Womangue

Who reviews the reviewers?

2012-02-10T21:15:00.014-05:00

I am in great spirits! Creatively, February is my 'go' month, I believe, thanks to St. Brigid (who reigns over fire and creativity n__n). I also think that part of my creative burn also stems from February 1st being Hourly Comic Day (invented by John Campbell)

I finally was able to scan and post my Hourlies and you can find them on my Deviantart page! Huzzah! I find it hilarious that I reference 'Iron Chef' not only this year, but last hear as well. What can I say, mysteriously, after my Gastric Bypass, I became interested in the Cooking Network.

Another very Cool Thing that has happened was receiving my contributors copies of the 'The Antigonish Review' Winter 2012 issue. I reviewed Carol Little's "Hide Your Life Away"; which actually was featured in the Hourly Comics 2011 and 2012 (coincidence?! :-) To read the review of Carol's book, head on over to the Antigonish Review's site.

The Comic Jam has been going very well as of late. I just finished uploading the January Jam's art and tweaking the site. The Orleans/ East End Comix Jam, run by Dwight Williams on the 3rd Friday of the month has had two meetings so far and the artwork is posted.

Also, for fun, Westin Church, Nadine Fazio, Clayton Jacobs, Colleen Temple and I started the 'ArgleBlargle Art Blog of Collective Creativity' to try and boost each other's creative impetus. It has been fun so far. I should be posting links to some of our ancient "Drink & Draws" on the site, which date back to 2005 or so (I think?)

In the meantime, I am keeping busy planning my Next Big Road Trip which is from here (Ottawa, ON) to Key West FL with my Mom. We have been accumulating some cool incidental desinations to check out in our travel-log, but if anyone has some suggestions, feel free to share!

All best, and big hugs
Suzanne.

A Joyous Yule

2011-12-23T14:06:00.011-05:00

Christmas 2011

Hello dear friends and family, once again another year has passed and left us wondering ‘what happened?!’ For fun, Clayton and I decided to present our newsletter in multiple-choice form! Answers are at the bottom (no peeking). Unfortunately the only prize you can claim is the smug knowledge that you know us better than ourselves! Scary :-O.

1. What was one of the COOLEST things that happened this year?
a) Clayton shaved his beard.
b) Sue got to see Further in Canandaigua NY and stayed at a haunted B & B.
c) Hank discovered a ‘new smell’.

2. How many 24 hr. Comics Day Events did Sue attend this year and how many did she complete?
a) Attended 2 and succeeded at 1.
b) Attended 1 and didn’t pull it off.
c) Attended 47 and hurt herself badly.

3. Amazing things happened to Clayton this year. Put them in order of importance (to him)!
a) Discovered Netflix.
b) Found a stray kitten attached to the house in a rainstorm.
c) Successfully completed a 24 Hour Comics Day challenge.
d) Coordinated three Ottawa Comic Jam events solo.

4. Working at Brain Power Studio has many, many perks!
a) We get to weigh everyone’s brain during meetings.
b) Our Secretary of the Interior is an orange cat named Max.
c) Having our first corporate retreat at Great Wolf Lodge, sweet ‘Brain Power’ running shoes, going on a 2 day Pixar workshop in Montreal.

5. Cooking figured in many blog posts and Facebook status updates. What was the MOST successful recipe attempted?
a) Dijon Dill Maple chicken.
b) Butternut-sweet potato soup.
c) Roasted cauliflower Parmesan.

6. What travel method got used this year?
a) Planes, trains and automobiles
b) Planes, trains, automobiles and buses
c) Swimming, mostly

7. This year, we attended lots of fun bday parties. Sort them in the order they happened!
a) Micheline’s party prompted crazy stunts & surprises, as well as the design of a silly card.
b) Tom’s party included a spontaneous comic jam with Lara & Mia and introduced us to Telestrations (a fun drawing game)
c) Keith’s bday brunch hit the right note with spectacular Dim Sum and hilarious stories.

8. How many children’s books did Sue draw this year, for whom and where can we get ‘em?
a) 47 and hurt herself badly…
b) 3 for Swordfish Toys in Australia & 1 for local author Bobby Salvin. The Aus books are currently in production, ‘Momma’s Magic’ is available from Sue, Bobby, Art Mad in Stittsville or Chapters in Kanata.
c) Children’s books? Nahh the real money‘s in independent COMIX!

9. This year saw the 2nd anniversary of the Ottawa Comic Jam. What other comic-related things happened?
a) Troy’s Comic Book Shark Week celebrated in Summerside PEI.
b) The launch of the Orleans/East End Comic Jam group (December 2011)
c) Making it to the Toronto Comic Con and getting to pester various celebs (and check out the DeLorean from Back to the Future).
d) Being interviewed by reporters and having to explain what a comic jam was (mostly letting them know it had nothing to do with ‘stand-up’)

10. Sue spent tons of time traveling to Upstate NY. Pick the statement that’s false!
a) The State Troopers didn’t believe that Mom was only speeding to get to the outlet stores before our dollar was no longer ‘par’.
b) April was the last trip to the clinic in Utica NY for follow-ups to Sue’s surgery.
c) Watertown features ‘The Crystal Restaurant’, a vintage 40’s jewel worth the trip!

Bonus Question!
11. Sort these Things that made 2011 spectacular and especially fun in order of MOST FUN (sub-categorized by date and time.)*
a) Sharing great times, food, stories and humour with friends and family from St. Catharines to the East Coast.
b) Sue and Mom tour the Niagara wineries with Barb.
c) Finding ‘Boz’ attached to the house and sending him to his Forever Home in Stittsville
d) Our friend Shu’s new baby, Emma entering the world Oct 31st!
e) Thanksgiving with family and friends, with surprise guest Rob Anderson!
f) Sue tackling the 3-Day Novel Contest and cranking out 141 pgs!
g) Clay leaving Lowe-Martin Ltd. to find new, creative opportunities.
h) Introducing Westin & Nadine to the pleasure of traditional RPG gaming!
i) Sue doing 2 book signings at Chapters (thanks for your support!)
j) During torrential rains, the basement refused to flood. YAY!
k) Mike & Shelagh got a brand spankin’ new house a 5 min walk from Mom.
l) Crashing the Harris Family Reunion in Fredericton, NB.
m) Sue’s review of Carol’s Hide Your Life Away accepted by the Antigonish Review (forthcoming Spring 2012).
n) Word games keeping Sue’s brain happily active vs brilliant challengers: Lisa-Marie, Danya, Carol, Bobbie, Carolyn, Mom, Fiona H, Lee, Judy, Jo, Julie, Matt and Jennifer B. Thanks!
o) Making homemade grape jelly with Mom.
p) ISHINA!

Thanks for hanging in there and playing the ‘multiple choice’ Christmas newsletter game. Lots of other things happened, but we didn’t want to turn this into a Federal Government Language Test(!) that’d take 3+ hours to complete.

hugs!
Suzanne & Clayton

Answers
1. b) 2. a) 3. a), c), b), d) 4. c), 5. b) 6. b) 7. a), c), b) 8. b), 9. They ALL happened! 10. a) *11. Are you kidding?!

Thank you Neil

2011-11-14T15:39:00.018-05:00

I'm always grateful for wisdom, compassion and humour to sand the edges of heretical madness. I want to thank Neil Gaiman for being an emissary of that crinkled wisdom, grinning laughter, sober fourth and fifth thoughts (and sixth shots). I love Charles de Lint dearly, but today I needed Neil and only Neil would do.

First off, Troy Little posted a link to Frank Miller coming across like a lunatic about the Occupy movement (which made me come up with the idea that an Occupy Sin City poster would be quite interesting.) Then, while I was absorbing this and shaking my head, I read a Tweet from Scott McCloud about it: "BTW, No matter how batshit Frank's political rant may be, that's a great silhouetted drawing of him on his blog."

Then, I read a Tweet from Neil that lead to a post from 2006, which I'm reposting here, to better describe my own thoughts about it (content is copyright Neil Gaiman (c)2006):

Neil Gaiman's thoughts on "...not feeling guilty about liking the art of people [I] disagree with personally or politically..."

Hi Neil,

I've been a fan of your work for awhile now and I just came across your site. I've had this nagging question, about authors, stuck in my brain for awhile now and I thought you might have an answer or opinion.
If you really enjoy an author's stories and then you find out the author (not you) is a jerk or believes in some fairly wretched things would you keep reading this author's works?
I suppose it's similar to the whole crazy celebrity dilema. Do I really want to go see a movie that looks good even though that guy is in it?
Thanks,
Kyle

If I were only allowed to read or enjoy art or listen to music made by people whose opinions and beliefs were the same as mine, I think the world would be a pretty dismal sort of a place. I love the work of many creators who self-avowedly believe or believed things that I consider to be "fairly wretched", not to mention wrong-headed, lunatic, irresponsible or simply wrong. Worse yet: there are artists, actors, songwriters, authors, whose work I love, like or admire and who, biographers or historians tell us, actually did things that were utterly reprehensible. And worse even than that, there are all those things by Anonymous, who could have been or thought or done, well, anything, and we'll never know...

Ezra Pound was a fascist, an antisemite on a level that makes the Aryan Nation seem wishy washy, a traitor (or at best, a collaborator), and I'm very glad I got to read his poetry, and appreciate it and learn from it. I could list dozens more without breaking a sweat. Most, probably all, human beings get to do awful things and believe things that other human beings think they should be burned for believing, and they get to do and believe wonderful things too, and artists, writers, musicians, creators, actors, are nothing if not human beings.

The art isn't the artist, the poem isn't the poet; trust the tale, not the teller.

(The sad flip-side is I've met people -- writers and artists -- over the years who I liked immediately, with whom I found myself agreeing on everything to do with art and aesthetics so closely that we might have shared the same head, people whose world-views were pretty much mine, whom I'd talk with far into the night and whom I parted from excited that I'd met them, looking forward to nothing more than reading their writing or looking at their art... and then I would find what they had done, and, at least as far as my taste was concerned, the books would be uninteresting, the drawings ugly or clumsy. And in an odd way, that hurts more than liking the work of someone who behaved badly, or thought in a way that I consider offensive or wrong.)

======

I'm an easy-going person, and like to try and get along with everyone I can. I hate being judgmental (and dislike being judged intensely), I avoid confrontation as much as possible. Finding comfort in an author's artful words for something that makes me uncomfortable and upset was such a relief and a soothing balm, I actually did send a quick reply to Neil in thanks. That is why they are the writers, these 'Kindly Ones', who can hammer the words together and throw them down for us to nod and grin at and to take that solace from.

In crashing about in Neil land, I came upon the following "I believe" from American Gods, which I would love to just have stapled to Womangue as an emblazoned motto (though it's rather large). Instead, I'll repost it here. Apparently it is available in t-shirt form at Neverwear. This is also copyright (c)2011 Neil Gaiman. Thank you so much.

Suzanne.

======

"I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen–I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones who look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline of good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of The Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies too. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it."

Credits:
The photo of Neil Gaiman at the top of the blog is by Allan Amato and is available in poster form
Sin City comic image is by Frank Miller.
Scott McCloud's head comic panel is by Scott McCloud.
The poster from American Gods is by Molly Crabapple.

Sue vs Lake Simcoe

2011-10-06T14:46:00.016-04:00

"An exciting story from my past". What could be more fun than getting completely lost on a simple 4.5 hour trip? I don't know... root canals? Anyway, it's taken a Loooong time to get this comic put together, It will be available as a mini for sale at the Small Press Fair November 5th. Come out and buy a fresh comic from the gal who brought you '14 Steps to Mango Bliss', 'Ivy & Dummy', 'It only hurts when I drive the screwdriver deeper into my frontal lobe' and other classics n__n.

Ok, back to doing kid's drawings again.... (Sword Fish Toys, forthcoming Magic-Glow series). The kid's drawings look something like this...

Le Nichoir Wildcard project

2011-09-30T08:16:00.007-04:00

Last week I submitted a couple of 5" x 7" pieces of original artwork to the Wildcard Project. The work will be used in an upcoming fundraiser at Le Nichoir Wild Bird Rehabilitation Centre. The sale takes place Saturday, November 19th at Collège Sainte-Anne in Lachine, QC. The unframed pieces will hopefully go for $65 (the average cost to rehabilitate and release one bird back into the wild).

My pal Colleen also submitted work, so hopefully between the two of us we can raise a bit of money for Le Nichoir and also get our art circulating for all to see n__n. I'm posting images of the work as a teaser for y'all. If you would like to purchase these originals, you can check them out during Le Nichoir's sale in November!

Cheers,
Suzanne.

(c) 2011 images Suzanne Marsden

We don't need no stinkin' sleep!

2011-09-27T15:13:00.005-04:00

In honour of the upcoming 24 Hour Comics Day event at my place, I took time to post my 24 Hour Comic from this August. Actually, this is a chunk of history in the making... I've completed four 24 Hour Comics out of six tries, and the upcoming event on Saturday will be my seventh go 'round. It will be the first time I've ever tried to do two 24 Hour Comics in one year. Wow!

Anyway, I'd like to thank Troy Little for hosting the August 4th's 24 Hour Comics Day event at the West End Cottage in Summerside, PEI to cap off Comic Book Shark Week. I had a grand time, met some truly creative and cool people and made a crazy, blood-soaked comic. What could be better? Oh and there's swears in it. Sorry!

To check out my contribution to 24 Hour Comics Day history: "The Hour Before the Dawn", please head on over to my Deviant Art account and take a looksee.

Cheers, and hope to see y'all out either at the 'Backwards' comic jam tomorrow at 7pm, or on the weekend for 24 Hour Comics Day.

Suzanne.

PS--here's some fantastic photos of the 24 Hour Comics Day event in August! (All photos, including the one below are (c) 2011 Troy Little).

Grapes of Jelly

2011-09-22T13:58:00.022-04:00

A fresh comic for y'all! As I speak, the first jar of grape jelly has pretty much been eaten up. Yum!

For those interested, there are two very cool events coming up: The Ottawa Comic Jam presents: 'Backwards Jamming' Wednesday, September 28th, 7pm - 10pm @ the Shanghai Restaurant.
Next weekend (October 1st to be exact) is Scott McCloud's famous, annual, International 24 Hour Comics Day. Come to DragonHead Studio and give it a 'go'. It is a lot of fun, challenging and a one-of-a-kind experience. That being said, it will be my seventh 24 Hour Comic (so far, I've completed 4 out of 6 tries).

Registration for 24 Hour Comics Day is Sept 28th. Please email me: suzanne(at)brainpowerstudio(dot)com and let me know if you are able to attend. The event begins Saturday Oct 1st, 10am and runs 24 hours 'til Sunday Oct 2nd, 10am. There is ample overnight street parking available and the bus also serves the area (there will be a shuttle set up to pick ppl up at Kanata Centrum--call ahead to arrange: 613-863-8264).

Bus service from Rideau Centre to Kanata Centrum

Sat, Oct 01, 2011
At 8:51, walk to station MACKENZIE KING 2A (3000)
At 8:56, take Bus route 96 (OC Transpo) direction Kanata - Terry Fox.
At 9:37, arrive at station TERRY FOX 3C (3058) (41 min.).

For further info, please head on over to the Ottawa Comic Jam site, or email me and pepper me with questions.
There is also a dandy article in the latest ed. of the Fulcrum, Ottawa U's English newspaper, by wordsmith Keeton Wilcock about the event and the Ottawa Comic Jam. Thanks man!

Cheers and happy jelly-making,
Suzanne.

That boom-shaka-laka-thang

2011-09-14T10:58:00.013-04:00

A comic from last weekend's fun Rock N' Roll Burlesque Show III at the Elmdale Tavern, featuring: the Rockalily Burlesque troupe, the Polymorphines, Chang-A-Lang and a great art show with Mike Pender's amazing illustrations. I didn't really drool in my beer, but in the low light; who could really tell?

I'm off to get some Pump House Blueberry Ale, Donair Pizza and grand company to celebrate my bday. I'm toting my towel with me to underline the lovely fact that I have achieved "The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything".

Cheers, babies!
Suzanne.

PS - Check out the fun trailer to Russ Meyer's 1965 Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

Motivation

2011-09-08T17:44:00.006-04:00

Ever have one of those 6-month stretches? Where you haven't worked on your journal comic? Oops! Special thanks to Lee Kennedy and Jason Bradshaw for helping to re-inspire me to get back at it. I can't promise it'll be daily... but I will try and post more frequently!

Cheers & thnx for reading,
Suzanne.

PS--if you have not heard, it is TRUE DragonHead Studio & the Ottawa Comic Jam are co-hosting this year's 24 Hour Comics Day Event. You have until Sept 28th to register. Come out to the studio Saturday October 1st, 2011 and get drawing! (We start at 10am and will continue for 24 hrs. until Sun Oct 2nd at 10am :-) At least, that is the plan. Feel free to email me at: suzanne(at)brainpowerstudio(dot)com and sign up!

For more information on 24 Hour Comics Day, please head on over to Scott McCloud's site, or to the Official 24 Hour Comics Day site.

Wearing of the green

2011-03-17T09:48:00.004-04:00

Ok, this has nothing to do with St. Patrick's day (except for a couple of clovers :-) Happy Leprechaun celebration day/ rainbow-pot-of-gold hunting day and general drink 'til your face falls off day.

All the above forgotten-travel clothing events are true... arg!

Cheers
Suzanne.

PS--thnx to Gilbert Shelton for the great Freak Bros.' quote ^__^

Bean squeezer

2011-03-16T11:26:00.005-04:00

I suppose there is a certain irony to flavouring roasted, ground bean juice with pressed bean juice... hmm...

Thanks to Brain Power Studio, I'm going to be at Wizard Con this weekend in Toronto! So, you will notice a delay of comics for a few days. I won't have a table, but will be circulating around. Hopefully I'll see YOU! I'll be the girl that looks like my comic-persona... and I will have a fuzzy ex-Saskatchewan guy with me.

I'm looking forward to getting all creatively reinvigorated with the comics everywhere and also catching up with the creators of Angora Napkin: Troy Little and Nick Cross! Get out to the Con and check out their stuff.

Cheers!
Suzanne.

Crappy Tire

2011-03-15T16:02:00.008-04:00

I thought the blond college kid was going to get punched out today on TPIR, but no luck. That's what you get for consistently bidding $1 more than your neighbour in 'contestants' row'.

The Fortune Express kicks butt! The parking lot is terrible! This was the first time we couldn't find a spot though. We parked over behind the spa and took our lives in our hands crossing the road. Clay favours rice wrapped in leaves, I like the little potstickers and Mom was adventurous with calimari ^__^

It was one of those crazy days. At least I had good company while I waited to hear from the guys at Cdn Tire. I'll eventually have to get the rest of the work done, but the quotes on everything were ridiculous ($150 for 4 spark plugs & labour??) Anyway, clearly I should've gone into auto mechanics rather than art apres High School :-P

The Ox Head Restaurant was faboo--I'd never tried it. It's across from the AMC in the Centrum plaza in Kanata. Had a giant noodle bowl for about $10. You can't beat that.

I started watching the Food Network after my surgery last year which is kind of interesting. I got hooked on cake decorating contests, then Chopped and now enjoy the dubious pleasure of watching Restaurant Makeover (and recently the Opener). Sad I know! ^__^

Cheers & bon apetit
Suzanne.

inky fingers

2011-03-11T16:08:00.004-05:00

The irony is not lost on me that as I upload this image, the ink bottle is sitting open on the table, along with the ink wash jar. Duh!

Cheers
Suzanne.

for all your spatula needs...

2011-03-10T19:20:00.002-05:00

Some people love shopping. I don't understand those people...

Cheerio
Suz.

Caffeinated

2011-03-09T10:52:00.005-05:00

Remember to drink when you drink, breathe when you breathe and try not to combine the two. Arg!
I finished re-reading my Dragonriders of Pern book and now I'm onto Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsdawn, which I probably haven't read in 20 years. It's nice ^__^

There are two fresh panels on Deviantart in my 1,000 Themes folder. Check 'em out!

if you are inclined, there is also a silly 'blast from the past' comic over on Deviantart as well. Remember, you can click on the image to make it bigger!

Cheers,
Suzanne.

Acceptance

2011-03-08T12:53:00.005-05:00

It's a Grateful Dead type morning: possibly 'cause of IWD making me want to hear 'The Women Are Smarter'... then I was desirous of hearing 'Touch of Grey' (because I figured out how to make my new journal grey in PShop (yay!). So.. we will get by, we will survive!

The Antigonish Review accepted my piece on Carol Little's kickin' novel Hide Your Life Away, which is righteous! I'll post when it'll appear as soon as I know. In the meantime, if you are interested in picking up Carol's book, you can contact her directly, or truck on over to Amazon.

Another 1,000 Themes panel done today #6 "Break Away". Thoroughly enjoying myself, experimenting with pen & ink, ink washes, Pantone greys and smearing with my thumbs everywhere.

Cheers!
Suzanne.

One down one to go

2011-03-07T13:03:00.013-05:00

Well, I finished off my cute lil' Moleskine notebook yesterday. This morning I got to crack open my new, bigger Moleskine notebook. It is fun drawing bigger'n with more space to move my elbow and less hand-cramping action. Nice!
I cooked all weekend, and moved between pots, pans, broiler racks, cookie sheets, freezer bags and the like. My kitchen is ridiculously messy now. Which is annoying to me. So I'm ignoring it-- I'll probably venture back in there later today.

I'm well on my way to my 1,000 Themes project, which is a lot of fun. I finished page 5 Saturday evening. I'm not going to call it the 1,000 panel project, because my strip template can have from 1-3 panels on it. It's also taking me far longer to do this than a panel would normally take. I'm probably mad I suppose.

I'll be posting the panels on Deviantart soon and you can go and check 'em out.
I'm very open to suggestions and things like that; so if you have some swanky/cool ideas for the direction of the 1,000 Themes throw them my way. Who knows YOU could find your suggestion on page 162! Or even.. page 680! Or I might just ignore your suggestion ^__^

Cheers
Suzanne.

It's not me, it's you...

2011-03-04T12:57:00.007-05:00

Yeah, so I got the crummy-mc-crumb-bum email from the NFB and didn't make the cut into this year's round. Ahh well, it was a little disappointing, but the competition was pretty fierce, so I'm not going to let it get me down too much. I will post the art I put together for my proposal anywayz.

It was awesome going out and about yesterday; it was sunny and every time we got out from a store the temp had risen bit by bit. Ishina is a delicious restaurant, though their Bells Corners' locale is only open for lunch, and only open M-F. The people are awesome and food is spectacular (and it is reasonably priced :-)

adios!
Suzanne.

===
Hothouse 7

The theme this year was 'Here be dragons', so of course I had to give it a try! Here are a few conceptual sketches of dragons (and the maiden-chained-to-a-rock of course). Don't worry, in my 1 minute short, I had a great M. Night Shyamalan tweest all planned out, so the girl definitely came out on top. Which is how I like things to run :-)

Stranger than fiction

2011-03-03T09:45:00.004-05:00

Weeiiird!
I actually called my Mom to confirm her absence(?) I was absolutely sure she'd come into the house while I was showering: but of course, she replied that she hadn't! I can only guess that perhaps the strong outside winds had banged the screen door and that I'd conjured the voices myself, thanks to an overly fertile imagination and the muffling sounds of the shower.

OR PERHAPS IT WAS SOMETHIN' ELSE?!

"We may never know the answers to these questions, but our bullshit recreation team thinks it might've gone something like this..."

That's not the electric light my friend, that's your vision growing dim

2011-03-02T10:38:00.004-05:00

So I've realized I've had to wear my glasses much more frequently as I read, draw comics and work on design work. I used to only need them in the evenings, if I was tired, or had been staring at a computer screen all day. Now as I type this, the words are a bit blurred...arg. Should find my glasses for this too, I suppose! (The Subject Line's quote is from dear Mr. Leonard Cohen.)

Anyway, the back gate that won't close is another left-over from our 'non-handy-man'. My brother, when he fixed it the first time said to me gravely: "You know it was put on upside-down?" Ahhh... incompetence ^__^

Well, c'est tout. Perhaps I shall get inspired for more later. Speaking of inspiration, I have been toying with the idea of working on some comic stuff, driven by my pal Kattanine turning me on to "500 Theme Challenge". CapTreasureTroveTi on Deviantart posted a list of themes and as I trundled through various members over there, I realized some other folks (Cathaline on LJ) had posted lists of themes and that they were different! So I grabbed two of them (thus having about 1,000 themes) and thought it might be good for a panel or two/ day of work. (Although if you did accomplish 3 panels/ day for a year, that'd get you up around 1,000 or so).

So that's what I've been mulling about in my head.
Also I'm trying not to think of the Hothouse 7 results. I'll post news if I get chosen.. and if I don't of course! If I don't, I'll post my artwork from my proposal on here. And shit, I might do the animation anyway for fun. (Apparently there were 146 applicants this time 'round) ^__^

All best!
Suzanne.

28 days later

2011-03-01T14:03:00.004-05:00

Happy St. David's Day everyone ^__^ (Or "Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant" for you Welsh folks out there :-)
Will probably stew up some leek and potato soup in honour of the day, though it has been delightful reading up on traditional 'Cawl' (lamb broth w/ veg) Check out the recipe here.

Keep warm and enjoy the sunshine.

Cheers
Suzanne.

That was the weekend

2011-02-28T11:59:00.006-05:00

So yeah, that was the weekend. Whee! The Drink & Draw Saturday night was sweet! Westin & I worked on more 'Leprecant' adventures, as well as a crazy story about ear-candling. Nadine worked on her loom and made a fantastic scarf while we watched. Pictures may follow ^__^

The next day it was adventures in domesticity, culminating with shopping. We actually got severely overcharged at Sobey's for some snausages, so had to truck back in and bring it up. They apologized, gave us the breakfast meat for the posted price as well as a free one. So that was nice. A pain in the ass, but nice.

Then I got to drink coffee, take acetaminophen and nibble cookies.

SUCCESS

2011-02-26T14:50:00.004-05:00

Got all the artwork sent in to Brain Power Studio for the GDC stuff in San Francisco--so *huzzah*! Also, finished my application to the NFB's Hothouse 7 and got that sent off yesterday at 4pm. Whew! My hand feels like a lump of twingy-numb pseudo flesh, stretched over angry broken branches. So, I'm officially on break, heading to Westin and Nadine's place.. to eat pizza, drink blueberry ale and .. well.. yes, we'll probably do some drawing in there too!

Cheerio
Suzanne.

Repetitive stress

2011-02-25T10:43:00.004-05:00

Deadlining is always fun (no wait, shouldn't that read "never" fun??) I remember once doing clean-up on an animated show years ago and I think I probably did over 100 drawings in a day. My hand got completely mad at me, it was numb, tingling and pulsing. I'd abused the thing so badly I couldn't even write my name!

I try and take care of my drawing hand a little better than that these days...but it's still very easy to overstrain the poor darlin'. Frequent stretching breaks are good..but it's easy to forget when you're rushing to do a pile of drawings. Arg!

Hackin

2011-02-23T10:19:00.003-05:00

It is one of those days. I have a zillion things to get accomplished and...no time of course :-D
And..I'm not really sick..hack..not really... grumble!

Cheers
Suzanne.

Boris the spider

2011-02-22T09:17:00.003-05:00

Stranger than fiction! ^__^

It was a tasty dinner. The corn bread stuffing's from a recipe from the classic "Joy of Cooking". I can't find a direct link to it, but may copy it down later if I get the time. It was different than the classic bread crumb dressing I was used to, but I'm always up for trying new recipes (especially when there are guests involved). Isn't that funny?! :-D

boo-urns

2011-02-20T11:43:00.002-05:00

I also made yummy apple-cinnamon pancakes...but that might be for another comic ^__^
To check out Westin's cool comic, head over here! If you're keen on Palladium Books and role-playing systems, you can go on over to their site too.

Cheers!
Suzanne.

eyeball

2011-02-19T12:56:00.003-05:00

Live and learn I guess!
Eye is much better today ^__^

Cheers
Suzanne.

key

2011-02-18T17:21:00.004-05:00

we're cookin' with gas!

2011-02-17T11:37:00.008-05:00

It was an awesome cooking day using my new Paderno pot.... I'm still learning its quirks (almost steaming my fingertips off yesterday!) It's amazing how fast that pot heats up.

If you're interested in trying the fajita-feta recipe, I've found a link for it. The sweet-potato chili is one of my friend's inventions and I'll include it below. Enjoy!

Cheers,
Suzanne.

Vicki’s Stove-top Sweet Potato Chili

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 med onion, chopped
2 Tbsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
2 garlic cloves, crushed (or minced)
(optional: 1 jalapeno chile, seeded and rinsed)

1 can (28 oz.) whole tomatoes, in juice
½ lbs. green beans, trimmed, cut cross-wise in thirds
1-3 med sweet potatoes (around 1 ½ lbs.), peeled and chopped into 1” chunks
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 cups water
2 cans (15 oz each) black soy beans, rinsed & drained
Optional: tin of (or frozen) corn, chopped cilantro

In a large pot, heat oil over medium, add chopped onion and cook 10 min (or until soft). Add chili powder, cumin, coriander, garlic (and optional jalapeno) and cook for 1 min. Add tomatoes, green beans, chopped sweet potatoes, sugar, salt and 2 cups of water.

Heat to boiling over med-hi heat, breaking up tomatoes with side of spoon. (Add optional chopped cilantro.) Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer 25 min or until sweet potatoes are tender, stirring occasionally. Add beans (& optional corn) and cook a few minutes longer to heat through. Serve with sour cream if you like.

demo

2011-02-16T10:16:00.005-05:00

Yes, I've somehow worked in animation since 1990 and don't have a demo reel. I worked on the technical side of things (from '90 - '96 or so), I've written scripts, outlines and developed world ideas... (from '99 - present) sketched thousands of characters, designed, done boards...

In school ('97 - '99) it was the same thing. I'm a burning creative... and I think my old first year "anijam" was the only example of actual animation. Yeesh... it's probably on a DAT disc somewhere!

Hothouse 7

2011-02-15T11:31:00.006-05:00

This year's NFB Hothouse #7 theme is "Here Be Dragons" and features 10 thematic tunes you can pick from (I am leaning towards track 7) --yeah! So I am working on my proposal. Special thanks goes out to Mike Valiquette for updating the Canadian Animation Resources page with the info about this and keeping everyone up-to-date on cool anim related stuff. Thanks Mike!

Cheers
Suzanne.

Cages

2011-02-14T14:11:00.014-05:00

I was delighted to find Dave McKean's "Cages" at the Comic Book Shoppe. Troy Little had leant me the hardcover years ago, and I'd never had the chance to read it (yes, I did return the book!) I thoroughly enjoyed reading the work this time around: floored by exquisite story-telling and masterful paintings.

The Heart's Desire Valentine's Women's Dance happens every year at the NAC. Usually I don't attend, but this time I found myself with a date, which was serendipitous and fun! It was nice enjoying good company and freedom of movement--doing things that last year would've been impossible.

It was also fun catching up with Rob Anderson and Keith Savage over the weekend. Keith has a great food blog (if you are interested in learning how to make kick@$$ pizza, and other things check it out!) Robbie has a fantastic channel on Youtube with some fun editing work on it. He also owns Noise2Signal.

The t-shirt I'm sporting for Valentine's dim sum is Troy's great "Angora Napkin" t. Super fit, awesome design. Pick one up today!

Cheers,
Suzanne.

Saturday chores

2011-02-12T11:23:00.003-05:00

What is more fun than sanding a broken cupboard door? Nothin'!
For those interested, the recipe for the 'Super-nutritious muffins' can be found below!

Cheers!
Suzanne.

Super Nutritious Muffins

These muffins are very tasty, and full of GOOD things for you. They tend to go stale fairly quickly, so wrap them individually & freeze them. Then pop them out when you've got a hankerin' for muffins!

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/4 c whole wheat flour
1 cup wheat bran
3/4 cup ground flax seed
1/2 cup chopped dates
1/4 cup chopped dark chocolate or mini chocolate chips (I have also used carob)
2 Tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder

Wet Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
(You can also "sour" reg. milk with a tsp. or so of lemon juice or vinegar! Do this before you begin the recipe and it should be soured enough to use by the time you get to this section...)
1 egg
1 jar of (4.5oz) baby food strained prunes
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a muffin pan with paper cups liners
2. In a large bowl, using a fork or wire whisk, mix together all dry ingredients.
3. In a medium bowl, beat together all wet ingredients.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until combined.
5. Scoop into muffin cups

Bake for 20 -25 min or until done.
Makes 12 servings

Note: This recipe makes very generous sized muffins so be sure to use extra large muffin cups. They don't rise as high as regular muffins because of the high fibre content, so the cups need to be full before baking. The 2 Tbsp of cinnamon is not a misprint - cinnamon is high on the anti oxidant-rich list of spices and adds lots of flavour.

Enjoy!

fun with eggs

2011-02-11T12:08:00.003-05:00

Well, here it is, another fresh comic journal for you!
(Ok, I know it isn't clear, but by 'Feb '01' of course I meant Feb 1st. The stuff was not 10 years old..really! And for kicks, you can check out the recipe I found here.

Adios!

Comics! Comics!

2011-02-10T15:29:00.011-05:00

Last Friday not only did I find some delightful Pump House Blueberry ale in Westboro, but I also grabbed a few slim Moleskine notebooks. A potent combination of the two has lead to me making comic like things...after a long hiatus.
I think I also have St. Brygid to thank for the renewed excitement and creativity (the old Celtic Goddess of fire and creativity).

Speaking of St. Brygid and Imbolc.. February 1st was Hourly Comic Day. I actually managed to remember and do the durned things this year. I have my Hourly Comics posted on my Deviantart page. Please feel free to go and check them out.

I've been working on a comic journal and I'll be doing uploads HERE on a regular basis! Yes, now that I remembered this blog's password, that should prove a bit easier.

Anyway, we'll start at the start and so on.
Cheers!
Suzanne.

Christmas 2010

2010-12-22T11:21:00.023-05:00

2010 was an exciting year, full of change, travel and new beginnings. Mid-February, I was admitted to hospital in Utica, NY for a gastric bypass. The surgery itself took longer than my Mom would’ve liked, but I was grateful to have Dr. Fitzer’s time well spent getting everything ‘just right’. I’m relieved to have a new lease on life: one without pain, or the mobility issues that had become a way of life, or the looming threat of diabetes.

May was another beginning in my life, with the birth of Brain Power Studio, headed by Beth Stevenson. A lifelong childhood friend and creative powerhouse, Beth had a vision to create great children’s programming, educational content and publishing. Thankfully, she also pictured a certain writer-artist in the mix: me! The studio launch happened in June and we received excited accolades and many toasts. ‘Overhead Bob’, our stalwart figurehead was present, as was ‘Team Zero’. We posed, were quoted and made toasts of our own.

At the end of July, my Mom and I headed to the States once more. We crossed into Vermont, drove through the breathtaking mountains of New Hampshire and into Maine. We stayed in Bangor (and even visited Stephen King’s house!) We headed back into Canada near St. Stephen. The Duty-free store had a back window where you drove around to collect any alcohol you’d picked up, to ensure that the booze was Canada-bound. It felt like something from the old ‘prohibition’ days!

We visited lovely St.Andrew’s-by-the-Sea, caught the ferry from Saint John to Digby, then drove to Lunenburg. We had great travel luck and enjoyed tasty food and friendliness wherever we went. Thanks to our GPS, losing our map in the States didn’t set us back too much. We caught the Ferry to PEI and made our way to Charlottetown, the ‘Birthplace of Confederation’ There, we caught up with Troy, Carol, Alicen & Hayden, met new friends and enjoyed great music. I was able to share the lovely beaches and scenery with Mom and enjoyed wonderful Island Hospitality shown by Troy’s folks as they hosted a delightful brunch for us. We left for Miramichi that afternoon and had a great time reconnecting with Robbie, Bobbie, Chloe, Piper and Briar.

Mom and I had a blast going on a few mini-road trips with the Stewart-Anderson clan, up to Escuminac for fresh lobster, then to Cape Enrage the next day to explore the cobble beach. Everyone found cool fossils! After far too short a stay, we headed west, spending the night at Riviere-du-Loup. It wasn’t long before we negotiated the traffic snarl of Montreal and were safely home, backs slowly unkinking with tasty drinks in hand!

It was so nice reuniting with Clayton and of course Hank! Hank has enjoyed being fostered during all my trips at the cottage with Vicki, Anders, Emilia and Dan. We’re very lucky that he has his ‘home-away-from-home’ available and such loving people to spoil him rotten.

October 13th was a momentous day, as the ever-youthful Clayton turned the ‘big 5-0’. We celebrated over delicious dim sum at our favourite place in Kanata. Clayton and I shared a birthday gift of a PS3 game system and he received lots of new games. We’re still trying to figure out all the controls; but are having fun! Getting a new toy when you turn 50 is probably the best way to describe Clayton’s outlook on life: “13 going on 50”.

I was fortunate this year to receive a pass to the Ottawa International Animation Festival. I enjoyed meeting lots of creative and cool people, catching inspiring animated films and also testing my endurance at several industry parties. It was delightful being able to walk everywhere without worrying about stairs, distance or pain… although by the end of it I was happy to get a rest! It was a thrill getting to be a part of the festival and helping to get Brain Power’s name out there.

Clayton and I continued to coordinate the monthly Ottawa Comix Jam at the Shanghai Restaurant. The Ottawa comic scene is vibrant and the people are fun. We were happy to see a lot of new faces turn up at the gatherings and some great artwork produced. The Shanghai has offered to host an art show for our group next April and we are planning how that will come about. It should be a blast!

Mom and I enjoyed a couple of lovely trips to Belleville: in October to celebrate Uncle Dale’s 70th birthday and in December for the family’s annual Tree Trim. It was such fun getting to catch up with all the cousins, sisters and aunts ;-)

November, I spent illustrating ‘Momma’s Magic’, another children’s book by local author Bobby Salvin, which is at the printers. Once that was completed, I was ready for my next adventure…

LAS VEGAS! Mom and I skipped town Dec 9th and winged west on Westjet’s inaugural non-stop flight to Nevada. Complete with showgirls, an Elvis impersonator, free drinks and prizes, the flight was a hoot! We stayed at Bugsy Siegel’s famous hotel ‘The Flamingo’, where Hunter S. Thompson had penned ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’. It was a beautiful place with a bird sanctuary and marble opulence everywhere. But, the main attraction for us was across the street at Caesar’s Palace. Saturday night, we attended the last show of Leonard Cohen’s 3 year tour at the Coliseum. What a treat! This 76 year-old, full of grace and generosity, love and heart, backed by some of the most talented musicians in the industry, wowed us for over 3 hours. Ovation followed ovation and encore followed encore. He dusted off songs from 30 years ago and rolled out his hits. Polka-dot blouses fluttered in the air and the crowd breathed sighs of amazement as ‘Hallelujah’ soared over us. It was an incredible, memorable night—where everyone wore fedoras and roses cascaded over the stage.

We spent a day recovering, then ventured to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon. Words and pictures fall short of describing the natural beauty of this place. I was shocked seeing people far past the ‘safety barricade’, posing with small children inches from the precipices however. Apparently around 15 tourists plunge per year. We kept our distance, and used up the batteries in both our cameras shooting a pile of pictures.

We also spent time at the slot machines, and a couple of nice wins paid for my tour of the Canyon and also a Burlesque show! We hoofed it all around, rode the monorail and the bus, explored the Luxor’s display on “Bodies” which was intense and humbling. We also paused at the famous Gold and Silver Pawn shop and poked around. No deals there, but plenty of great history my Dad would’ve enjoyed.

I realize that this year’s traveling would’ve been impossible for me last year. The little things had the biggest impact: doing up a seat belt on a plane without an extender, walking up a flight of stairs without a cane; walking up stairs on a double-decker bus, sitting in a booth at a restaurant. Simply having the energy to do all of these things. Surgery is partly to thank for this, but the other part is the support and love from my family and friends during the long road to healing and losing over 100 lbs.

I send our best wishes out to you for the season, may it be one of happiness, relaxation and peace. However you celebrate the holidays, may you spend it in love, held warmly and firmly in the embrace of people who care for you and keep you close to their hearts. May the New Year bring equal measures of goodness, luck, health and beauty your way.

Big hugs and plenty o’ love,
Suzanne & Clayton

For the record

2010-06-04T13:59:00.023-04:00

It's been a few months since my surgery and I thought I'd update how I was doing... I've had a few trips back to Utica, NY for check-ups, and apart from my usual border-crossing anxiety (which is only equalled by my Mom's bridge-crossing anxiety) all has been well.

It took some time getting used to my new physionomy I can tell you. At first it was pretty easy to strictly adhere to my laminated sheet that was on fridge. The sheet was the food bible that would help my new stomach (a pouch that in its infancy could only hold about a teaspoon or two of food) heal and grow a bit more robust.

The toughest part at first was remembering to drink. The pouch was so small and tender, so nascent, that glugging water was impossible. If you forgot to drink enough, you just had to really pay attention the next day and remember to sip all day long to ensure that you eventually got your 64 oz. fill in. I still don't drink enough, but it is not because I can't physically do it. It has to do with how liquids and solids interract in the small stomach.

The gastric bypass ultimately is a tool that you can use to help you lose weight. It is a permanent tool that patients will always have access to, and if used the right way, the weight does come off almost miraculously. I can attest to it because every day I hop on my scale and wonder if this is really happening. I weigh now, what I did when I first went to college, back in 1997. I've dropped about 80 lbs. since February 10th and it continues to drop at a fairly steady rate. I feel like I look the same, since I see myself every day, but people who don't see me that often have commented that there is indeed, less of me.

Over the last few months since surgery, I had to slowly rebuild my tolerance to certain foods. When I began, my new stomach not only could not handle large amounts of food, but could only handle specific textures of it as well. Think soft. UBER-soft, if you will. After almost three weeks of yogurt, oatmeal, apple sauce and cottage cheese, I was really ready to graduate! It was a relief to move to semi-solids and protein that didn't come in a shake! Again, after another three weeks of tuna, salmon and for a change, more tuna and more salmon, I was very relieved to note that my laminated food guide said that I could try moist proteins (ground beef, chicken), bread(!), fruit and VEGGIES. Raw, crunchy veggies were what I think I missed the most.

So now I can eat pretty much what everyone else eats, except that it has to happen very, very slowly and the quantity is about 1/4 the size of a regular meal. Food has to get chewed extremely well and doesn't get accompanied with liquid. The reason this happens is so the small pouch stays full longer. If you have a drink with your meal, basically whatever you ate turns into 'soup' in your stomach and dribbles out the tiny aperture at the bottom. Then you are hungry pretty much instantly. The gastric bypass doesn't de-calorify the foods you eat, it just helps you feel full faster (because it is very tiny). The message gets to your brain quickly and you have to comply (and stop eating). Even though my new stomach can only hold about 1/2 - 1 cup of food at a time, when it gets full, it feels as though I've been to a buffet and am pushing plate #3. You know when you realize you should've worn your stretchy pants and not your jeans? That's the feeling you get!

The first six months after a gastric bypass is called the 'honeymoon' period, since it is the time when the weight drops off the fastest. The clinic in Utica has been very happy with how I'm doing and super supportive. I've dropped 25% of the weight that I'm supposed to (they have a mystical number in mind, and 18 months in which you're expected to do it). Some people drop 30% in the first 3 months, and some less. What I'm really happy about is that my blood sugar is normal and all my other functions appear normal as well (blood pressure too!)

The absolute best thing about dropping 80 lbs.? I can walk. Without pain. I can climb stairs, cut the grass, kneel (not for long) and take my dog around the block. This time last year, I could only shuffle and then, only with the assistance of a cane. I was borderline diabetic (was actually getting insulin when in hospital for surgery!). All of this has cleared up with the gastric bypass surgery, which I firmly believe has saved my life. What life I get to enjoy now...will be of the highest quality and with the most grateful acknowledgment each day for my fortune.

Now I get to start ramping up my excersize programme. I'm anxious to get back into weight-lifting (free weights, not my Self!) Also I want to get back on a bicycle. These are things that had just fallen away from me as I my health degraded... the idea of reclaiming the things I really enjoy doing is exciting to me. Who knows, perhaps in the next 6 months I'll be back belly-dancing and doing those deep knee bends in T'ai Ch'i.

Cheers,
Suzanne.

(Below, some Googled images of what 80 lbs. looks like...)

The Incredibly Shrinking Sue

2010-02-22T12:25:00.053-05:00

Hi Everyone,

It has been a bit of a while since I posted (although truth to tell, I do have a lot of drafts languishing in the bin). I've found if I'm keeping a traditional journal, I don't blog as much (and vice verse). So, sorry for the long silence. Recently I had to go out of country for surgery and there have been a number of questions about that, so I thought doing a blog would help clear up some of the mysteries. (OOh!!)

February 10th this year found me in Utica NY at Faxton-St.Luke's hospital, being prepped for a Roux-n-Y gastric bypass. I had to get up at 4:30am to be at the hospital for quarter to 6, which was about as pleasant as it sounds! As well, this was day three of my 72 hr liquid fast, so I was not in a pleasant frame of mind. Plus I was scared shitless (no kidding!)

It was cold and dark and the wind was up when we pulled into Parking Lot A of the hospital. Parking is free, which is nice, considering the hours that my Mom spent driving back and forth from our little room a the Red Roof Inn and back to the parking lot. I had my shoulder bag with all my paper work with me (no idea if I'd need it or not!) Plus over the other shoulder, my CPAP machine (sleep apnea therapy device) that the folks in Utica said I'd need to bring. Mom had my clothes' bag, the bag with all my drugs in it and a half bottle of distilled water (didn't know if I'd need it for the CPAP machine, but better safe than sorry!)

In no time, I was getting prepped. Shucked off clothes for a stylin', backless robe (arg), all my clothes went into a bag. It looked a bit pathetic seeing my stuff in a plastic bag with a tag on it. Like I'd possibly never see them again and they would be all that was left of me. Pretty much all the stuff we'd toted up to the hospital through the howling wind was unnecessary, so Mom ended up having to hump it back to the car. Sigh!

We waited in a small ward and I got fitted with an IV port. (*expletive deleted*) It hurt like hell getting that rammed into my left hand. And that is the hand with the nerve damage in it, so you can imagine how it would've felt in the right hand! I was eventually encouraged to hop up on the bed and just tried to breathe a bit. Finally a friendly orderly wheeled me out into the hall and Mom followed along, until she was directed to the 'waiting room'. At least they are fairly pleasant rooms with comfy chairs and no fluorescent lights...

Now I was in the 'Holding Tank', the room you are to lie in until you're queued up to be wheeled to surgery. People asked me questions, ticked off ticks, checked me and waited for Dr. Fitzer to appear. It was 8:20am and I was full of immense dread, doubt, fear, second thoughts, cold feet... well, actually my feet WERE cold, so that explains that...

Dr. Fitzer arrived and explained once more about the procedure and about post-op care of the pouch that he was going to try and make. He basically laid everything on the line about the dangers of not over-filling the pouch (which leads to pouch failure and death). Way to go! Thanks for helping me feel even more terrified right before surgery. But, I have to say, these guys were utter pros and let you know everything up front. I could've said "No" right there and hopped off the table, but I recommited to the damned thing. It was a no-brainer at this point and I had fought so hard to get to where I was lying, I knew that I had to go through with it.

Finally I was wheeled to the elevators, then down one level (no! Not the basement!) It was hushed and the orderly wasn't making any more jokes. I was quiet and apprehensive. The doors to the surgery swung open and I was in a large room chock full of machines and monitors. The lights directly above me put me in mind of the opening to the 'Six Million Dollar Man'.

There were also some lovely flat screen TV's surrounding the surgery area. At that moment I'd completely forgotten that I was to receive laparoscopy surgery and the nature of the TV's eluded me. I was about to pipe up that they must enjoy watching movies during surgery when I finally clued in! Yeahhh.... ok... :-) (Laparoscopic surgery uses cameras to guide the surgeon in their work..they watch via television).

The bottom of the gurney I was on was an inflatable matress. With the touch of a button, the mattress inflated with a wooshing sound and lifted me up from the gurney. With the help of the team, I was moved onto the surgery table, riding the air mattress and making the transfer a snap. What a great idea!

Finally a familiar face from the Holding Tank appeared; it was the anaesthesiologist. Ahh, how nice... finally I could leave the hammering heart panic of a rabbit with its leg in a clamp and just ease right out. I wished the surgeon well (in my head) and followed the directions of the fellow with the gas. A few half-hearted prayers vaguely directed to my Dad and any other supreme power that might be taking an interest wafted out of me as the anaesthetic took hold, then all was black.

Back in the waiting room, Mom had been patient over the time that a normal procedure would normally take; about 1 1/2 - 2 hrs. Finally, a little after lunch, Dr. Fitzer came to her, looking tired. It had taken over 4 hours for the work to be done and he let her know that I finally had my 'pouch'. I'm not sure if it was simply my weight, of the way my body is put together with all of the organs and fat very much centralized (I'm a potato/apple shaped person) or what. Thankfully, these guys are the best, and I was in professional hands the whole way through. The Dr. told Mom I'd be in the recovery room for a few hours, so she headed to the Hotel to rest and get a bit of lunch.

I don't remember much of the Recovery Room. It was brighter than the Holding Tank, and I felt a bit raw. My throat was dry as a bone and sore as hell. I felt a bit numbed out. During the stay people would often ask for my full name before proceeding to either give me drugs or do various things. Two hours seemed to pass very quickly for me, and once again I found myself traveling on the wheeled gurney, under the guidance of a different orderly and possibly a nurse?

They brought me to the bariatric patients' area of St.Luke's and lost my admiration by whanging the gurney into the doorjamb of my room. The pain that came up from my belly was unlike any I'd endured. I let out a protesting howl of agony and glared at twinkletoes who'd pulled the move. The nurse(?) had a few tart words for him, but I don't recall any apologies. Hmm, one can tell that we're not in Canada any longer...

The room was small but well appointed with medical gear, a bathroom, a broad window facing the parking lot and a tall spruce. I was pretty disoriented and sore and unsure of what was going on. A woman took that opportunity to stick her head in the door and say "TELEVISION??" with a foxlike face and bright eyes darting back and forth. I said "No thanks", and got a surprised look in return. It took her 3 days of trying to finally give up on me. I was happy to be in a land with no TV.

Mom appeared soon after that and it was wonderful seeing her. Just squeezing her hand and knowing that it was over and I was safely on the other side felt like a million gold sparkles. Her face was tight with worry, but I let her know I was ok. I'll never be able to make up that time for her that she spent worrying over me in the Waiting Room, but at least now, on the other side, she could see I was alright.

An enormous bouquet of flowers and a balloon from Chester's Flower Shop was brought in shortly after that. It was from Fiona, with the card reading "Love doesn't accept distances. Hugs and love, Sue -- FI". Well, I got all teary seeing the beautiful roses, daisies and carnations. Mom set up all my cards of encouragement from everyone around the flowers and then pressed a fuzzy stuffed animal in my arms. It was a red-brown dachshund. "What do you want to call him?" She asked. I thought for a second, petting the plush ears and looking into the cute face of the critter "Hank Jr.?" We both laughed, and of course it hurt.

Now began a series of days involving not drinking enough fluids, getting my IV taken out (and then put back in), learning to walk without pain, learning to haul myself out of bed without having to rely on a nurse. Getting asked if I had peed or passed gas (critical things when people mess with your insides I suppose). I regarded my wounds curiously; there were six of them, and of those six only one had been 'bad' (leaking a little for the first few days). The time was a blur of rotating nurses and care attendants, always with thermometers, blood pressure machines (that didn't work on me), blood sugar monitors and then injections of insulin (at this point I was borderline Diabetic --sigh!) There were also injections of blood thinners to avoid the danger of blood clots, and the Spirometer in which one inhales deeply to help the lungs recover from the anaesthetics during surgery.

What I still can't figure out is why these poking, prodding, injecting and taking of readings has to be done in the middle of the night? Like 2:30am? 4:00am? Are these women (98% women anyway) trained in the art of sadism? Why is my 4:00am temperature so important? It was annoying. It was very difficult to sleep anyway, and finding yourself being woken up to have your blood pressure measured didn't help.

Asking for pain medication became a game as well. If it was under the allotted time (4 hrs.) the nurses simply ignored the request. Sometimes, they did that even though 4 hrs. had passed. I was on percocet and was later told by Dr. Fitzer's weekend replacement that I wouldn't be released as long as I was on the narcotic. So, once I clued into that, I stopped asking for pain medication. Unfortunately, the hospital didn't seem to believe in an interim pain reliever, like percocet..then to Tylenol 3 or something? Or even extra-strength Tylenol? I just rode it out and knew it was worth it, if it meant I'd get out of the place sooner.

One of the nicer events was having a shower. It felt good to walk carefully down the hall with the attendant to the Shower Room. It was full of home-made giant PVC chairs on wheels, designed for people who were not in the normal range of weight (say 300 lbs. +) The shower was delightful. It was quiet and I got to just spend time in the warmth, getting clean and feeling the grime and ick of the last few days go away. I wandered back to my room when I was done and of course there were a bunch of people wanting to take my temperature waiting. I dried off and tried to comb my hair but had to wait for the nurses to do their thing.

Sunday, I was finally given the go-ahead to go home (after abstaining from my pain meds for far too long). I was given yet another scare speech about the dangers of pushing my pouch before it was ready. And that it took 3 weeks, not 2, not 2 1/2 weeks for the tiny pouch that Dr. Fitzer had made to heal. If I broke it, the results would be fatal. At least I was in a better frame of mind to accept the speech than when I was on my back in the Holding Tank.

The outside air smelled cold and fresh. I was so happy to be out. It was snow/freezing rain, but I didn't care. Mom pulled the truck up to the front doors and I gingerly climbed up and inside. Every jounce and bump on the road translated to instant pain in my belly. It was curdled with pain and I wanted an acetaminophen (Tylenol). The ones I had were simply to big for me to handle and when we got back to the hotel I used a pill splitter with moderate success on one of the pills (which turned into 3 shattered and pointy fragments). I took the biggest one with a bit of water and juice mixed together.

The hotel was heaven compared to the hospital. The bed was huge and comfy and once I set up my CPAP device, I was ready to nap. I was still extremely tired and sore from the drive down. We watched a bit of the Olympics (skiing) and parts of movies. My attention span wasn't that great. Finally we settled on competitive cooking shows and that was mindless fun. I propped myself up on cushions and snuggled down under the blankets and watched chefs try and make wonders of the world out of chocolate.

I wasn't hungry at all, I sipped my juice/water, later had 1/3 of a Popsicle. This has continued since I've come home. I have protein/soy for my meals, and am slowly integrating soft foods into the rotation. I'm taking B12, 2 multis, a pill to help with my blood pressure and a couple to reduce the effects of stomach acid (to help protect the pouch). I also had to self-inject the blood thinner medication for the first 5 days at home, which was awful. I suck at self-injection (and trying to pretend I was William Burroughs didn't help--thanks Troy!)

Over the last two weeks, I've lost an average of 3 lbs. a day, this morning it's a total loss of about 40 lbs. My legs actually look pretty good (have had continual problems with them for the last couple of years) and I am walking better, and with less pain in my joints. I still fatigue quickly though, but that is because I'm continuing to heal.

I want to thank everyone for their kindness, support, love and hope during this very scary ordeal. It means a lot to me that your thoughts were with me, that your flowers came and uplifted my spirits, that your cards and words helped me get through some of the fear and doubt of the surgery. It is love that lifts us up and the light that sees us through. More news to come! (I hope ;-)

Cheers
Suzanne.

Resources & Info
Dr. Graber & Dr. Fitzer
Dr. Bishop's Ottawa Weight Loss Center
Ottawa Weightloss Support Group
British Obesity Surgery Patient Association

Illustration of William S. Burroughs by Robert Crumb.
Sue with flowers photo courtesy of Keith Savage.

Troy Little and Nick Cross OIAF with Angora Napkin

2009-10-14T16:06:00.016-04:00

I know, it is no secret that I have a fondness for Mr. Little and Mr. Cross. That being said, my obsession with their extremely creative, irreverent and FUN creation; specifically ANGORA NAPKIN knows no bounds!

Angora Napkin not only exists in comic form, within the pages of the lovely hard cover graphic novel from IDW, but also the girl rock-band trio exists in bouncy toon form as well. If you have not had the pleasure of seeing this amazing spectacle, then it is now your chance to get out and catch it.

Molly, Mallory and Beatrice will grace the stage of the Arts Court Theatre October 15th at 11:30pm. I was fortunate to catch the initial screening of the Teletoon sponsored "pilot project" when Troy brought the gals to the Shanghai Restaurant in the spring. All I can say is that come hell or high water, get yer arses down town and your bottoms into the theatre seats to soak in the jovial pop rock candy that IS Angora Napkin. You won't be disappointed!

For the curious, check out my initial horn tooting here. If, like me, you are over-the-top with excitement, you can listen to CUB's "My Chinchilla" song on YouTube. (My Chinchilla is expertly animated in Troy Little's section of the Angora Napkin pilot. Beware--this will become and ear worm...) Here's a ukelele cover of My Chinchilla. CHINCHILLA!!

In Nick Cross' section of the pilot, the girls are animated beautifully to CUB's "Go Fish". Yeahp, you can listen to it here!

BUY the book! Get 'er signed! Read, enjoy, repeat...

Later..
Ok I went trolling: you can watch a quickie preview of AN here!
Enjoy >^_^<

Shoot

2009-08-25T11:36:00.003-04:00

"Yet there is a strength implicit in such a situation, for having no one on which to rely, we relied upon no one." --_The Ferguson Rifle_, Louis L'Amour (c) 1973

It is one of those utterly beautiful days of summer; sky like the eyes of a 16 year old blond, sweet wind playfully eddying at 22 C. The thick plum, cherry and oak glisten chlorophylle dreams. The sun bakes the deck and flies hum in cadence with John Keats' verses.

It is wasted on me. All this beauty, and quietude; not even the low roar of a lawnmower to screw it up, or the blatant howl of a leaf blower. No kids mewling and petulantly dropping fire bricks on shiny red car hoods. No dogs in choral bayance. No neighbourly "how-do" "how-do" "how-do".

It is perfect for a pulp novel on a chaise longe, a glass of moderately alcoholized lemonade in a sweating plastic cup. It is perfect for cats, 19 year old skinny with grey tufty fur and bones poking out of non-existent hips and shoulders to lay pancake flat on pavement: drawing in solar power. It is a day crafted for exuberant sloppy bouncy dogs to chase-chase-chase and lie in the shade, sucking on a stuffed plush lobster from Rainbow Valley.

It is one petal of one flower opening, showing a bruised purple face to the sun. Crepe red petals crinkling into memories. It is the antidote to the wet weather, of foul tempered Nature spitting and shitting on suburbia.

It is possible that in rolling my self in this radiance that all the horror, fear, hurt, loneliness, poignant loss, hopelessness, frustration and angst is burnished away: one sandpaper swipe at a time. Until there are just these hands, typing these words on this machine, pointed at the eastern window. The wind flutters eyelids, the leaves chuckle against one another and the neighbourhood is drowsing, drowsing.

It is a prayer against the run of shit luck that has dogged my heels this summer, this year: a barrel-of-monkeys game, where each piece of ill-luck was crazily grinning and clomped eagerly arm-to-arm, tail-to-tail onto the next piece. So, drawing the multicoloured plastic icons from their barrel one winces again and again and again.

It is hanging on to the only good things that are steadfast in this hurly-burly time: family, friends that are as close as family, friends that are on the other side of the country, and a grinning ginger Corgi.

There is pain, desolation and worry in the world five hundred times the height of my sorriest lot. And I know this. But I can only live in my world; my space in my way. The pain is personal, and the News must be set to mute, or off entirely. There is still time to dance in the sun, before she rolls her burning chariot into the blur of November. There is still time, before the time clock strikes 4-0. There is time to love, and laugh and get giddy; pointing at the hapless churning of the great skewed pot, filled to the brim with molding comic books, dripping art work, plastic wasted bric-a-brac riding the coattails of the desolation.

So, this was to be a nice deep wallow. And it is a Halleluja instead. Not a cover, but the rumbled groan of Cohen's razor blade throat over another case of wine, another cigarette, another shadowed Montreal morning in ice-biting February. When you realize that when things are at their absolute worst, one must sing, sing, sing.

Suzanne.

The Crunch

2009-08-17T17:41:00.006-04:00

The Crunch

too much
too little

too fat
too thin
or nobody.

laughter or
tears

haters
lovers

strangers with faces like
the backs of
thumb tacks

armies running through
streets of blood
waving winebottles
bayoneting and fucking
virgins.

or an old guy in a cheap room
with a photograph of M. Monroe.

there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock.

people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other
one on one.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners.

it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant.

people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.

I suppose they never will be.
I don't ask them to be.

but sometimes I think about
it.

the beads will swing
the clouds will cloud
and the killer will behead the child
like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.

too much
too little

too fat
too thin
or nobody

more haters than lovers.

people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.

meanwhile I look at young girls
stems
flowers of chance.

there must be a way.

surely there must be a way we have not yet
thought of.

who put this brain inside of me?

it cries
it demands
it says that there is a chance.

it will not say
"no".

--Charles Bukowski

Love is a Dog from Hell
Poems 1974 - 1977
Santa Rosa Black Sparrow Press 1997

Doug Murray

2009-07-21T12:31:00.015-04:00

Today was my friend Doug Murray's birthday, who passed away a couple of years ago. July 21st doesn't go by without making me think of him and making me wonder about how things would've been different had he lived.

I met Doug when I started in the Animation-Television programme at Algonquin College back in 1997. A lot of people knew Doug as a teacher at the school in their Design programme, but at that time, he was a student. It was gratifying meeting him because he was also one of the older students too, at 33. I had been quite intimidated at the thought of returning to school at the age of 27, when many of the other students were 18 years old.

Doug was immediately charming, funny, intelligent, silly, genuine, and engaging. He could warm to any subject and had ideas and opinions on many. He was always up for a "wee pint" as he called it, and then would lapse into many Monty Pythonisms thereafter (including "Decomposing Composers" and "The Philosopher's Song").

Not long after our Siers-survival group was formed, and we were meeting regularly at the Ob, Doug showed us one of his "tricks", which was to squeeze his hands together and thus produce a credible fart sound. Hilarious! Often we'd tease him into doing it for us time and time again, and he would comply. I remember Lorne saying: "Give us a fart Doogie", and Doug, grinning like a madman, happily made the sound over and over.

I partnered with Doug in Drama class a number of times. Lorne has tapes of our Drama efforts (God!! Blackmail material for sure!) It is so poignant to watch them--usually we manage to every year at Lorne and Kim's Christmas party. Doug and I go through the pantomime motions of 1st year Charlie-Chaplin wannabes. I pretend to kill him or something, or cut off his arm... and it is all silent.

I wish that we had been more adamant about taping our later, spoken Drama moments. I really miss hearing his voice, and his laugh. I miss seeing the twinkle in his eye and the crinkle of skin that preceded great laughter.

I remember I had someone brow-beaten he and Rene into being in my Drama group, where we had to act out scripts from our scriptwriting class. None of us had practiced really. The script made sense to me, because I'd written it--but Rene and Doug were a little baffled. I finished my lines, something to the effect of being the Chief of the Tribe and having all this power.. and Doug, completely forgetting his lines, grinned up at me and said: "And I suppose that makes you special??" Fantastic!

I have our illustrated yearbook "Flip This" from 1st year, and it has Doug's drawings in it; lush, lovely life drawings and silly, whimsical animation designs. He signed in my book and I treasure the note. Another note I have is on a birthday card from our Dynomight Cartoon days. Scribbled at the back is: "Ich bin ein donut!", which is pure Doug--silly, yet very literary and historical.

Anyway, I am trolling the memories and they come fast and furious. If I dig into them too much I will be crying, and I don't want it--sometimes it is too difficult to stop, you know? Suffice to say that all that I have of Doug, I treasure thoroughly, making me miss him all the harder. He was one of the good ones, and the world is diminished without him.

((hugs))
Suzanne.

Algonquin College's Doug Murray Life Bursary
Some great Flamenco guitar music (Doug was an accomplished musician as well!)
And the old Elmdale Tennis Club where he played much tennis >v_v<

NEW Ottawa Comix Jam in Guerilla Magazine's g-Gallery

2009-07-20T11:25:00.020-04:00

The NEW Ottawa Comix Jam is not toast. In fact, it is off to a good, energetic start. There has been a continued interest and support that has amazed and gratified this artist and gives me hope that the jam will continue for a long, long time!

One of these latest shots in the arm came from Guerilla Magazine's Tony Martin who contacted me about doing an interview and showcasing June 30th's jam in his weekly online publication of art called the g-Gallery. I was delighted, and everything went along quite well.

Until I realized that I had a file full of artwork that had to be scanned, and my scanner was in the basement. Normally a set of stairs isn't all that intimidating... however I have been recovering this last month from a torn ligament. In my knee. Yeah...

I was going to just get Clayton to haul the scanner upstairs and plug it into my laptop when I had a sudden thought. "Clay--look at the back of the scanner. Does it have a gi-normous plug? Or is it tiny?" (aka: is it a USB plug, or something from the dawn of computer time...?)

"It's huge! Huge!" came the muffled reply from the basement.

Great. So I had to get down the stairs somehow. This involved waiting until the last possible moment, when I hoped that the knee wouldn't hate me for what I was going to do to it. Then doing it. I crept down the stairs using cane and hand rail, good leg first, brace, bad leg next. It took a loooong time. But there was no way to sit at the top of the stairs and explain how to scan to Clay. I couldn't do it without seeing it. And I had to get the art scanned now.

Thankfully, I didn't reinjure the healing ligament, and slowly managed to get back up the stairs with many pauses in between to rest. The artwork was scanned, and I formatted it on my laptop so it would fit the gallery's requirements. Hurrah!

I am floored by how nicely it came together, both the interview and the artwork look great in the g-Gallery. Tony was awesome, and the artists that came out and had a chance to draw did a great job. I am looking forward to next Tuesday's gathering at the Shanghai (July 28th, 7pm) for more fun hijinx, art, dumplings and silliness. I should be ok...I hope! At least the resto only has 3 stairs.

Cheers,
Suzanne.
Thanks to Janet Hetherington for the photo!

Notable Links of Featured Artists
Suzanne Marsden
Morris Rothman
Ron Martin
Clayton Jacobs
CD Rudd
Colleen Temple
Julie Cruikshank
R.R. Steven Bissonnette
Mike Pender
Ronn Sutton
Janet Hetherington
Mike Valiquette

Never tired of folk heroes

2009-06-09T08:53:00.008-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, Bruce Ward hammered Pete Seeger for no reason in his opinion column at the Ottawa Citizen. Taking justifiable umbrage at this attack on the 90-year-old folk hero, I clattered away on the keyboard and shot a letter to the paper.
To my surprise, they decided to print my note and sent over photographer, Bruno Schlumberger to snap a shot of me, posing with my banjo.

It took two weeks because in the middle of that time, I was asked to do a rewrite of my letter, to shorten it by about 100 words or so. I did my best and patiently hovered around the Citizen's online letters area to see if it would appear at some point. I was stunned to see this morning that they had kept pretty much the whole original piece, which was quite gratifying.

So, you can either bop on over to the Citizen, or read the letter here. If you didn't get a chance to see what spurned this on, you can read the original opinion piece here.

Cheers and keep on plinkin'!
Suzanne.

=========

Re: Getting tired of folk heroes, May 26.

Back in 1985, Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie played the NAC. I was 15 and it was one of the first concerts I'd ever attended.

I went with my mom and was very excited, even though all I knew about Arlo Guthrie was Alice's Restaurant. It isn't simply rose-coloured glasses that make the show one of the best I can remember. There was a full house; a crowd of all ages and genders, who, at the first "plink" of Seeger's beloved banjo, and "plunk" of Guthrie's piano, were held in rapt attention.

Ottawa crowds are usually polite, quiet and attentive, and give standing "O's" at the end for a job well done.

But Seeger wasn't having any of it.

The magic of the evening was not sitting on my bum, silently enjoying a skilled performance. The magic was Pete Seeger saying: "You sing the low part, and you over there sing the middle part, and don't listen to me because I'll be singing somethin' different."

He taught the crowd the harmony to The Lion Sleeps Tonight and encouraged us with grins, humour and tenacity until we were limping through our separate parts not too badly. Then, we launched into the song. It was uplifting, spiritually moving and unforgettable. Half the audience sang the song's lower range: "Hey up boys! A Wheem-a-whet..." while the other half took the song's higher part: "A-wheem-a-whet a-wheem-a-whet..." Way, way above all of us,
Pete sang the descant in a crazy vibrato: "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight..."

It was perfect! Every hair stood on end as he brought the rhythmic song closer to its finish. By then, we were all standing, and it wasn't even the end of the show: a spontaneous "standing O" right in the middle of the performance!

I am sorry that columnist Bruce Ward's experience with Pete Seeger didn't have the impact and uplifting force it did for me, and for millions of others around the world whose lives his and Arlo Guthrie's music has touched. Seeger's power is that he connects directly to people in the audience and makes them feel special, that he cares about their lives. You feel it when you see him, and you know it when you sing with him.

Seeger prevails, and I, for one, am glad.

All this talk of folk music has inspired me to take up the banjo I bought last summer; a spontaneous purchase which came shortly after finding Seeger's banjo primer in a folk music store in P.E.I. The first song I'm going to learn is Abby Yo-Yo.

Suzanne Marsden,
Kanata
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

YouTube
Pete Seeger
Abby Yo-yo
Wimoweh

World Drawing Day 2009

2009-06-06T10:25:00.013-04:00

If you take a couple of minutes (ok 3) and head on over to YouTube, you can see my two posted videos for this year's World Drawing Day event.
This was a lot of fun to do, although at 13,000+ I think the site is still short of its million artists. At this rate, I think we're all going to have to suck it in and draw like..80 drawings each to make up the 1,000,000 they were hoping for! But, it is only 10:30am or so and the day is young.
In other news, I have uploaded artwork for the NEW Ottawa Comix Jam FB site,
so head over there and take a gander. I will be cross posting the artwork to the jam site as well shortly...

Upcoming stuff: The Ottawa Small Press Book Fair at Jack Purcell Community Centre happens June 20th, noon - 5pm and DragonHead Studio will be there..selling comics, promoting the jam, looking cute..harf! Come out and say "hello", but a comic...get a sketch! Not unlike the dragon one posted on YouTube.......!

NAPKIN! NAPKIN! NAPKIN! (Angora that is!)

2009-05-29T20:38:00.023-04:00

If you haven't heard of the genius of Angora Napkin and the fellows who carved them out of putty and blew soft bubble gum flavoured breath into them; then where ya been?

Born out of the mania that only comes with steady work drawing kiddy cartoons and fuzzy bunnies, Troy Little and Nick Cross decided there had to be something better, something bigger than all of this. Thus, after splitting another metaphor with a simile, they cracked each others' skulls and drew forth Molly, Mallory and Beatrice.

After creating a gigantic, very cool pile of back story, promo material, designs, boards and scripts the project ended up shelved. Yeah! WTF?? What knob thought an Angora Napkin was something you'd slide between tender, supple thighs? In any case, our bubble-gum girl trio languished, almost forgotten, until Troy went to Rainbow Valley and fell in the Cotton Candy machine.
Inspiration!
Determination!
Something exploded in his tangled brain; igniting neurons that had been wrapped up all too darkly with his Xeric award winning comic Chiaroscuro. Cotton Candy. Squealing children. Puppies.

ANGORA NAPKIN!

Troy hustled home the long way, barely getting the unicycle parked on the roof where it belonged, and pulled Angora Napkin out from under the cubby where the project had been sleeping. AHA he cried, and with a manic flourish, brought the trio to a black and white half-life in comic form. Well, half-life was better than no life at all; and the comic world was finally introduced to Mallory, Beatrice and Molly as a back story in an issue of critically acclaimed comic, Chiaroscuro.

Short story long, Nick Cross, (co-creator of beloved AN) and Troy Little, won the chance to create a pilot on Teletoon and knew that this was the full-colour, bouncy fun, animated dream they'd been wishing for all their lives, and had only realized it then! Angora Napkin would live! Meanwhile, at the same time, Angora Napkin's first hard cover graphic novel exploded on the scene via IDW Publishing (yes, the same company that, after reading a glowing commendation from Dave Sim about Troy Little's Chiaroscuro, decided to check it out, were suitably impressed, and published the ground breaking work in hard cover!)

Things were moving quickly; almost too quickly! Could Dolphin Boy be voiced by anyone other than Cory Perkins? Would the whirling interstitial really connect two disparate worlds? Would PETA finally track down Beatrice's chinchilla and crown it monarch of a small Lanark County Kingdom? Did I take this job just to make a quick buck? We may never know the answers to any of these questions... but I believe it may have happened something like this...

All that being said, the graphic novel rippled like a full scoop of Cherry Garcia dropped into a molten cup of maple syrup. People weren't just talking, they were screaming: NAPKIN! NAPKIN! NAPKIN! The screening of the pilot in Ottawa's trendy Shanghai Restaurant earlier in the month had a similar reaction. Folks were floored! There was nothing remotely like this on TV anywhere. It was tight, well written, bouncy, fun and the timing was remarkable. And the Canadian content! Who can argue with close to 43 actual references made of our beloved country?*

Beatrice, Molly and Mallory weren't destined for the forgotten scrapheap of other animated girl bands and their small rodential pets. They were destined for greatness! With CUB backing the animated show musically (even after THEY had broken up--!) nothing could stand in their way.

If you are still scratching your head, check out the pilot's teaser on the Angora Napkin site. If you really want to get your feet wet, head on over to Troy Little's Meanwhile Studios site and order a signed hardcover graphic novel for yourself. With an artful intro by John K., you will not regret picking this thing up! It has an amazing combination of energy, fun and beautiful artwork. The spot colour makes it feel like it is fully rendered believe it or not. Amazing what a bit o' blue can do. Don't just take my word for it--see what others have to say >^_^<

If you are not scratching your head and are already a fan, SPREAD THE WOID. The only way this is going to get made is for us all to jump up and down and go: NAPKIN! NAPKIN! NAPKIN! until someone blows a gasket. For what it is worth, I hear by grant permission for this entire post (or portions thereof) to be reprinted in any format, electronic or hand made, for the purpose of promoting Angora Napkin in any way, shape or form.

Now go.
Do it!

*for the actual list, please harass Trick and Noy
"The Animator" painted by Kristy Gordon
All Angora Napkin images (c)2009 Troy Little & Nick Cross.

Charity art auction featuring original Marsden!

2009-05-12T07:45:00.012-04:00

Check it out friends, the Canadian Toy Testing Council's charity auction on eBay is in full schwing! There are all kinds've great pieces of original artwork up for sale, and they could be yours. And the loot goes to a great cause. Hop on over and hand over your dibnibs now :-)

Janet Hetherington (Eternal Romance, Elvira, Monster Love) proposed a call for art submissions last month to support the Canadian Toy Testing Council and I was happy to supply her with a black and white illustration featuring my "favourite" childhood toy. I've been role playing since I was around 11 years old or so, so thought it would be a great idea for a drawing. Then I realized a little pile of polyhedric dice is a very BORING idea for a drawing. Then I put a dragon in. Yay!

Janet is a fantastic artist, writer and supporter of genre of all kinds in the Ottawa area. Check out her site on the web and FB groups as well.
It was awesome catching up with her and Ronn Sutton (Fear Agent, Elvira, Vampira) recently during Free Comic Book Day at the Cave and finding out more about her auction for the Canadian Toy Testing Council. Also, Janet invited me to be a panelist at the upcoming meeting of the Ottawa Science Fiction Society May 31st when they convene to talk about art in the genre.

Cheers, and thanks for the support!
Suzanne.

The Canadian Toy Testing Council
FB Group CTTC
The charity auction!
Janet Hetherington's Best Destiny site
Janet Hetherington's Eternal Romance
Ronn Sutton
The Ottawa Science Fiction Society

The NEW Ottawa Comix Jam

2009-04-17T11:29:00.009-04:00

Starting this month, something familiar will occur in our Nation's Capital. What? Whaat? The new Ottawa Comix Jam will have its launch this April, at an as of yet undetermined location (TBA soon!).

Drawing inspiration from the successful Montreal, Toronto and NY comic jams, the event will be a monthly occurence, where comic artists gather and draw for a few hours together.

"HOW: Bring a nice piece of paper, divide it up into segments, and start drawing (painting, colouring…). When you have filled one square you pass it to someone else and they fill the next square and pass it on. There are no rules, styles vary, stories unfold, people fall in love, wars break out, the world is knocked off it’s axis, Days of Our Lives is still on television, shit is fun."
Thanks to: Aimée van Drimmelen' Montreal Drink & Draw site

Produced drawings will be scanned and displayed on the Jam's Facebook Group page. There is also a bare bones site for the Jam where people can acquaint themselves with the Jam FAQ, check out the bios of regular contributing artists and find out information not covered elsewhere.

So, throw caution to the wind; come out, come out and share your talent and have fun. Meet some new people, meet some old people and have a drink :-) Then, draw on each other's pages (that's always fun!) I am looking forward to meeting everyone who is interested in re-igniting this sadly missed Ottawa event.

Cheers!
Suzanne.

For more information, contact me via email, FB or txt: 613-323-3377.

Snow pixies dashed against frosty windshields

2009-02-27T22:30:00.011-05:00

Tomorrow is the end of February, and no one (except maybe my Mom) will be happier than me to see its tail end sliding out and leaving us to March's tender mercies. Today it was raining, 7 degrees C, balmy and spring like. At least that's what it was like around 8am. By the time I headed out to the car around 4:30pm, the wind had picked up, the temperature had fallen below freezing and ice pellets were spacking me in the head like annoying grains from a limp derringer.

Halfway home (Bells Corners) and the pellets changed to broad white mushy snowflakes. They looked like suicidal snow pixies as they hurtled through the grey air, splotching into cars and melting almost instantly. Mushy, icy, slippery, fun to drive in. I just cruised slowly and kept my tired eyes focused on the drive, the crunch of the glazed ice turning under my tires and the slippery skid of shimmying turns through intersections. (Shouldn't complain though--remember winter this time last year??)

We ate more of those TV dinner things that had been on sale last week "SPA" dinners(?) They weren't bad. Tonight was Thai chicken and chicken prima vera. Arlo ate his share of chicken (of course). We gazed numbly at "How It's Made" and discovered that bamboo fly fishing rods take 40 hours to make by hand and require much fire and patience.

Work was low key. I finished editing the index for our publication, so that should be good for Monday. Dead boring. I kept interspersing my work with phone calls, doodles, games, staring at the wall (enjoying photos of my nieces), writing emails, trying to (unsuccessfully) fax something and the like. Lunch was a nice distraction from the doldrums. I caught up with Myra and had tuna and tortellini and mixed veggies. It took forever to eat. My teeth are angsting me again and I don't want to think about them.

I wanted to go to the Aylmer SPCA today to see the Welsh Corgi that is up for adoption. Clay doesn't seem as against the idea of this doggie than others. I wonder if it's because it's smaller, or I've been slowly wearing him down, or... who knows. The weather so lousy though, we decided maybe we'd go see him tomorrow. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, I don't want to get disappointed again.

I spent the evening individually with my animals, almost 30 minutes with Bookie on my lap, which is quite the record for our antisocial rabbit :-) The guinea pigs darted back and forth on the couch and sat on our laps. I'm now covered in fur.

Snagged another contract for some children's book illustrating. I'm excited about it-- it should start in a couple of weeks; 4-6 black and white illos for a book publisher in Michigan. Yay :-) Feels like pieces of my freelancing life are drifting together.

Well--c'est tous I think. I will get some painting done tomorrow... (I have been sorting through a stack of vintage Walter Foster How to Paint books which are actually really funny--humour aside, I think they will prove a bit more useful to me than some of the "How-To" paint guides on Youtube...!)

Suz.

Trembling in the light

2009-02-15T22:25:00.023-05:00

One of my earliest "artist" memories is at my Nanna Bernice's place up on Manitoulin Island, when I was around 6 or 7 (or possibly younger..who knows..) I had drawn a cow, and I wanted to colour it. I remember that I specifically wanted to paint it and my grandmother gave me a tube of bright yellow cadmium oil paint with which to do the job. I remember painting the cow bright yellow and being thoroughly delighted.

I've messed around with painting my whole life, absorbing knowledge from books of all kinds, and wishing I could absorb skill via osmosis, simply by leafing through art books and wandering galleries. I remember standing in the Tate Gallery in London with my pals Vicki and Anders. There was a Kandinsky exhibit, and I wandered into another room. It looked like the whole place had been bathed in blood: it was an artist whose work I'd seen in the same room as the Voice of Fire ...Mark Rothko. The canvasses were enormous: massive things that dwarfed the walls and made one feel as if there had been an inadvertent return to the womb. For those who sniff contemptuously about modern art, and that "their kid could paint THAT", I would ask you to step into a room full of canvasses that loom over you and thrust their impact at you, as these did. It was remarkable. A 2" x 2" picture in a survey Art History text book doesn't come near to providing the awe one feels standing before vibrant, engorged, artwork; pulsing from the walls and gibbering at the mind.

I learned colour theory in High School at the Earl of March in the Special Arts Certificate program. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Mrs. Bongo, Bowstead, Dewar-Monk and Mr. Clarke, Fletcher, and Harris; somehow it got pounded into my adolescent brain (that was far more interested in mooning over various cuties [of both genders] and doodling cartoons and comics). I never really "learned" how to paint. I experimented, tried stuff, produced work (usually at the last minute) and was never quite satisfied. It never looked like how it had looked in my head. It was ok, but it was never "right". My favourite artists at the time were a bizarre mixture of the Impressionists Claude Monet, Post-Impressionists Van Gogh and Fantasy Illustrators (check out the links at the end of the post. Most of these artists I still love and revere to this day.

I began studying at Ottawa U. in fine arts, hoping that someone would teach me how to paint. I had an amazing time in sculpture class with Russell Yuristy (friend of Joe Fafard). There is nothing more freeing than slipping goopy plaster over an armature and watching a form develop from meagre beginnings to breathtaking completion. I really loved sculpting! My other classes were a bit more disappointing (granted at 19 I was far more interested in being heart-broken and writing torrid poetry than learning anything new, or regularly attending classes).

By the time I cracked my head against the walls of academe and took a painting class, it was only to discover that the university "way" is not to teach painting. You approach the canvas with your paint, and just do it. You do it, and you really don't learn much about the technical side of painting. You learn how to defend your work in critiques, but the finer side of mixing colour, transfering image to something that remotely resembles said image on canvas was left pretty much to the wind.

When I ended up in animation at Algonquin in my late twenties, I was actually looking forward to learning. I wasn't learning painting, but in the intensive courses that followed (life drawing, design), I learned how to really see. My learning curve was steep, and my art improved by about 75%. I was shocked. I'd been cruising along, really taking my talent for granted...and people were actually standing there who were interested in teaching me how to become a better artist.

So, as for painting, I have only really done it on my own. I've messed around with watercolours, but have always felt intimidated by my lack of "official" knowledge. So, it was with surprise and a bit of tripidation that I found my paints, brushes and canvas this week and realized that painting was exactly what I wanted to do. It was something I needed to do.

My first efforts were pretty crude; I'm an impatient artist. I want the work done, and I want it done now.. I want some kind've reaction from it, then I want to move on and make something else. Paint doesn't work that way. Paint (especially the cheapola craft acrylics I was using) was not patient, and wasn't drying the way I expected it to, and simply was not opaque over the areas I wished that it would've been opaque for! I had to learn to slow down, to sometimes draw before coming to the canvas. To be patient and work on other things while recalcitrant canvases were drying (before returning to them again.) It's been a learning experience.

My first solo show is this year and I'm terrified. I realized I had exactly ONE painting when I booked the show. I just assumed I'd make some more (har har). But, it's actually happening. I'm painting. I'm trusting myself and my talent, my colour theory knowledge, and my drawing skills. Painting has helped me begin to move through my grief. Another early memory I have is of my Dad helping me paint. I remember he did a background wash in tempera or watercolour (can't remember), then he blocked in a tree trunk and branches radiating from it. He did it so naturally, calmly, as if he knew exactly which branch should go where. Once that was done, in went the leaves. I can see it in my mind, clear as if it had been just the other day.

I'll upload some of my work this week, and you can see how things are going. My show is at Venus Envy this year, November 2nd - December 31st (I think). I'll get more info later on. It's far enough away that my fear isn't a hammering chorus of terror, but close enough that I know I have to keep producing, and learning.

Suz.

Painting with Fire
Frank Frazetta
Michael Whelan
Phil Hale
Keith Parkinson
Julie Bell
The Bros. Hildebrandt
Brom
Chichoni
Jed Dougherty
Simon Bisley

Kristy Gordon
Dave Cooper

Though I'm old with wandering...

2009-02-13T07:00:00.009-05:00

I have bits and pieces of poetry, music, images lodged in my head. They alternate between being comforting and being insistent with their presence. One is the "Dream of Wandering Aengus" by Yeats (inspired by very early Celtic stories) and made popular by Tommy Makem. Donovan also covered the poem in song form, and there is an interesting version of it on Youtube.

Song of Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

— William Butler Yeats

This was one of my Dad's favourite songs/quotes. We printed it on the commemorative bookmarks that were at the service Sunday and Monday. On the other side was a great quote from Carl Hiassen that was a perfect description of my Dad. I have no idea how my Mom had the forethought to jot it down while she was reading, but she did and it was good. Reverend Jane, who lead the service on Monday read it and her voice broke. And of course I cried like Niagara Falls (again).

"He was a fighter, a real tiger, but he had a generous heart.
He was an idealist who believed in the innate decency and honesty of everyone he met.
He faced profound sadness in his life but he never let himself be defeated by it.
He never lost his sense of humour or his optimism.
He was one of the most positive and unselfish persons.
He chose a simple, ordinary life because he believed that was the secret to true happiness.
He wasn't perfect.
He had weaknesses as all of us do.
Impulsive moments, blind spots, and lapses in judgment.
He wasn't a perfect person but he was a truly good person and we'll all miss him dearly."

-- Carl Hiassen

It has been a strange week... I feel like an empty husk, with a low wind blowing through my mind. I move, write, create, but it is like being an automaton with no independent thought or motive. The strangest thing was grocery shopping. If Clay hadn't been there, I probably would've ended up lodged at the end of an aisle with my cart ground against a row of soup or something. It was like being in a dream. I talked with my Mom Wednesday and she said Mike had felt the same way.

I get up, make coffee, put clothes on. I gaze at the lovely flowers that our friends sent and let my mind drift into daisies, roses and palm fronds. Occasionally I will go along and forget. Then forcibly, I'll be stopped mid-thought: Dad would really like this book--- Realizing that I'll never share another book with him. Or looking yesterday for images from "Slaine the Horned God" by Mills & Bisley to get a picture, and coming up in a shortened chest-tight gasp. Dad and I loved that book, and nobody else really got it within my circle but us. Other things like that cascade in my mind--small things, significant only to me. But it hurts to my bones, and it is something that can't be brushed aside or crawled over. It has to be examined, cherished, then moved through respectfully, in its own time.

--Suz.

Joy and Sorrow

2009-02-08T00:21:00.008-05:00

A long while ago, one of my dear friends, Fiona was traveling on the West Coast. I missed her lots and so, when this card arrived in the mail, I was blown away. It is from Khalil Gibran and it really meant a lot to me. It came from someone I loved, and it also came at a time when I was mourning the loss of my grandmother. The lines make sense to me, because they speak about balance.

Today was a day of balance as well. I woke up with my face pressed so hard into my pillow I'm amazed I wasn't suffocated. It was like I was trying to physically hang on to sleep for as long as I could. As long as I was in bed, asleep, the day (for me at least) couldn't progress. I wouldn't wake to another day of the reality of my father being gone staring me in the face. Inevitably I had to get up, but it was with a deep reluctance, and slowness; the way a kid will fight all the way against something, dragging their feet, even though there is no point and they will go to bed whether they want to or not.

Clay and I gathered some lunch items, some blank CD's, the old Rideau High School year book that Myra had lent me ages ago, and headed for Keith's place. Keith had agreed to try and transfer some old compilation mixed tapes I had made for my Dad for his birthday (June 3rd, 1990 and 2000). We stopped at Mac's first in Kanata and I topped up my phone (the day I needed it the most, not only were its batteries kacking out, it had like $1.50 left on it. Sigh!) I also picked up a couple of copies of the Citizen that had Dad's Obituary printed in it. Do you know what they ding you for an obit? Like $500! Geez! So, I am happy that they did a good job on it...

We drove up and along Eagleson, and I thought I could use some music. Just as we began merging on the 417, I clicked on CKCU (93.1) and Stan Rogers was singing "The Mary Ellen Carter". My God! I choked right up and sniffled and snurged as I drove. I was ok until the chorus, whereupon I just started sobbing again. Thankfully, the traffic had slowed a bit, so I could cry and kind've drive at the same time... After the song was done, the announcer said it had been a memorial set for someone else, which made it feel again, like it was destined to be heard by me.

"...And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

Rise again, rise again - though your heart it be broken
And life about to end
No matter what you've lost, be it a home, a love, a friend.
Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again."
--Stan Rogers (1949 - 1983)

For a beautiful piece on YouTube, click here.

By the time I found my parking spot in front of Keith's place on Kent St., I was ok, but still deeply moved by the song, and my spirit somehow felt lighter. It was like, there was a lift that had happened inside and I could see a bit of light and laughter as well.

Keith got started on the tape transfer (btw, I had no idea that something like that could take close to 8-9 hours, depending on how things went. Clay and I had lunch and Keith put on Steve Martin's "the Jerk", which I had never seen. It was wonderful, just being able to laugh together and feel some of my tension release. Keith continued his work, transfering the poor old audio tapes to digital, and checking in on us to make sure we were ok. I sent more notices via email, and also linked Dad's Obituary to my facebook page.

We settled in for a second movie, this one an old favourite of mine when I was a teen, and also I remember Dad getting a good laugh out of it as well: "Amazon Women on the Moon". I think I giggled pretty much through the whole thing. And of course, during some of the more rib-splitting scenes, laughed so hard I started coughing and sounded like I was coming apart.

Fi and Vicki arrived later with a veggie lasagna, timbits and a bottle of Baileys! We just hugged and it felt so good to see them. Fi had been in the car all day coming up from Newmarket, then barely got out to hop into another car to come in to town. It was so good having them there, just talking, reminiscing and laughing.

Eventually we broke it up, after supper. Keith finally finished his audio magic and I had 4 CD's with Dad's music on them for the visitation tomorrow. Fi and Vick headed back for the 1 1/2 hr drive to Portland, and after lots of hugs and heartfelt "thankyous", Clay and I also headed out. We set course for Stittsville though, not Kanata.

Mom and I still had to put together the giant photosheet for the funeral home's frame that they put up in the visitation room for people to look at. We'd gone through a lot of pictures the other day and Mom had gone through a few more, but wanted me to help with the layout. It didn't take too long.. I sorted them in chronological order and then tried to see how they would all fit together. I put in the pic from Myra's yearbook and it looked good. There were pics from Dad as a little boy in 1947, to his army days, his trip to England and Trinity College in Dublin, as well as showing him relaxing on Sanibel Island in Florida. A real collage, showing his life, serious, smiling, looking mischievious, bending over the Lada (which needed eternal repairs) and finally, a picture in the lower right corner of Dad's granddaughters: Bronwyn, Kiara and Rylen.

It looks good.
Night, rest and may sweet sleep bear you to gentle dreamings.
Suzanne.

Norm

2009-02-06T17:47:00.005-05:00

As most of you know, Norm passed away yesterday afternoon at the Queensway Carleton Hospital because of complications related to diabetes.

I would like to thank everyone for their love, support, thoughtful words and generous hearts during this incredibly difficult time. It means so much to us that you are thinking of us and that we are supported by those who love us and loved Norm.

If you are in the Ottawa area and would like to come to either the visitation or funeral (or both), here is the information:

Kelly Funeral Homes
580 Eagleson Rd., Kanata, ON K2M 1H4
613-591-6580

Visitation
Sunday February 8th, 2pm - 4pm
7pm - 9pm
1:30pm Legion Service
6:30pm Masonic Service

Funeral
Monday February 9th, 2pm

Norm's obituary will be published tomorrow in the Ottawa Citizen. In memoriam donations to the Canadian Diabetes Association or St. Thomas Anglican Church, Stittsville.

Man of Harlech

2009-02-05T22:28:00.007-05:00

My Dad has been ill for a long time; dealing with diabetes, kidney disease, as well as stress on his heart and lungs (C.O.P.D.). So, when Mom called me this morning at work, I could tell from the sound of her voice that something was seriously wrong: it quavered and broke as she told me that Dad had been admitted to hospital last night, when he was having trouble breathing, and that I should come right away.

I gave a garbled message to one of my co-workers, pulled on my coat and went as quickly as I could back down the elevator, through the JT lobby and out into the -31 C weather that's been plaguing us. My lungs choked up with the cold and I could hear what my brother calls "lung kittens" wheezing in my chest. I got to my car and hit the parkway. The day was so bright and beautiful, sunny, but bloody cold. I was out of it, dazed. The car seemed to drive itself.

I pulled into the Queensway Carleton Hospital and eventually found a spot to park, which meant another long, freezing walk across a parking lot. I kept wanting to be at my Mom and Dad's side now, but things kept conspiring to get in my way. I found myself on the 4th floor of the Hospital, realizing the room numbers only went up to 425. Dad was in 450. I finally got directions and headed back down to the lobby, reoriented myself and made for the "new" part of the hospital.

Finally I found the room. Finally I shucked off the winter clothing. Mom was there. Mike was there. Dad was stretched in a hospital bed, breathing in an oxygen mask, sedated, hanging in there. I just hugged my family and listened to Dad's hissing in-out breathing. It was Jethro Tull's Aqualung, or Darth Vader; the quiet, hitched breathing of someone who is not getting everything they need from each lungful of air.

Nothing felt real; even though everything was laid out in front of me. The doctor was patient and kind, explaining things straight, but with gentleness. She advised us to not bother with dialysis today, because the stress of moving Dad to the General across town would've been too hard on him: interrupting his oxygen (and inadvertently cleaning the helpful drugs from his system). She said if he went into arrest in the ambulance, or needed oxygen or his pain medication and the other drugs they were using to help him breathe that it wouldn't be available to him. So, reluctantly, Mom decided against dialysis.

We sat together near Dad, occasionally holding his hand, Mom sometimes brushing back his silver hair. The sun shone brightly through the window, warming the room. We talked about Dad and the fact that he tended to rally under duress: the phoenix rising from the ashes, again and again. Mike said we were lucky that we'd had the time to be with him after his many visits in and out of the hospital; that we'd all managed to let each other know how much we loved one another. Last May, when Dad was scheduled for heart surgery and was fearful of going under, he talked to us, letting us know how much he loved us. We said good-bye last year, and then just enjoyed all the time we had together. So, we were lucky... I guess.

How come I don't feel lucky? I feel empty, wrung out like a wet rag, eyes swollen from crying. I headed out from the hospital around 2pm to do some errands, and eventually picked up Clay at work, because of the bus strike. I drove back to Kanata, picked up some dinner to take back into the hospital for Mom and then headed home to drop Clay off. It didn't really register as strange to see Mike's car parked in front of the house. I just thought... I don't know, that we were going to plan things together for dinner, or he had news about Mom, or something. I came in, babbling about stuff and just doing my usual thing. Mike looked like a part of him wanted to be anywhere but there. He said quietly: "He's gone, Sue. Dad's gone."

I dissolved... falling into the couch in choking sobs. I felt like a part of me was torn right out of my body, crushed and twisted. I couldn't breathe. I felt Mike and Clayton close to me, felt their arms holding me, and just cried into my brother's shoulder. I felt that I would never stop crying. Mike said that Dad had just slowed in his breathing for awhile; that the in-out of his breath got slower and slower. The pauses between each breath hung and then there was another hitched inhalation. And then there was nothing. It was over.

Norman Henry Marsden
June 3rd, 1940 - February 5th, 2009

Me and Dad, 1972.

St. Brigid

2009-02-01T12:32:00.006-05:00

Good morning y'all,

It's... whoa, been since October that I've written? What's up with that? Hmm... I continue to blame Facebook, plus I've been doing some freelance work at Guru.com, so there you have it.

A couple of years ago I wrote a fun note on celebrating St. Brigid's Day (today) and you can check it out here, if you like. St. Brigid's Day is on old Celtic celebration, called "Imbolc", and somehow has survived even in our modern world. Weird! Yet cool ;-)

Life has been going along not too badly. We somehow made it through January; a month plagued by deep-freeze temperatures, big, hulking piles of snow, and an extraordinarily inconvenient bus strike that, after 51 **ckin days, finally curled up its toes last week and died. The buses won't all be functioning for long unexplained weeks to come, so it means, I'll still be driving the Boy to work and picking him up again. One link in the bus chain is all it would've taken to set our world back in some kind've motioned order (the #116), but no, no order for us.

But, with the dawn of a new month, fresh, bright and crisp, and my wee car functioning ok (thanks to a $250 trip to Midas *sigh*), we sally forth. Possibilities seem to open like so many lotos blooms at the beginning of anything... it's like, after about the 3rd week of a month, you figure "what the hell" and throw your arms in the air with defeat and impatience. At the start of the month, everything seems new and actually do-able. I know, days are days, and there really isn't any discernable difference. (Why should everyone hate Monday, and love Friday for instance? Purely psychological.. yes, I am a Monday-hater, and truly cherish my weekends.. *grin*) But ultimately, each day has the same 24 hours in it, sliced up neatly into apportioned minutes and seconds, each of which holds the pure potential of the doing, or the not-doing, or the simply lounging (depending on whether or not you are a procrastinator par extraordinaire...)

This month, I aim to finish up my outstanding projects and get paid (finally).. which'll be nice. Then I can link to all the fun freelanced stuff I've been semi-labouring over. It'll be exciting starting a couple of new illustration projects as well. Once I get that ball rolling, I am going to wrap up the bits and pieces left dangling around my upcoming book, and finally send the bulk of files off to a P.O.D. place, so you can all get your excited mitts on "96 Hours", my 4 successful 24 hour comics, all in one brand-spanking new format. Hurray!

Whew...
Ok, I think I'm pretty much done.
Cheerio, and good luck to you as you try and thrust your way through the chaos and organize life, the universe and your sock drawers.

Suz.

PS Here is one of the illustrations for the upcoming book from Swordfish Toys called Alphabet Madness by Simon Fish, illustrated by Suzanne Marsden. Hurray!

Rolling up the sleeves and gettin' 'er done

2008-10-14T14:26:00.018-04:00

This is it, man--this is the time, now is the moment.
Friday, October 17th at 8:00pm, DragonHead Studio will transform from its usual organized mess into a razor's edge of creative instensity. We have confirmed artists, we have grub, we have supplies! We're ready!

For your amusement and to get you excited about the upcoming Event, here are some pics from last year's challenge, where much great artwork was produced and new friendships solidified! Just think, this time next year, you could be looking a sweet collection of photos from the upcoming weekend. If you act quickly, your mug might even be profiled! Ya never know...

Speaking of mugs, here's yours truly at Kanata Centrum, picking up Westin Church from the shuttle pick-up point.

The table at the studio in progress, covered in artwork, drinks and supplies. Meaghan Quinn surveys her efforts.

Left to right, Keith Savage, Westin Church, Lynette O'Brien and Meaghan Quinn, sometime in the middle of the night (probably before 2 am or so, since Keith headed off to sleep in his tent around then). Lynette had dropped by to shower us with support around 10pm, but mistakenly went to the wrong house. No one was home! Finally she heard the sounds of cussing and Frank Sinatra and made her way to the corrrect locale of the "do".

Westin catches 40 winks in the company of the world's coolest cat, Arlo, star of many of my comics. Westin's allergy medication was labouring hard to keep him going. With minor setbacks, he was still able to complete the gut-splitting tale of "Harry Hotdog in the Land of Linguini".

Yours truly, showing off the fruits of labour sometime in the wee hours of the morning. You can see by the 1,000-mile stare that the coffee had finally proved useless and the sugar crash had long ago happened. Still, it was a fun excersize!

Keith Savage (OMBRELLA) and Westin Church at Kanata Centrum, heading home after the event. Look how happy they are to escape back home to get some shut-eye! Lucky people!

Now, wouldn't YOU like to see yourself in these pics? You can! There's still a couple of spaces left if you're into it. Just contact me, via email, phone or psychic transmission. Check out the group on Facebook (24 Hour Comic day at DragonHead Studio) for info.

Confirmed 24 Hour comic artists this year include:

Suzanne Marsden:
Hostess, owner of DragonHead Studio, animator, traditional comic artist, writer.
Robert (Guang) Yap:
Animator, traditional comic artist, storyboard artist
Meaghan Quinn:
Web comic artist "Eat the Roses"
Clayton Jacobs:
Traditional comic artist, animation, novelist
Christopher Rudderham:
Web comic artist, "Sailorsun"

Participants confirmed for the 12 hour comic challenge

Keith Savage:
RPG systems inventor, animator, filmmaker, novelist.
James Fletcher:
Teacher, sculptor, member of the National Capital Network of Sculptors, Ottawa.

Check links to their work--this is going to be a phenomenal 24 Hour Comic party!

Plus, you can look forward to seeing it assembled as a documentary by talented filmmaker Randy Kelly!

Cheers, and to those who can't make it-- perhaps next year? It seems like it is becoming an annular event ;-)
Suzanne.

October 17th - 18th 2008 24 Hour Comics Day Party!

2008-09-04T10:34:00.008-04:00

If you read too many blogs, you could end up like the people in the above pic. Barring that...read on!

I was talking with Westin the other day; Westin, the dude who is getting married (to fiancée Nadine!)Sept 17th, and for whom I am donning a tux and being the 'Best Ma'am'(just finished writing my speech this morning--yay!).

I said; 'buddy, wish we could get together to draw, but I know you're busy with your wedding coming up and all'. And he said 'Sue--what about next month?'
'Next month?'
'Yeah!'
'Hey I think Nat'l 24 Hour Comics Day is in October sometime... Wanna do it?'
'Sure!'
'What, are we insane?'
'Probably!'
'Still, if I only complete 1 comic a year...'
(SFX swelling of orchestral music)

(And now a cheat-repost from October 2007 [abridged])

With the event [a little over a month] away, folks must be getting excited and stoked for the exhausting, illuminating and one-of-a-kind experience ONLY this kind've gathering can evoke. I know that I am! And it is not too late to take part. Simply contact me with your interest and questions, or sign on to the Facebook group and request to be included on the event list. You will receive maps, and can participate in a carpool or shuttle bus to DragonHead Studio's cozy locale in Urban Kanata.

Ample drawing, painting & comic-creating material will be provided, along with a selection of caffeinated beverages ;-) [NOT coffee-beer though; man that was gross last year :-P] and foods. We do support vegetarians; just let us know your needs. We also have a large collection of animals living with us, so if you need it, prep your system with anti-allergy medication. DragonHead has a secure area if you wish to bring a tent and camp. We also will be providing up to eight places for people to sleep, should they require napping during the event, or cannot complete their comic projects and must sleep.

You have nothin' to lose by giving this a try! You will discover creative depths in your heart you didn't know existed! If you are experiencing artist's or writer's block, this event will kick the hell out of it. You will amaze yourself by what bubbles up in the middle of the night... Go for it!

To get a feel for what others have experienced during previous events, check out YouTube. There are tons of clips showing comic artists and even a couple of interviews with the inventor of the 24 Hour Comic, Scott McCloud!

Contact me via my website, The 24 Hour Comics Day at DragonHead Studio Group on Facebook, or by calling 613-323-3377 and leaving a detailed voice message.

Cheers and all best
Suzanne.

PS -- For detailed information regarding the 24 Hour Comic and what it is exactly, refer to Scott McCloud's web page. Here, he explains what it is, how he came up with it and shows copious pages of completed 24 Hour Comics. Inspiring!

[PPS-- check out 24 Hour comics Day participants from last year's successful event at DragonHead Studio! Westin Church's "Harry Hotdog and the Land of Linguini", and Suzanne Marsden's "The Magic Cauldron!"]

PPPS--NEWSFLASH - Randy Kelly, noted filmmaker, is planning to document the event at DragonHead Studio October 17th - 18th!

Will draw for the looooong green!

2008-08-28T15:33:00.003-04:00

Clayton bumped into an old work-mate of his on the train the other day. She said she'd been getting some work via Guru and suggested that he get on there and get some work too! Clay told me about it, and lo--that is exactly what I have done. Jumped aboard!

So, if you are interested in commissioning any artwork, drawings, writing, poetry, illustrations, graphics, small sculptures out of Fimo from me, now is your chance!

Sign up as an employer and put a job together and "Invite me" to do it for you. My online name is DragonHead Studio, but I'm sure hunting around for me by my good ol' handle will net you my page: Suzanne Marsden.

You have nothing to lose! For $25.00 minimum you can get a bona fide chunk of original artwork! Wow!!

Cheers,
Suzanne.

PS--below are samples of the some of the cards I've been doing lately.

"Hide Your Life Away"

2008-07-29T12:55:00.013-04:00

Hello believers, and the morbidly curious :-) No, I ain't dead; at least not from the neck up. Facebook, Scrabulous and Hasbro are in a peeing contest, so now I have nothing left to occupy my small pieces of free time at lunch (at work).

So, I thought: should write on that damned Blog sometime, or it'll get cancelled! Yoiks :-O

So today, I am plugging Carol Little's debut novel "Hide Your Life Away". Actually, you can check out a for 'rizzle quote by yours truly if you hop on over to her writer's blog (at least for the next little while...then it'll get replaced by someone more famous..like say, Lorne Elliott *grin*).

I had the pleasure of reading Carol's work about a month ago and truly enjoyed it. She wrote it at the same time as I was writing "La Tierra del Meurto", during the 3-Day Novel Contest last Labour Day Weekend. The only difference being, her book is actually finished and mine is still languishing in a box in my basement. Oh, and her book is funnier than mine. My book isn't that funny. Although there is an adequate amount of shed blood and crazy characters in both, I think.

I was actually considering signing on for another round of the 3-Day Novel Contest this year. I have the envelope and cheque in my bag. Then I talked to my Mom. (Who is eternally practical--the quintessential Virgo!) Mom said "Why don't you take that weekend and finish the manuscript you started last year?" Perfect sense, no? Well, the envelope is still in the old bag..and you know what? I think I will take that time and do my own 3-Day Novel Contest.. 'cept it'll be more like Finishing Last Year's 3-Day Novel Contest instead :-)

But enough about my old hoss; which I will beat for 3 or 4 days this September. Let's talk about a hoss to bet on! Speaking of horses, that reminds me of Charles Bukowski, the best combination of poet and horse aficionado you can get. For those not familiar with Uncle Buk, here's a wee poem. (Special thanks to T. Anders Carson for initially turning me on to Bukowski btw..)

No. 6

I'll settle for the 6 horse
on a rainy afternoon
a paper cup of coffee
in my hand
a little way to go,
the wind twirling out
small wrens from
the upper grandstand roof,
the jocks coming out
for a middle race
silent
and the easy rain making
everything
at once
almost alike,
the horses at peace with
each other
before the drunken war
and I am under the grandstand
feeling for
cigarettes
settling for coffee,
then the horses walk by
taking their little men
away-
it is funeral and graceful
and glad
like the opening
of flowers.

"Hide Your Life Away" is as gritty as a the bottom of Tom Waits' shoes, with situations that are mildly improbable in the way one knows Star Trek ships have been vacuumed to a 'T' but one never actually sees them being cleaned. Little works the mechanics behind the story with artful ease, not showing her sleeves and not making the machinery creak.

The dialogue (and this book is dialogue heavy) is pert, funny, real, not over-the-brow high-and-mighty, and wry. Someone said of the book that it would make a great play, and with the spare backgrounds and flavourful dialogue, fun, crazy and yes even some achingly normal characters peppering it like cloves in a pot-pourri, I totally believe it would translate well to the stage.

Although the pace is not overly quick-moving, the book itself is. The pages flew under my fingertips as I tasted the greasy food, stale cigarettes and embedded roofing nails firsthand. That's what you get for escaping to the roof of one's shed with a bucket of KFC, a packet of Belmont Milds and a few loose nails to play with I guess.

Little casts her strings open and reels in the nets; she wraps the story neatly, pulling it all together to form a fantastic web that glitters and entices and ultimately delivers a satisfying conclusion.

You can pre-order "Hide Your Life Away" on Amazon.com, you can check out excerpts, see snippets of fun info on Carol's blog or join the Facebook Group "Hide Your Life Away by Carol Little". It is a refreshing work that is especially appealing in a time when news-bits, blogs, two penny articles per click and headlined magazine articles no one reads are the alternative. It stands out and is immediately appealing: the characters are kids in our time, the book is short but punchy and tastes as good as it sounds.

For a bit on Carol's scholarly background, read the fresh article in Carleton University's The Charlatan!

Forthcoming from Meanwhilestudos.com this September 23rd!
Editor: Lisa Cole
Cover photography: Shayli Vere
Cover model: Nathan Wiley
Graphics and layout: Troy Little.
Publisher: Meanwhile Studios; First edition
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0973997117
ISBN-13: 978-0973997118

Riding the pony

2008-03-18T21:41:00.018-04:00

Sometimes you are sitting at the bottom of your well, wondering how you are going to climb back into that broken bucket and haul yourself up the frayed rope. Sometimes you're peering down the well, rolling your last penny between your fingers and wondering if it's worth trying to make another useless wish...or should you just hang onto the penny.

Sometimes you're the chiquita who hauls up the bucket full of pennies and gets to go dancing like a madwomyn at the Lasses of Fairmont's Amazing Leprechaun Shindig! Those are the good days :-)

Today was busy as all get out. It was release day at work, and the publication I work on came out in magazine (ie: paper) form, as opposed to its monthly digital appearance. I got to run all over the three Stats buildings with our little cart, hand-delivering the shiny new Spring issue. Unfortunately, my distro list was 30% inaccurate, which was a tad annoying. Still, I got to see all kinds've neat places, from the bowels of the Main Bldg. to the 26th floor of the Coats Tower. Everyone was nice and helped to direct me where I needed to go.

When I got back to my wee cubicle, it was just in time to get my ass in to our weekly production meeting. Where, to my horror and dismay, our Editor-in-Chief pointed out not just one typo in my Minutes file from the last meeting, but TWO. And of course, the offending sentence included the name of our Division's Director. *le sigh*

It was kinda funny though. It read: "Runing..the Census..in a high income..blah blah de blah" So of course I got an image of our boss casting runes on a tablecloth with pot smoke everywhere, looking all bleary-eyed and grinning. It was supposed to be "Running", not Runing and "tight" not high. I blamed the problem on the fact that I didn't have my glasses at the time! Anyway, everyone had a good chuckle at my expense and I drew a doodle to commemorate my gaff.

The next thing I did was update the distro list, with people's FULL NAMES and up-to-date locations, so I wouldn't look like a knob three months from now as I circulate, at a loss, going "Where's P. Macdonald?" And getting the blank stare and: "Oh, he moved over to the Health Building 2 1/2 months ago!". Groan!!

Much work, but it was good. I would rather have stuff to do, than not enough. Or a nice mixture of stuff with downtime (so I can get a coffee in.)

After work, I eased my wee Echo out of the snow-bound parking lot and headed for my appointment with Dr. Bishop. I've been going there since Feb 12th and so far have lost about 18 lbs. Which is super. I thought that I would have had a worse time of it at my weigh-in today, after my jaunt to PEI and all the drinking, munching and carrying on that went on, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

You know, it almost never is. You imagine the absolute worst, looming over you with pointed teeth; you imagine: failing your interview, being laughed at, gaining 20 lbs., crashing your car. And what happens is usually nowhere near as bad. Nobody is really staring at you, you only gained 2 lbs., having a missing right-hand mirror means you don't scrape other cars as easily..you know ;-)

Blah! So there, my verbal diarrhea dribbles to an end.
Some cool and exciting things....
I found a link to the Charlatan Interview I gave last year, but never got a chance to see. Not too bad!
Upcoming... Capital Xtra reporter Lara Purvis has lined up an interview with yours truly. That should be lots of fun.
I am also working on a logo for QWO's (Queer Women Ottawa) revamped website, and also there will be a BI-WEEKLY comic strip appearing there. Brace yourselves!

Ok, I'll be quiet now. My bed is calling my name.
Cheers!
Suzanne.

Citizen article on Dr. Bishop about carbs and the like!
A video about LadyFest from Capital Xtra, with reporter Lara Purvis!

The Magic Cauldron online comic!

2008-03-02T14:30:00.006-05:00

If you haven't checked it out already, head on over to the Kunstpike Art Flog for links to my 24 Hour Comics Day effort, recently uploaded to the DragonHead Studio site! Wicked :-)))

NEWSFLASH! DragonHead Studio presents Westin Church's fabulous "Harry Hotdog in the Land of Linguini". Check out the delightful adventures of a talking hotdog. Really! From the 24 Hour Comics Day party that brought you "The Magic Cauldron".

Rattus Adorabilus

2008-02-07T09:37:00.000-05:00

Happy Chinese New Year!
Happy YEAR OF THE RAT.
Yes, I have to say that I am in my element (elephant?) For too long, I have had to endure the revulsion and petty put-downs of the anti-rat majority that surrounds me. Now I can spin around and say "It's the bluidy Year of the Bluidy Rat! Innit! So what're YOU goin' ta do aboot it? Yeh bluidy piece o' ... (rage rage in fake Scots accent)"*

Anyway, I've been a proponent of rat rights since I got turned onto them by a combination of a gfriend who LOVED rats, songs about rats (and mice JT's "One Brown Mouse") and Bryan Talbot's lovely, hardcore comic "The Tale of One Bad Rat" from Dark Horse Comics.

The differences between a wild animal, no matter what its ilk and its domestic brethren basically underline the differences that folk feel about rats. On the one hand you have the cutest, cuddliest most loving of animals, tucked into your sleeve or pocket, nipping chips right out of your fingers and chewing contentedly, delighted at their cleverness. On the other hand (the wild hand) you have a clever, resourceful, slippery rodent intent on the survival of itself and its progeny.

What's the diff between how a wild animal works at survival, and thus lives on the fringes of our world, and say the domestic creature that curls happily at our feet, eager for a bit of attention and a scratch behind the ears? Compare wild dogs with domestic ones; wild cats with their slacker cousins. Yes, wild rats with those that have been tamed.

(For comparison, I present WILD, DOMESTIC & BABY DOMESTIC animals of the canine, feline and rodent variety.)

Rats are smart, can learn their name (unlike many "pocket pets" of the hamster/ gerbil/ variety), learn tricks, are quite clean (groom themselves all the time), enjoy the company of people, especially if there aren't any friendly rats to hang out with and are affordable, easy to take care of and utterly satisfying as a pet. They can even be litter trained! (Traditionally, one puts out small pans of litter for them, but there's a video on Youtube of a pouched rat using a toilet!)
They have a horrible reputation because of the continued resourcefulness, and fight to survive that their wild ancestors and cousins possess. Rats, because of their intelligence and tenacity are very difficult to outwit, capture, poison and kill. They live alongside us because it is convenient for their survival to do so. Where else can you get food, warmth, cover and (relative) safety in which to raise your babies? If our fates were reversed and humankind lived in the walls, I'm sure we'd be much the same pest to our giant Rat Overlords. (Check out "Of Men and Monsters" by William Tenn for a feel of walking a mile in teeny tiny rat shoes...)

Anyway, I'm not going to change the opinion of the die-hard rat-hater, or genuine rodent-o-phobe. Especially if you're from a country where you're in direct competition with these guys for survival and they're wrecking your grain and giving you a hard time.

If, on the other hand, you hate rats "just cause" or "because of the tail", perhaps you can be swayed. Do some research; cruise the web. Check out how Gambian pouched rats are saving peoples' lives by helping with mine detection in war-torn countries (Excellent video about them being used in Mozambique.) Read "The tale of one bad rat". Read Robert Sullivan's "Rats". Open your mind to the possibility that a pet doesn't necessarily have to star as one of the good guys in cartoons to be a suitable pet for a child. I would bet money that more kids get savaged by gerbils than by pet rats. Seriously!
Check out the various ratteries near you and other pro-rat sites to read stories and see pictures of domestic rats. There is nothing cuter than a 4 week old rattie baby. They look like Hamtaros. Really. Baby rats look just like puppies. Except you don't have to walk them when they get bigger (unless you consider letting them explore your couch, walking :-)

At this point, you probably think I have exhausted my ratness. However, I have barely tickled the surface of this subject. (Most people probably left the building during my rant in brogue.) The next bit of the Blog deals with the interesting mythology of rats, with regard to the Chinese Year of the Rat and their position in the first house of the Astrological wheel.

..."Fable has it that all the animals were asked to report to the Emperor on Chinese New Year day. Only the first twelve to reach the palace were to be rewarded with a year named after them. Since then, each year has been represented by an animal with its own distinctive characteristic and fate...people born in each animal's year would have some of that animal's personality. Those born in rat years tend to be leaders, pioneers, and conquerors. They are charming, passionate, charismatic, practical and hardworking"...

Zodiac Location: 1st
Ruling hours : 11pm-1am
Direction: North
Season and month: Winter, December
Chinese Lunar Month For The Rat: December 7 to January 5
Gemstone: Garnet
Colours: Black, red, white
Lucky Number: 11
Polarity: Yang
Element: Water

Positive Traits: Meticulous, intelligent, shrewd, compassionate, charismatic, charming, ambitious, practical, industrious, honest, eloquent, versatile, familial, creative, hard-working, neat, organized, lovers of music, loving.
Negative Traits: Controlling, obstinate, resentful, little humour, manipulative, cruel, vengeful, power-driven, critical, possessive, stingy, bossy, fickle, defensive

Compatible with: Dragon, Monkey, Ox
So-So: Snake, Rat, Dog, Tiger
Incompatible: Rabbit, Rooster, Horse, Pig, Sheep

Year of the Rat Zodiac & Astrology for 2008.
Check out Wiki for more on fancy rats, as well as cute rat pictures. There's also a page on Gambian rats there too!
Fascinating page on rat biology & behavior, written and compiled by Dr. Anne Hanson.
Delightful video of rats fishing ice cubes from a glass, courtesy of Carole Nelson at Lil Ratscals Rattery.
American Fancy Rat & Mouse Association link.
Thanks Mary for letting me know about Google's cute Rat icon! :-)

* I blame the outrageous accent on reading a pile of Lee Kennedy's fantastic comics online this morning. Then reading more from The Girly Comic...
these things happen...

It's the Season For Romance

2008-02-06T18:29:00.000-05:00

What could be more romantic than a story of a slightly crazy girl and her very special...friend. Yes, "Ivy & Dummy" is the modern story for our age. Ivy is an innocent chiqua who finds Burris ("Dummy") on a park bench and decides to bring him home. The story of their adventures lives in the tiny black and white mini-comic I made, wayy back in 2000, and it also lives in the show that I was working on with Decode Entertainment a couple of years ago.

It's all "still in the works", but for your viewing pleasure, Geoff Marshall, the fellow at Chromacide who directed and provided the flash animation for the pilot, kindly posted it on his 2006 reel page. Enjoy!

See the short.
Order a mini-comic. (I need a minimum number of requests before I'll reprint the original mini!)
Not convinced? Read the fabulous review at Broken Pencil!
Go check out Decode Entertainment. Send them an email asking when "Ivy & Dummy" will be broadcast on TV??
Check out Geoff Marshall at Chromacide.
Email Geoff and give him a big thumbs up for all that hard work. Maybe we'll join forces again. Ya never know.

"Ivy & Dummy" is (c) 2008 Suzanne Marsden & Decode Entertainment Inc.

Zurg

2008-01-29T22:01:00.000-05:00

Ok, my computer is possessed at work by infernal gremlins! That is the only thing I can think of to account for the bizarre behavior of programs that seem to work perfectly fine on my supervisor's computer. Very strange indeed. Hopefully our lovely IT lady can beat some manners into the little so-n'-sos...

Thanks for everyone who showed interest in my pal Leah's furniture. We have sold the EQ3 table! Yay! The gorgeous chair and ottoman are still up for grabs through. And, at an affordable $300.00, you can't go wrong. Solid beech wood (not IKEA) and faux suede make it super comfy and relaxing. You knowww you want it ;-)) Drop me a line and let me know; I'll hook you up!

What else? I have been cobbling a site together for Chiqua Designs! Check it out and be wowed :-) Soon you'll be able to order one-of-a-kind, hand made jewelery pieces directly from Chiqua and be the envy of everyone in your neighbourhood! Trust me, you WILL!

The amazing bracelet shown above is one of Leah's pieces from Chiqua Designs that she made for my birthday last year. It is rose quartz, with a Goddess figure and an antique locket. Lovely, and unique. I've never seen anyone else with anything like it (and it fits!)

What else? Duh... Tuesdays don't seem to be agreeing with me. I spent most of today alseep, wavering from doing tables in Pagemaker for work to checking my Scrabulous tournament results on Facebook. I'm getting my ass handed to me (again) by Mr. Hemming *sigh*, but I gave a good ass-handing-back myself to another dude..so it's good. We'll see. Hopefully the tourney will come to a close before Hasbro rolls the whole thing up on us.

Must head for sleep... will write later when I have more fun things to report.
Go check out Chiqua!
Cheers
Suzanne.

DEAD PERSON: [singing] I feel happy. I feel happy.

2008-01-26T16:48:00.000-05:00

If you're wondering what THAT'S all about (title), then go on over to this Holy Grail site and enjoy Scene 2 all over again :-) I was initially going to name this post "I'm Not Dead", and then I was trying to remember how that scene went.. and that adding "You're not fooling anyone, you know" wouldn't make any sense. Oh well...damned Pythonophiles anyway :-P
The picture is of the Health building at Tunney's Pasture, taken from the 9th floor of the JT Bldg. No, it's not my office, but I often sit in the dedicated Internet office that this window fronts. It's no one's office. Anyone can go in there when they start going blind from gazing at their computer and want to look out the window. Well, actually they go in there and look at ANOTHER computer. I'm probably the only one that actually uses the window (that is, when I'm not updating my Scrabble games on Facebook...)

So, yes, the rumours of my death haven't been exaggerated. I returned to work Nov 26th... right around when I last posted to this Blog. Coincidence? I don't think so... I haven't stopped writing, just stopped posting (again, sorry.) I finished the NaNoWriMo in November, topping out at 50,400 words or so. I've been writing on completing that project on and off. I've also spent some time working on completing my 3-Day Novel Contest Entry and trying to turn it into an actual book. (The results are in, and sadly neither Carol L. nor I were winners. Oh well!)

The real victory was the completion of the work, and the submission of said work, not necessarily walking away with a gigantic prize. (Although I do like gigantic prizes.) It was also excellent practice to learn the rote of organization and time management. These two particular creatures are my nemeses (nemesesessss :-) Although a Virgo by birth, I am not naturally an organizational genius. I do it if I have to. And it has to be a life-or-death situation (like sorting out tax stuff. And even then, my Mom {another Virgo} had to help me out!)

In any case, I'm slowly being shoe-horned into a mold that is not really my natural environment. Organization, punctuality, coherence... Yeah yeah. All of it makes working in my new Division a little easier. Working in publications and not data capture makes it A LOT easier. I'm doing stuff I moderately enjoy, with a crew that respects me and appreciates what I do. Go figure! After designing the logo and the poster for the 20th anniversary of the publication we produce, I was even given a gift and a thank you card. I can't recall ever getting anything like that at a previous job. Ever!

So, yeah; it grates a bit, but the fit is loosening as I wear it. Like my shoes, it takes time to get comfortable in something new, especially a job. What really makes the difference is that I am splitting my time better between the 7:30 am - 3:30 pm work and my real work. I'm still drawing, writing, doing the things I love. If you can't do the things you love... what the hell are you doing?

I'm finding ways to keep happy: Tai Chi, Belly dancing, doing WW again and falling into the beautiful eyes of a lovely woman. I'm crazy crazy again, and it feels like hot and cold running water: ice and lava bursting across the planes of my skin. I write Haikus, I sip Bridgehead coffee, I fall deeper and deeper into the crevasses of her warmth and the glow of her smile. It is beautiful, and painful; a rush of wind and the sweet crystal silence of a winter wood. Who knows how it will all unravel. In the meantime, it is a wonderful ache that keeps it all rolling forward.

This is her chair, ottoman and table.
The table has been sold, but the chair and ottoman are still up for grabs: $300 negotiable :-) Send me an offer, and this lovely stuff could be yours. The chair and ottoman were newly purchased for about $700 a couple of years ago. I've tried them and they are in prime shape and super comfy. Check out the listing on Facebook!

Hanging in there by the skin of teeth and fingers.
I shall post more...serious :-)
Suz.

Chug Chug Chug

2007-11-20T17:09:00.000-05:00

This is the sound of the engine running out of steam, only partway up the hill. How did that damned story go? I forget.... Sometimes thinking that you can ain't enough. You just have to KNOW it in your gut. I talked with Anders today and said, I've had block for 3 days man, 3 days! I don't know if I can do this..I'm at 32,000 words and I only have 10 days left.." And Anders said "Of course you'll make it." And that was that. Now I'm at 38,000 words, sailing right along with some other, underused characters that I enjoyed introducing way back on November 6th or something and they are carrying their part of the story quite happily.

To see how I'm doing, you can check the Official NaNoWriMo link. There's a Facebook dealie that updates my word count on my status, but I don't think I can link it here. I have captured today's pic of my progress for you to admire though, so that's fun.

It is dismal and grey outside, but the cats enjoyed gamboling around chasing leaves. They were happy to get in though, as it's a trifle cold. This time next week I'll be ensconced in my new Joe Job at Stats once more. It is surreal to me that I'm returning. Hopefully I can crank out another 12,000 words before going back so I won't fail the NaNoWriMo :-P

My story shows absolutely no intention of coming to an end neatly at the 50,000 word mark. It's funny, looking back at my "Terra del Meurto" story, when I'd reached 31,000 words over the Labour Day Weekend, that was it. It was done. I was left with the truncated bits of 3-Day novel in my lap, begging to be re-cut, rewritten and finished. I'm not even going to look at that until I finish this. And this has taken on a wondrous life of its own. It is a marvel, living and breathing on the page. The characters are fun and I don't have a clue what they'll do. I've set them up like pins and I keep throwing a ball. Sometimes I miss, sometimes I strike, sometimes the lane extends the length of two football fields. Go figure.

The joy is that barring the quote I've just added (I'm sure Adams would've appreciated the irony!) deadlines seem to be the fuel, fire and combustion I need to keep going. I forget where I heard this quote from ... Robert Genn? That: "A Goal without a deadline is a wish." Fantastic. The more goals/ challenges I have provided for myself, the more I have produced and I am delighted. It is exhausting, exhilarating and thoroughly satisfying work in which to be involved.

I'm hoping the joy and pulse of creativity can keep me sane as I return to the 9-5 drudgery of our modern life. If not, I'll try holding off the crashing and burning until the debts have been cleared up at least.

Cheers!
Suzanne.

PS--thoroughly enjoying reading "Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain; 1960's hardcover edition with illustrations and unabridged. Wonderful language!

Second Week

2007-11-08T15:26:00.001-05:00

Apparently according to the NaNoWriMo website, it's the official beginning of Week II of the challenge. My stats are a little over 14,000 words, so that's good. Now all I need is a plot..haha! No seriously, things are going ok. I've introduced my main character, set her in her setting and have peopled her environs with a few cool characters to help her on her way. I have a vague idea of where I want this to go, but so far I'm reliving my old University days. That's fine, I'm sure it'll all work out in the end (I hope.)

Now, I must go and get me some shoes. My sneakers accrued a hole. Which is not good, not when I start my new job in less than three weeks.

More to come. And to all of those who struggle under the burden (or blessing) of creativity... good luck!
Cheers
Suzanne.

PS--If you have the means, get your butt PEI bound for November 9th! It's the official launch of "Chiaroscuro" by Troy Little and IDW Publishing. It should be a fun time. I am very disappointed that I can't attend... :-(

Yes it's that time of the year

2007-11-06T17:34:00.001-05:00

I have decided that 2007 is my year for CHALLENGES. In keeping with my self-imposed madness, I signed up for National Novel Writing Month. For more info on what that's all about, please feel free to follow the links.

This year, I challenged myself to complete a french course, which I managed to do. I took up the challenge of getting back into animation, thanks to Nick Cross, that came true as well. I challenged myself to leave my steady job and jump into the well of creativity, and all wise-words and fear be damned! That sorta worked out... I challenged the old self to get in the car and drive East on my lonesome. That was some fun. Probably would be more fun with company, but whatcha gonna do?

The fall's challenges have been in a very creative vein! Labour Day weekend was the 3-Day Novel Contest. Carol Little helped inspire me to enter that (you can check out an awesome article about her and the challenge online in PEI's Guardian!) I completed a 131 pg. novel called "Terra Del Meurta", which as Clay later pointed out reads more like an outline for a really BIG novel :-) I think a rewrite or 3 may be in order. But the cool thing is; I got it done! Hurray Sue :-)

Onto the rest of the challenges.... October 20th dawned beautiful and sunny; the 24 Hour Comics Day had arrived. Five brave souls threw themselves into the fray (Keith Savage, Westin Church, Meaghan Quinn, Suzanne Marsden & Clayton Jacobs) and three came out, including moi! I will be posting info on that all on its own, cause I want to scan in some pics too.

And, because I haven't had enough of grueling creative exercises, I signed up for NaNoWriMo. Basically, you have 30 days to write a novel of 50,000 words (or more.) It's day 6 and I'm clocking in around 9296 words...which ain't too bad. I feel good; my fingers are a little annoyed with me (whaaat? You're doing Data Entry? Whaat?)

Finally, my biggest challenge to date...
Return to Statistics Canada. How is that going to be? Don't know... It is in a completely different Division than I was before, doing work as a Publication Assistant. So--it might even be fun? Mm, you can tell I generally see things in the glass-is-half-full light, right? ;-)

So...there will be more. Sorry for the long hiatus, and thanks for continuing to check in to see if I'm still alive and kickin'. Yeap! Still alive... Still kickin'...

Cheers!
Suzanne.

Git your game on!!

2007-10-16T17:22:00.000-04:00

I looked at the image above on my Facebook profile and it hit home. There are only THREE DAYS AND EIGHTEEN HOURS left until the exciting 24 Hour Comics Day Event at my place (DragonHead Studio.)

So, email me, join the Facebook Group and request to be added to the Event and come out to enjoy the fun, horrifying, exciting, excruciating challenge. There will be home-made poppycock. Seriously :-)

Suzanne.

613-836-7821
sue.clay@rogers.com

Official Press Release!

2007-10-13T12:04:00.000-04:00

For immediate release
For further info about the local event, contact Suzanne Marsden at 613-836-7821. For further info about 24 Hour Comics Day, contact Nat Gertler, nat@24hourcomics.com, (805) 499-4091

Making Comics Around-the-Clock and Around-the-World – Kanata, ON included
Cartoonists Gather At DragonHead Studio For 24 Hour Comics Day

(Kanata) To many people, comics are the hip type of reading material. To some, they’re a great form of artistic expression. But come October 20th, people will treat comics as a challenge, and a tough one at that. That’s the day when local cartoonists will gather at DragonHead Studio to join with professional and amateur comics creators worldwide in celebrating 24 Hour Comics Day, a marathon festival of cartooning.
The cartoonist’s goal on the annual 24 Hour Comics Day is easy to explain, difficult to achieve. Each wants to turn 24 blank pieces of paper into a finished comic book in 24 hours. This “24 hour comics challenge” means achieving what might normally be months of work in a single (generally sleepless) day. During last year’s event, more than 1200 cartoonists gathered at event locations in 17 countries, working side-by-side while sharing energy, snacks, and camaraderie. While not everyone successfully completed 24 pages, among them they crafted more than 15,000 pages of comics.
"The participants are a mix of first-time comics creators, seasoned amateurs, and established professionals," explains Suzanne Marsden, Founder of DragonHead Studio. "They’re spending 24 hours trying something different. Even people who have made a lot of comics find new creative techniques and inner resources when facing this bizarre deadline. When you can’t spend endless time reworking and rethinking, you learn to create on impulse, and some amazing stuff can result.”
The Comic Book Shoppe carries several books featuring 24 hour comics stories, including one edited by Scott McCloud, the leading comics theoretician who invented the challenge. McCloud had leveled the challenge at Steve Bissette, a fellow cartoonist who sketched quickly but created finished comic work notoriously slowly. The energetic and emotionally raw work that Bissette created is in McCloud’s book 24 Hour Comics, as are 24 hour comic attempts by Stardust writer Neil Gaiman and eight more. Other books feature stories drawn during each of the past three years 24 Hour Comics Days.
"We’re gearing up to provide food and drink for a batch of creatively-driven, fun-loving cartoonists," says Marsden, "and even people who don’t want to make comics themselves can do their part. Stop by the studio, see the creative effort in action, show the cartoonists your support. THE STUDIO WILL BE OPEN TO VISITORS AND SUPPORTERS FOR THE FULL TWENTY-FOUR HOURS!”
The full description of the 24 hour comics challenge is available at the 24HourComics.com website. Cartoonists who want to participate should call DragonHead Studio at 613-836-7821 to reserve a spot, as space is limited and planning needs to be done. No talent is required, just enthusiasm, a willingness to put in the effort, and someone to drive you home (driving after 24 consecutive hours of creative effort is not a good idea). DragonHead Studio is also looking for local restaurants and other vendors to help sponsor the event by providing food to keep the cartoonists going.

DragonHead Studio is an independent comic publishing house, animation and cartoon studio. Located at 37 Ballantrae Way, Kanata, ON K2L 1N3, DragonHead Studio publishes “aBraxIa”, “Ivy & Dummy” and provides creative services to a number of Canadian studios.
24 HOUR COMICS DAY is an international festival of cartooning. Founded in 2004 by comics writer/publisher Nat Gertler, the festival has experienced rapid growth. More information can be found at 24HourComics.com

Yes, we're online... and there is still time to sign up!

2007-10-07T11:54:00.000-04:00

Nat Gertler sent me a notice regarding the 24 Hour Comics Day Event, stating that the International start time list had been completed. The list includes DragonHead Studio's event, the ONLY host near the Nation's Capital (the next one out is The Artel in Kingston, then Hairy Tarantula West in Toronto!) This comprises 82 Events scheduled in 15 countries, 29 US states and 3 Canadian provinces! Check out the map here :-D

With the event less than two weeks away, folks must be getting excited and stoked for the exhausting, illuminating and one-of-a-kind experience ONLY this kind've gathering can evoke. I know that I am! And it is not too late to take part. Simply contact me with your interest and questions, or sign on to the Facebook group and request to be included on the event list. You will receive maps, and can participate in a carpool or shuttle bus to DragonHead Studio's cozy locale in Urban Kanata.

Ample drawing, painting & comic creating materials will be provided, along with a selection of caffeinated beverages ;-) and foods. We do support vegetarian-friendly food; just let us know your needs. We have a large collection of animals living with us, so prepare your system with anti-allergy medication (if you need it.) DragonHead has a secure area if you wish to bring a tent and camp. We also will be providing up to eight places for people to sleep, should they require napping during the event, or cannot complete their comic projects and must sleep.

You have nothin' to lose by giving this a try! You will discover creative depths in your heart you didn't know existed! If you are experiencing artist's or writer's block, this event will kick the hell out of it. You will amaze yourself by what bubbles up in the middle of the night... Go for it!

To get a feel for what others have experienced during previous events, check out YouTube. There are tons of clips showing comic artists and even a couple of interviews with the inventor of the 24 Hour Comic, Scott McCloud!

Contact me via my website, The 24 Hour Comic Book Day at DragonHead Studio Group on Facebook, or by calling 613-323-3377 and leaving a detailed voice message.

Cheers and all best
Suzanne.

PS--Happy Thanksgiving!
PPS -- For detailed information regarding the 24 Hour Comic and what it is exactly, refer to Scott McCloud's web page. Here he explains what it is, how he came up with it and shows copious pages of completed 24 Hour Comics. Inspiring!
PPPS -- Here's a funny image detailing ways to keep awake while doing the 24 HCD.

Happy Guinness Day

2007-09-24T15:27:00.001-04:00

Happy Guinness Day! It's Arthur Guinness' birthday, so to celebrate, folks world wide are sucking back the delicious brew. Close your eyes, drink your Guinness, and imagine John Mann and Spirit of the West singing this traditional ballad:

General Guinness

You've heard of General Wellington
Who won at Waterloo,
But there's a good old Irishman
I'll introduce to you
He comes from dear old Dublin
He's a man we all applaud
For he always finds a corkscrew
Far more hardy than a sword.
He's good old General Guinness
He's a soldier strong and stout
Found on every battlefront
He can't be done without
His noble name has worldwide fame
Preserved through hearty cheers
Hurrah for General Guinness
And the Dublin Boozileers!

This hale and hearty warrior
Is worshipped in the ranks,
For he does his task inside a cask
As well as in the tanks.
He's borne the brunt on every front,
North, South, East and West,
And he wears about ten thousand canteen
Medals on his chest.
He's good old General Guinness.
He's won the world's applause.
It was he who kept our spirits up
In the midst of all the wars.
Who was the first to flirt with
Mademoiselle from Armentiers?
Why good old General Guinness
Of the Dublin Boozileers.

All over bonny Scotland, too,
The General is seen.
They've given him the freedom
Of the town of Aberdeen.
From Inverness to Galloshiles,
They keep him warm at night
And they love to gather round him,
Auuuch! On every moonlit night.
He's good old General Guinness
He's as good as Scottish broth.
He's the one who turned the Firth of Forth
Into the Firth of Froth
All Scotsmen dance the highland fling
And shout when he appears
Hurrah for General Guinness
And the Dublin Boozileers!

(Can be found on the album "Old Material")

Take the plunge

2007-09-17T14:26:00.000-04:00

You know you want to.

You've been aching, your fingers vibrating with the creative need to DRAW. But, you've put it off. Your boring job saps all your strength. Or even your moderately not-so-boring job takes up so much of your energy, when you get home (or hell, if you're working from home) you just don't have it in you to.. draw..

Scott McCloud came up with a nifty device over a decade ago (August 31st, 1990), called The Dare. In this Dare, he challenged a compatriot, Steve Bissette, to draw for 24 hours straight, one page an hour, until by the time he was done, this fella would have a complete comic, written, penciled and inked in his hands. That's all it took. From that wonderful, inspired idea, the 24-Hour Comic has spread like fruit flies on a squishy mango, in other words, FAST and with much sucking of tasty, sticky juice! To check out more information on The Dare and to read McCloud's first 24-hour comic, check ze links!

No writer or artist's block can withstand the energy or will that exists in the sweat of someone working on a project for 24 hours straight. Take it from someone who has braved that valley of darkness three times and come out alive... blind, exhausted, hallucinating, but alive! Below, are panels from my first attempts: "Good Medicine/ Bad Medicine", "The Wyrm's Treasure" and "SnowBlonde" (you can read the last two in their entirety on my website, thanks to the continuing web genius of Carol Busato.)

"Good Medicine/ Bad Medicine"

"The Wyrm's Treasure"

"SnowBlonde"

If you're interested in reading more 24-hour comics, you can order them online from Amazon, or via the 24-Hour Comics Day site which has tons of info on the event! You can also order two of Troy Little's 24-hour comics directly from him at Meanwhile Studios ("Smoked Fish" and "Inanimation".)

Come October 20th, 2007, the entire world will host hundreds of mad, creative folks in various locales, drawing maniacally away and creating something from nuthin'! I was interested in joining the fun, but realized it would come very close to overlapping my business trip to Abbey Hill Design in Callander (near North Bay.) I heard that Hairy Tarantula in Toronto was going to host it, but thought the additional drive and then no sleep, then driving HOME would probably kill me. I looked for something closer to Ottawa and realized there was nothing.

NOTHING.

No 24-Hour Comics Day event in ANY Nation's Capital comic book stores to encourage artists to create masterpieces on trestle tables, between multicoloured rows of comics. No fervent prophets of art and story, drawing throngs of the interested public through the doors to bring lucre to the tills. No store was signed up to host. So I thought to myself, "Self," (sfx of Arlo Guthrie talking) "Yup?" "Why dontcha host an event yerself?" "Sounds like a great idea. Then I won't end up in flames somewhere near Belleville on the way home from the stint in TO!" "Sounds like a plan." "AND I would get to see all of my comic and animation buddies whom I haven't seen in a donkey's year." "Is that an African or European donkey?"

And so on.

The 24-Hour Comics Day site has wonderful resources (like this FAQ) for hosting the DAY and I have downloaded lots of 'em. DragonHead Studio is officially on the boards at their site, and the fun starts at noon, October 20th, 2007 at yours truly. There is a Facebook Group set up for it, as well as an "Event" that you can request an invitation to.

As it stands, I have a possibility of 7 people turning up, which looks great! There is room for 5 -7 more, so if you are in the Ottawa/ Kanata area and you're keen to draw and you'd like to play with my animals and sit on my deck sipping Rev or what-have-you, drop me a line!

You know you want to.
That leetle voice you spend all day ignoring and the entire drive home from your job trying to feint left and right as its siren susurrus pleading whisper darts from ear to ear... Listen to it. Next time you're about to crank "Sam's Town", take a minute to really listen to what the Killers are saying; don't just let the sound wash over you.

"...I've got this energy beneath my feet
like something underground's gonna come up and carry me,
I've got this sentimental heart that beats
but I don't really mind that it's starting to get to me now..."

Call, write, email (blackcomet666@yahoo.ca) or sign up on the Facebook Group and pester me. You have 'til October 6th to get your name in! It's going to be fun!

Cheers,
Suzanne.

Troy Little CHIAROSCURO Interview!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-09-16T15:49:00.000-04:00

Please proceed HERE to check out Troy Little on national television in Canada, courtesy of the CBC, Compass & YouTube.

For a written version of the interview, check this out.

Please be sure to pre-order "Chiaroscuro" from your favourite comic or book stores. The release date is coming up in October (15th), so don't miss out! Information on preordering can be fond on Troy's site here. Or hit up Amazon and pre-order online.

Unaware of distant thrashings

2007-09-11T00:53:00.001-04:00

(Above, a mock-up of me with Frank Frazetta; ha! Probably the closest I'll get to seeing him for real ;-)

I had the happy chanced stumble to find a great comic resource: "The Drawing Board" via Mick Harrison's Blog. Thanks Mick! From there I have found great Classifieds (ads that actually entice pencilers, inkers and the like with MONEY! Wow :-) For those of you who don't know.. many sites have comic classifieds that go something like this:

"...I am actively seeking dedicated comics artists/co-creators with whom to work in developing original comics properties to pitch (at least five to eight pages of finished art)... I am looking for talented artists to help in bringing these works to their two-dimensional life. Only artists with a firm grasp of sequential comic art need respond... [Insert bunch of junk to indicate the dude(tte) has some kind've credentials)
...Work is currently non-pay, but fair percentages for the amount of work done will be negotiated once a project is picked up by a publisher...."
BLAH BLAH BLAH.

When I got to High School at the ripe age of 14, I looked at my ink-stained hands and said "No More Freebies!" And I stood by it. (OK, barring: relatives, fund-raisers and blood-brethren (& sistren), I don't draw for free. Why should you? Why should you advertise to the world that your work is worthless? I remember my 1st year teacher at Algonquin College, Peter Adamakos, going on at length about that in one of his lectures. I don't recall it in its entirety, but basically it had to do with: Pride, not just in yourself, but in your work, and belief in the validity (and saleability) of your work.

So anyway, it was refreshing to find a professional site that had classified ads for comic artists that offer dough for art. Cool :-) Since it was 1am, and for some reason I subconsciously believed that sleep was STILL for the weak, I thought I'd poke around and see what trouble I could get into there. And I found trouble--of course! A bit of a preamble to this story though, before I get to "ze meat"

When I was growing up, the burg I lived in had a population of maybe 800 (or so.) Now I was only about 20 km away from a major urban centre, so I didn't get the "living in a tiny village" syndrome that sends many people running for big cities, to get away from ALL THE NEIGHBOURS KNOWING EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU... ALL THE TIME!

But, it was a small enough town that the grocery store (the only place to buy stuff at the time) carried a wee spinner rack of comics and a spot with magazines off to the side. This was where you would find the TWO copies of Heavy Metal that would come in irregularly. Some reprobate bought one of those Heavy Metals, and I, at the tender age of 16 or so, bought the other one. It was like buying condoms or cigarettes or something. I'd have to stand in the checkout line, trying to hide my mag under a bag of chips or whatever, and the Octogenarian ringing it through would take a good gander at the stark(ish) naked space-girl on the front cover and wonder about me.

But! Back to the story.

Between the covers of those Heavy Metal comics was a lot of crap. But, there was also an amazing amount of beautiful artwork (like Findley's "Tex Arcana") which helped inspire me to draw, tell stories, get unladylike thoughts zipping around in my fertile teenager's head and such. Included in the long list of inspirational artists that I was exposed to through the mag is the legendary Frank Frazetta. (I mention Mr. Frazetta, because eventually this gets back to how I opened the Blog today.)

I fell in love with Frazetta's work the way you fall into a swimming pool filled to the brim with Jello. Hard, fast, covered in slime and no option to rise to the surface, save to devour everything around you and try not to think what it's made of. I kept my eyes peeled for Frazetta's work and accumulated a small stack of thin paperback art books, which have sadly fallen apart, a mere 20 years later... Mostly to the fact that I went through them over, and over and over again. (Below is "Conan the Avenger" - the cover painting to the first of those art books I had.)
Unlike a lot of people who got turned onto Frank Frazetta's work, it wasn't via the actual Conan the Barbarian paperback books. It was through prints, books, reproduced illustrations, the Ralph Bakshi movie "Fire & Ice", and also the deep respect and admiration of my Dad for the work and the artist. My Dad looked at the Frazetta works, nodded his head and said "This is really great stuff."

Just Sunday, I was visiting Keith's place and we were having a nice palaver over Pad Thai, drinks, convo, Gran Turismo and stuff, when he revealed, like a Magician pulling a dove out of thin air, that he had a movie for Clay & I to watch.
"What is it?" I demanded about a billion times.
"Wait and see!"

It was "Painting with Fire", which is a documentary/ interview/ reminiscence and adulatory piece about Frank Frazetta. I really enjoyed it. I love seeing how artists work. I especially love to see their studios. When I get into an artist, like most "fans" I want to know everything about them and understand where they draw their inspiration, how they work, how they think.

It was delightful seeing the early photos of Frank, hear the story of how he built his career. Realize that even the greats can be amazing procrastinators (putting off work for a whole month, only to burn in a creative frenzy for 8-15 hours to get a piece done for deadline!) It was cool seeing his closet chock full of cameras (I piped up: "Now I don't feel so bad!" --I too have a camera fetish.) It was inspiring, and made me want to draw like crazy (which of course was the effect that Keith had anticipated.) We sat around and drew for a few hours and I was happy as a clam.

Anyway, back to The Drawing Board, poking around in Forums and realizing stuff is happening. Now, you know where I stand on the matter of Frank Frazetta. He isn't God, but he is a hell of a talented painter. Apparently there is a real fooferah between him and another artist, called Mike Hoffman. Up 'til now, I think I'd only seen his work around --maybe in Heavy Metal? Maybe in PinUps? Or magazines? I was unaware of the intense animosity happening between Frazetta & Hoffman.

I was browsing and saw a Forum topic called "Thirteen Reasons Why I'm Better Than Frazetta". Of course I had to look. I mean; c'mon! A link within the Forum lead to Hoffman's website (which I'll post here.) The vitriol and anti-Frazetta garbage that was fountaining out was astonishing. Hoffman's ANTI-FRAZETTA-FAN rage was also surprising (well, I suppose it shouldn't be that surprising really.) But, accusations aside, aren't these two professional painters in the same genre? Where does this rage, petty in-fighting, obvious jealousy sprout from?

One of the fellows (Sirspamdalot) on the Forum at The Drawing Board said: "...I can't help but think of Ash being attacked by his own hand in Evil Dead 2..."
A Hoffman alongside a Frazetta.

One of the Forum posters (visual myriad) puts it perfectly: "...on the artistic side, i think his artwork is a very pale imitation of Frazetta's work. Hoffman rips so many of Frank's artistic touches, but isn't able to use them intuitively, so his work lacks the life and energy that makes Frank Frazetta's work so timeless." - Daniel

I'm not going to waste a huge amount of time belabouring it, but after scanning through Hoffman's page, I had to write something. He's throwing accusations around like smoke bombs at a ninja convention... Yeah, some of them are true, I'm not Frazetta's publicist, so I can't put out a press release or whatever regarding the "Swipes" Hoffman accuses him of. I've watched "Painting with Fire" and yes, Frank says quite a bit of high handed things. But, my G*d man, he's 79; give him a break! If you get to 79 and every artist with two thumbs and a can of paint is killing themselves to paint like you, yes, you're allowed to refer to yourself as a "Legend".

Anyway, I'll hook up all the links, and folks can sort out for themselves what they think. All I know is that I would give a lot to have an original Frazetta hanging in the old pink house, and wouldn't give anything for a Hoffman. There, now I can be counted amongst the "intellectual dust mouse" Frazetta fans as well. Just an aside--I hopped on over to eBay following a Hoffman link and he's selling original "Death Dealer Sketches". Who's swiping what? ;-)

Cheers,
Suzanne.

If you love me, you'll buy my stuff

2007-09-07T11:43:00.000-04:00

How often have we heard that familiar phrase??
FLOG YOU MONKEYS! Anyway, for fun, I did a photo collage of all the pics I have posted recently...and, for your enjoyment, they are for sale in Poster Form at Cafe Press! For the mere cost of a large all dressed pizza, from a lower end pizza place, you can own a REAL chunk o' Marsden memorabilia! Order now from my Cafe Press shop!

I'll put up a few more nonsensical things there as I go along. But for now, enjoy the moving surrealism of pinning up multiple images of ME in your basement, rec-room or even kitchen. Watch as I sweat and curse, watch as the minutes tick by. Heck, you'll even have additional fun collectible pics of ARLO, CLAYTON, a GIANT PRAYING MANTIS, a MANUSCRIPT! Collect 'em all!

That's it, I'm spent.
Cheers
Suzanne.