in the driveway for the next week to punish it for scaring me so.

Once I felt it had learned it's lesson I topped off the coolant tank with water and brought it back to my mechanic's where they securely sealed the clamp-mijgger up. Everything has been running smoothly since.

Some days I have no idea how I have managed to live this long on this planet. So little knowledge for having spent so much time here.

Burning hot!

Hello everyone!


I hope your week is on a pleasant course! I wanted to draw your attention, if I may, to the newest addition on the Grickle Channel, "Dreams of Venus"! It debuted at 8am this morning and has been burning up views ever since. A direct link to the cartoon is here:


I love the sound of a raging fire and I think that had a lot to do with why this one ended up the way it did. The fury and intensity of that sound is unrivaled. Hopefully this cartoon feels like a good slap in the face with a fireball. But without all the scarring and pain.

And I've got more on the back burner coming! As a few select number of you noticed, "Soup Leprechaun" made a brief, mistaken appearance on the channel last evening. I was attempting to test some stuff and inadvertently put the cartoon up 'live'. Oops! For those of you who missed it, don't worry! I'll be posting "Soup Leprechaun" in September!

Hang tight!

Boardwalkin' and Vining

Hello!

Sorry I missed last week everybody! I went away on vacation and the thought of typing out a new blog post on my phone seemed incredibly daunting. So I didn't.

But I'm back now! And with a fresh new post! About.... uhh...  errr... about this how-to time lapse doodle video I created!




Neat, eh?  I may try doing more of these in the future. Even just selecting the music alone is worth the effort!

I've been continuing to create new Vines as well. The latest was titled "Pug banker". A 6 second glimpse into the life of this little fella crunching his numbers.



Hard working pugs always crack me up. Beyond drawing pugs on vacation I didn't do a whole lot.

Oh! But I will mention Boardwalk Empire!

I've always been a fan of Steve Buscemi's work. All the way back to seeing him in a small role in Jim Jarmusch's 'Mystery Train'.

Top notch character actor.

 But as a main character?

Wow.

I spent a good chunk of my vacation watching the Boardwalk Empire series and have been loving it! I'd watched the first few episodes a couple of years back but it didn't, for whatever reason, really grab me at the time. Now I can't watch it fast enough!  Currently at just the halfway point of the 3rd season. So no spoilers please! :)

Also started reading "To Kill a Mocking Bird" for the first time. I don't know how I managed to avoid reading this classic up until now. As expected, it's great writing! I don't know all the details about the hub bub with "To Set a Watchman" but I'm not going to let that taint my experience with the first novel. I plan to finish the book and then sit and watch the Gregory Peck movie.

The rest of my summer is set! :)

Alright I'll wrap up this week's post here.

Don't forget! I've got a brand new Grickle cartoon called "Dreams of Venus" that will be debuting next week exclusively on the Grickle Channel! 


Till later!

New territory.

Hello everyone!

It felt great to finally release a new Grickle cartoon last week! The thrill of uploading something new never gets old! It tickles that exact perfect spot on your ego or whatever. It's the whole reason to do art I suppose. At least for me. Make something and get a reaction. Simple.

But I will admit it is a brief sensation. And in this day and age even more incredibly brief than its ever been on the internet.

Back in the old days, like 2007 to 2009 or so, when I uploaded a new cartoon the aftermath of reaction would flow for a good long while. Like throwing a rock in a calm lake and watching the ripples go outward. Nowadays launching a cartoon feels more akin to tossing a pebble into a stormy sea. If you look really carefully you might see the pebble hit the ocean surface. Then it's gone. It's still super satisfying to chuck that rock but it just doesn't last long.

I'm guessing that everyone, myself included, has such an overwhelming input of tweets, posts, updates, etc., in their various feeds that every new blurb gets pushed downstream so fast that if you blink you miss it.

C'est la vie.

Or maybe I should say vive la nouveau?

As I edge closer to being a legitimate 'old man', I find it increasingly tricky to keep up out there. When I look over all the newer avenues of social media my heart begins to race oddly, my palms get sweaty, my breath becomes short, and I get this overwhelming feeling of not doing enough and being hopelessly behind the times.

Truly an old man staring down at the rabbit hole of the internet. Or chasing the dragon of cyberspace. Or something like that.

But like all those people who watch Youtube videos of folks unwrapping presents, I can't deny that desire to see something new! Capitalism and consumerism at its worst. The excitement of trying a new app out and successfully posting in unknown territory belies the fear and anxiety. Not to mention the pathetic 'old guy' bragging rights of saying to peers "Really? You don't have an account on there? Oh yeah, I've been using that app for years now!"

And so I've begun to chase that rabbit or dragon. An attempt to branch out from my usual twitter, blog, Flickr, and Facebook audiences.

Some new arenas (to me) I've stumbled around in recently are Instagram, Tumblr, Google+, and Vine.

For the Instagram and Tumblr accounts I've been posting a morning doodle every day. It's been a healthy drawing exercise if nothing else. The audience is slowly growing so we'll see what the future holds. I'm going to try and keep it up for as long as I can.

I also took a stab at updating and using my Google+ page. It's been fun to tinker on it but I really get the feeling not a ton of people use Google+ on a daily basis? Maybe I'm wrong. I'm going to continue tinkering on it regardless. If you're interested in following any of these new venues, here are my accounts:

Grickle14 on Instagram

Tumblin' Grickle 

GrickleGoogle+

The Vine account is a slightly different beast. I've had one for quite some time but frankly could never get my head around it.

Until last week, that is!

I had an inspiring conversation with an animator friend, Kevin Parry (you should really follow his amazing stuff on Vine!) and now I'm so excited about it I'm trying to keep myself from spending all my free time there! The concept of doing little 6 second shorts is so compelling and not dissimilar from the early days of the monkey scream shorts on the Grickle Channel. It's definitely stoked the creative fires!


I've got more ideas than I can handle for it but I'm going to try and exhibit some restraint. If you want to keep an eye on those proceedings look no further than here:

Grickle on Vine

That's as far as I've managed to chase the rabbit/dragon currently.

I would love to hear from folks if they thought there was an app or place I was sorely overlooking for Grickle stuff! I just want to make sure that when I create a new piece of art, be it a sketch or animated short, that I'm really posting it in the most appropriate places to be seen and appreciated/hated these days.

Make something, get a reaction.

Simple.

"After hours" has arrived!

As of this morning there is a brand NEW Grickle cartoon uploaded exclusively on the Grickle Channel!



It has been a looooooong road to get back to this point. And I'm very thankful that so many of you held onto your Grickle Channel subscriptions on Youtube. As I uploaded this latest cartoon I realized it's the 50th animated short I've put on Youtube. 50 shorts! That's a decent amount of animation! Put all those together and that's pretty much a feature length film done by one person! A strange, disjointed, sparsely-animated, feature but a feature nonetheless!

Toot! Toot!

That's the sound of me tooting my own horn. Just briefly. I feel like some sort of sound has to commemorate getting half way to 100!

Please enjoy this latest installment and comfort yourself with the knowledge that I plan to be uploading plenty more new cartoons in the coming year. The Grickle Channel is back on track for the foreseeable future!

And, as this is the internet, and I am one solitary fool making these things in my spare time, I feel obligated to again make mention of the new Fan Funding feature on my Youtube page.  If you've been a fan for a long time or just discovered my work and want to contribute in making the foreseeable Grickle future even more of a reality at a quicker more dependable pace then please contribute to my Fan Funding button on the Grickle Channel page! Any amount helps in allowing me to schedule more time working on the cartoons, purchasing sound efx and software. It's the blue button on the main Grickle Channel page!

Okay! That's all I'm going to say about that today! Looking very forward to hearing comments on "After hours"!

Alright, I'll shut up now and get back to making more!

"After hours" on Monday the 13th! -Sneak peek!

The above image is a sneak peek of the upcoming "After hours" cartoon I'll be debuting exclusively on the Grickle Channel this coming Monday the 13th!

I am so excited.

This is hopefully just the tip of the iceberg. I've been dying to get back to revitalizing the Grickle Channel and I can't wait share the bizarre ideas I've been concocting over that last couple of years.

If you've checked out the Grickle Channel page in recent times you'll notice that there is a "Fan Funding" button on there now. It's on the main page and looks like this:

Now, don't panic!

I'm not about to start charging everyone for the cartoons BUT I do want to say that I  will welcome any financial help I can get in paying for sound efx, work time, and software purchases that I make for the Grickle Channel. I'm pretty darn sure I'm going to continue making these cartoons for as long as I exist. I can't help myself.  I absolutely love doing it and it feels like one of the few venues I've got where I completely and utterly am able to express myself without any filter of any kind. So funding or not I'll continue to make these animated babies whenever and however I can. BUT financial assistance, as in all things, helps justify and create more opportunities to devote more time to the channel. More financial support = more cartoons, more often. So if you feel like helping out the Grickle Channel and contributing to it's current existence, glorious past and hopefully bright and weird future than by all means I welcome your support!

Either way I'll be making more. It's just I may be able to make them quicker and more often with assistance from all you awesome people.

Okay! Try and enjoy your weekend and remember to be watching the Grickle Channel on Monday the 13th!!!

Portland is hot and the Grickle Channel LIVES AGAIN!!!!

I knew this day would come. And that it would come quickly. In the pursuit of creating blog posts on a regular basis I'd have to confront the dilemma of having no obvious thing to write about. I'd be yet another person adding to the infernal white noise of the internet by writing about the fact that I have nothing to write about today.

But I also knew that I was going to adopt a more cavalier attitude towards this blog and just not sweat it if I found myself in a topic-less kind of mood.

Well today is that day, but that's okay. I'm going to forge ahead and write something anyway. And maybe add a doodle or two to spruce up the piece. Something like this:

What's that drawing about? I dunno. His head is made of ice cubes. Or something. Speaking of ice cubes. Portland has been insanely hot.

Unbelievably hot.

And it's lasted way longer than usual. To the point where whatever reserve of energy I normally have to do extra things has been greatly depleted. Some guy on the radio this morning said that there is a gigantic 'blob' in the ocean of slightly warmer water that is the cause of all this. Scientists can't explain how it got there but the 'blob' stretches thousands of miles from Alaska to Mexico and is heating up the West Coast. Great.

Hot weather makes me feel like I'm running on empty.

One of those extra things that I've lost some energy in working on is Grickle cartoons. I'm sure many of you noticed the almost total lack of new cartoons on my Youtube channel for the last 2 years. It made me sad but I didn't really have a choice on the matter. Between being the father of two great little boys and trying to do the best I could in directing an animated feature film I lost all ability to find time to create more Grickle cartoons. Until now. Things have changed. Time has moved on. The Boxtrolls is completely and utterly done. My boys have gotten a little older. And so I've been quietly working away on a number of new animated shorts that I can't wait to begin posting!

Although this weather has painfully slowed me down for the last week or two, don't fret! I made decent progress back when the days were cooler and I've got one brand spanking new cartoon ready to be uploaded next Monday morning (July 13th). Keep your eyes peeled for it and tell your friends! Spread the word! The Grickle Channel lives yet again!

Oh! And speaking of, if anyone is still wanting a Grickle Channel shirt you should order one soon! The Teespring campaign is going to end in 3 days! And I'm currently 14 orders shy of hitting the goal to get them printed! Check it out here: The Grickle Channel shirt

Well, there. I guess I did have some stuff to write about after all.

Until next time! Stay cool out there, everyone.

The smell of death

Hi, everyone! Been continuing to listen to new podcasts and things thanks to all your suggestions! My life feels somehow fuller now. More satisfying. In between breaks of long bouts of electronica I skim through the list of new podcasts and, if I'm in a daring enough mood, I go for it. Being in a brave soul sort of a mood I gave "Welcome to Night Vale" a try yesterday. I wasn't even sure what to think of it initially but I find myself mulling it over nearly a day later and that's a good sign in my book. It's like beat poetry in a Twilight Zone format.

I've arbitrarily decided to step up my game if I'm going to continue to write blog posts. Inspired by all the incredible podcasts and free form writing out there I need to make better use of this space! So be prepared to read a bunch of bumbling true life, off the top of my head, rambly posts beyond the usual "Hey I've got a new shirt or cartoon out!" entries I've done in the past. 

 I'll be honest though, I'm much more comfortable doodling than I am trusting words to get across my point. If I even have a point. So the ride may get a little bumpy.  Hang on.

Okay, so here's a random entry to kick things off with.

Sometimes I work out. And lately, since my schedule has returned to a normal pace, I've been going to the gym for my lunch hour. It's a way to somewhat keep in shape so that I may continue my illustrious career as an old-man-beer-league-ice-hockey player. I don't have a ton of ambition in my life other than to try and create the most animation and comics I can and play the most hockey I can play before I'm done and out. And as I get older I suspect that if I didn't do these little workouts every week my body would just calcify into an unmoving mass, never to skate again. So I do my best to keep up steady visits to the gym. It is what it is. A predictable and mostly mundane necessity.

Mostly mundane.

Until the other week.


I was in the process of doing stretches and getting ready to pedal a brisk 5 minutes on the exercise bike when I suddenly heard a loud thud and a moan of "ooooooohhhh". I immediately scanned the first floor. The gym has two levels, the second floor has all the cardio machines and is an open space that looks down onto the first floor. Every now and again there are some rather loud muscle head types who squat huge weights on the first floor. Whether it's voluntary or just necessary, they almost always are grunting or yelling audibly throughout the gym as they lift and then loudly drop weights with a thud onto the floor. I assumed that's what had occurred as I glanced down to confirm it. But I didn't see anyone that looked like a candidate to emit the noise I'd heard. Mildly confused, I shrugged it off and got on my bike when I suddenly heard a second lower groan. I looked behind me towards the line of treadmills and saw:

As I approached, a very Brian DePalma-like pool of blood beginning to spread from his head onto the carpet. By this point other folks had also noticed that something had gone horribly wrong at the treadmills. A co-worker was already in action mode, calling 9-1-1 on her phone and telling me and everyone else to "alert the front desk!"A bunch of us hustled downstairs to spread the word.

Luckily for the poor guy on the floor there was an experienced ER (emergency room) person who happened to be doing a lunchtime workout. He immediately took control of the situation, much to everyone else's relief! He flipped the guy over and got folks to fetch wet paper towels that were used to stem the bleeding. The guy had a nasty cut on his forehead and had been knocked loopy. As far as we could tell he must have half fainted while jogging on the treadmill and smacked his head as he stumbled and fell off. As we waited for the fire department to arrive the guy began to become coherent again. The ER fellow calmly talked him through what had happened and after a few minutes got him to his feet.

Soon he had the guy sitting in a comfy chair in the men's locker room and acting pretty normal. The fire department brought in a big first aid kit and tended to the gash on his head. The gym had a wave of 'situation normal' sweep over it and everyone went back to doing their lunchtime workouts. I returned to my previously planned routine but decided to cut my bike ride a bit short as my heart rate was already going pretty good.

Later, as I finished working out I noticed the fire department packing up their stuff and the treadmill guy was getting his gym bag together. I saw that the ER fellow was still there and talking a lot to the guy. I overheard him encouraging him to get a physical as soon as possible and to maybe drastically think about changing his diet. The guy nodded politely and proceeded to walk out.

Back at work, I chatted with a co-worker who had also witnessed the whole thing. He had made a point of thanking the ER guy for all his expertise. And as they got into conversation the ER guy had said that he could tell by the smell of the man that something terribly wrong was going on inside him. He could smell the whiff of death on him, a smell he'd become attuned to after many years of ER experience. He said there was an odor of major organ failure on the guy. Major organ failure. Jeez! I'd never really thought about the fact that death had a smell like that but it made sense. What an incredibly creepy skill to possess. Sort of like a Grim Reaper super hero or something.

When I told my wife about it that evening she reminded me of a news story a while ago about the 'death' cat at an old folks home.



Oscar the cat always knew who was going next and would stay with that person before they went.  Even before the medical staff was able to determine anything wrong Oscar would just know. I think he'd done like over 50 times and been right every time. A comforting but horrible cat to have around I suspect.

The smell of death.

 I really hope that guy went to his doctor and they're able to clear up that odor for him. 

Summer time means shirt time!

Okay, so a decent number of people have been asking about past Grickle shirts and how to get them. This got me poking around on teespring and I realized that you could now make a whole storefront on the site! So all my past designs are currently consolidated HERE:

http://teespring.com/stores/the-grickle-shirt-store

And I specifically relaunched a campaign for the The Grickle Channel shirt. I need 20 orders by July 9th to make it happen. So if you missed out last time, head over there! The yellow version of the shirt is on a slightly more golden stock this time around (they no longer carry the shirt stock it was originally printed on). I think I might even like the new golden version better to be honest.

  

I wanted to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who sent podcast recommendations last week! It's been great to have a whole new pool of of stuff to sift through. I listened to a few of the Lore Project ones and man so good! It was making me feel a bit disturbed and sick inside but I couldn't stop listening.

I gave Dan Carlin's Hardcore History a try as well. I listened to the "Prophets of Doom" episode. Epic! It was about 4 hours long! 4 hours! And I ended up listening to every single minute of it. The story was fascinating and Dan's enthusiasm in telling it is infectious! He's like the best history teacher you never had. Really impressed. And I almost feel smarter for having listened to it.

I also re-discovered a past indulgence of mine on Youtube. "X minus One" was an amazing sci-fi radio show back in the late fifties. People like Issace Asimov and Phillip K Dick had stories on it. I would LOVE to hear if anyone has recommendations on anything else out there that is even remotely close to the quality and tone of these shows.

Okay, that's all I've got for today! Hope folks are having a decent enough day out there.

It's that time again!

Hello, everyone!

Yes, it's that time again. That time of the year when I write a brand new blog post to say "Wow! It's sure been a long time since I last posted here!" And then I usually follow that up with something like "I am FINALLY going to get back on track and try and post more regularly!"

Well, guess what? I'm NEVER going to be back on track as far as I can tell. And so I'm not going to make any promises that I'll continue to update this blog regularly. Who even blogs regularly anymore anyway, right? There certainly doesn't seem to be much peer pressure out there to keep this thing up.

So, no promises. But all that said, I honestly may come back and try and update again. Or I may not.


Here's a doodle.

Dog and a hat. With a cane.

Not my best work but it's all I got right now.

It's been over half a year since the Boxtrolls came out and I feel like my brain is just beginning to normalize. Been listening to a lot of podcasts again and loving it.  Mostly catching up on various Mark Maron and discovered the world of Harmontown. Which has me curious to maybe watch Community? I know, I'm about 5 years behind the curve. But I've always been.

What else? Witnessed the BlackHawks win their 3rd Stanley Cup in 6 years. I'd have much preferred to watch the Habs skating around with the Cup but it was still satisfying to watch Chicago get it again. Such a stellar team. It's almost unfair.

In Grickle news, which I suppose is the main purpose of this blog, I'm working on a lot of behind the curtain stuff that hopefully I'll be able to talk about in the upcoming year. Pretty excited about it. That will definitely constitute more blog posts if I have legitimate news to toot my horn about! Bare minimum I'll be tweeting stuff for sure.

Hey, I have no idea if anybody still checks this blog. But if you do I'd love to hear any recommendations folks have on other good podcasts to listen to! My brain is starving for new material!

And with that I bid you adieu! For now. :)



Annable

The Grickle Holiday list!

Hello!

A lot of folks ask me about what sort of "Grickle" objects exist out there for gift ideas. Here's a list of links to things you can get for that Grickle person in your life:

Puzzle Agent video game series

http://store.steampowered.com/app/31270/ (Puzzle Agent)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/94590/ (Puzzle Agent 2)

Exclusive prints  and music from the Grickle store (Hidden People set, Children of the Night & their Dad set, Principal Skeleton, Space Sadness)

http://grickle.bigcartel.com/

Original art

http://www.gallerynucleus.com/artist/graham_annable#Artwork

Gallery Nucleus special prints

http://www.gallerynucleus.com/artist/graham_annable#Prints

The Book of Grickle from Dark Horse Comics

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Grickle-Graham-Annable/dp/1595824308/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417711094&sr=8-1&keywords=the+book+of+grickle

Hope that helps out this holiday season!

New T-shirts! Principal Skeleton and the Hidden People!

 Who's your favorite Grickle creation? The Hidden People? Principal Skeleton? The duck from Forest Electric? Well, if you picked one of the first two you're in luck! For the next two weeks I'm running t-shirt campaigns on teespring.com for a Principal Skeleton shirt and a Hidden People shirt! Available in both men and women's styles! Order now and let's make this happen!

The Grickle Channel T-shirt campaign!

I've been itching to do up a new Grickle t-shirt for a long time now but was loathe to deal with the nastiness of a million sizes and packaging. I thought I'd never get it going but via twitter I was pointed to the fine folks of teespring! It's like Kickstarter for t-shirts! You submit a design, set a goal and time limit, and if you reach your goal they print and ship the shirts! Perfect!

So what are you waiting for? Go to teespring and get some Christmas shopping started!

The Hickee Trade Paperback is OUT!

Years in the making and now ready and waiting! The Hickee Trade Paperback is packed with a ton of early out of print, hard to find, comic work by myself, Scott C., Nathan Stapley, Razmig Mavlian, Joe White, Vam, Paul Brown, and Dave Bogan. Clear a space on your bookshelf for this wonderful edition published by TopatoCo. It's even got an exciting foreword by Dan Piraro of Bizarro fame! Don't wait until they're all sold out! Order yours today!

The Principal Skeleton trilogy

Continuing on the theme of "Skulltober" I thought it might be a good time to review and relive the three Principal Skeleton cartoons out there. Soak up the trilogy in all it's skeletal glory!

Skulltober.

Well, the fall has arrived and that means Halloween isn't too far off. I've come to accept that one of my all time favourite things to draw is skulls. This could very well be a left over remnant of my teenage years spent  redrawing  "Eddie" from Iron Maiden album covers, but whatever the source the desire has never left. So I'm kicking off October by attempting to draw as much skull related art as my schedule allows. First up is "the Purple skull of gladness", soon to be followed by more I hope.
I watched "Dead Alive" for the first time the other night and I cannot fathom how I'd managed to miss this movie before! A lot of excellent similarities to "Evil Dead 2", which is hard to come by, in my opinion.

Just a quick post for now. I'll plan to update more as the month progresses!

It's almost ParaNorman time! and shows, shows, shows!

Okay, so I'm about to do a little gushing about the day job first... Ready? Here goes...  PARANORMAN !!! It's almost August 17th!!!! I'm bouncing off the walls in anticipation of the release! For those who weren't already aware, I spent 3 years working on storyboards for the film and there is honestly no project that I'm more proud of than this one. I've been fortunate to work alongside so many talented people in the making of this. And to top it all off it's been extremely satisfying to see Chris Butler (he wrote and co-directed ParaNorman) get a ton well deserved acknowledgement for his efforts. Butler is truly one of the good ones! I offer the interview below as proof of my statement!

See it! See it and love it! See it and not love it! Just get out there on August 17th and get in touch with your current feelings on zombies and stop motion!

Whew... alright. I now return you to your usual Grickle blog post:

 Things have been busy these days and I've found it a little trickier than usual to infuse Grickle with the newness it demands. My apologies. I was lucky enough to participate in "the Book show"in Paris, France and "the Beatles Tribute" show at Gallery Nucleus, down in LA last month though.

Also I got to try my hand at an Adventure Time piece for the "Oootopia: An Artgebraic Tribute to Adventure Time" show (a different Gallery Nucleus show.)

 
Beyond that I'm working on a couple more pieces for a mysterious side project I hope to announce in the near future. Oh man, can you feel the anticipation in the air? I can. :)

Selling some babies.

I've decided it's time for some of my original artwork to leave the nest. So, right now at the Grickle store I've put up the five original illustrations for "The Children of the Night & their Dad" for sale. Have a look and please treat them gently if you decide to purchase. :)

Wizards and stuff

A rambling, off the cuff, seat of my pants update on anything and everything I've been up to recently.

Earlier this week I posted the first of four Wizard images I created for the wildly successful Idle Thumbs kickstarter campaign. I will eventually post the rest of them there, so keep an eye out. I also mailed off my piece, Late night at the Library, for the Book Show in Paris, France.  Definitely influenced by my recent discovery of M.R. James. Speaking of the man, has anyone watched this (below)?


So good and spooky and wonderfully acted by Michael Hordern. I've never been so entertained by just watching someone eat!

Let's see, what other stuff is going on? My grandpa just turned a cool 91 years of age this week so if you find yourself in Deep River, Ontario, wish him a happy birthday! I managed to contribute an Adventure Time cover last month and I'm busily working away at Laika every day and putting together pieces for a few more upcoming art shows that I'll post about soon enough.

Oh, and did anyone notice that the LA Kings won the Stanley Cup? I'm not a Kings fan but I have to say it felt nice to see them win it after being around for 45 years. I do hope that Marcel Dionne gets a chance to hang out with the Cup in the midst of all the celebrating.

That's all I've got for now! Talk to you soon.