MEDICAL UPDATE BUN TOONS! YAY!

Has it only been another year and a half? Time flies when you’re desperately ill.

Obviously, there’s plenty more to say about this subject, but for right now, I’m focused on getting back to work again, after a year and a half. I’m incredibly lucky to have editors willing to let this cancer free bunny back into the comics after my lazy, lazy time off. Check out my pages in the newest Miracleman #0, and some upcoming work in Gotham City I probably can’t give more details about yet. It’s good to be back to healthy, and I mean it when I say GET TESTED and STAY ALIVE. I darn well nearly didn’t.

TY THE GUY (not yet) OUT!

It feels like barely three years has gone by…

Hey folks.

Long time, no rabbit.

Been busy.

But I’ve had some spare time recently…because, well…..

So, I’m going to be having the fuzzy, floppy-eared, FUN kind of Cancer. I’ve decided.

I’m not looking for sympathy — my experience of chemo and radiation (so far) has been quite tolerable — and I’m fairly confident I’m coming out the other side of this, alive and hopping, later this year. But I wanted folks informed, so they don’t wonder why I got SUPER-lazy this year, and just stopped drawing Batman Adventures Continue (and why I missed a couple of deadlines late last year too!).

Special shout out to Andrew and Monica, who had to take up my slack when I just couldn’t draw for days at a time, and for Paul and Alan who wrote such wonderful scripts that I pulled myself out of bed and drew them anyway.

This ain’t the last of me playing in Gotham City, I promise….but for a while, I get to be a fan just like everybody else. I have to have SOMETHING to read while they hose down the linear accelerator.

Ty the Guy OUT! (for a brief while, then I’m back.)

If you missed any of these “Batman” comics I’m talking about, then Hoo-Boy-Howdy, are you in for a treat. There’s already a bunch of ’em I got done before the tumor fairy came and got me. Ask for ’em by name!

Another one bites the Bun Toon.

I have no muzzle, but I must scream.

There was a quote on that Harlan poster:  “I am a blatant elitist.  Five or ten percent of the population move society forward and the rest are drones.  Anyone who can’t see that is a damned fool.”

Harlan was a pissed off young man, then an angry middle aged man, and probably an ornery old man.  He was also an astounding writer, and a major inspiration to me in my career and life.

I think I was dickish to him as a way of joining in his merry dance of aggressive energy and constant scorn.  But instead of spotting a kindred soul, he simply didn’t much like me.

But I loved him like crazy.  And I take back all the dickishness.

Ty the Guy OUT!

There’s so, so many great Harlan short stories and screenplays.  Of course there’s CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER, and there’s REPENT HARLEQUIN, SAID THE TICK-TOCK MAN, and there’s DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND, and SOLDIER, and every single essay he wrote for Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine.

But if I had to bring it down to one story, it’s JEFTY IS FIVE.  This is a heartwrenching fantasy story that I’ve only ever found in one place:  This issue of F&SF–

I can’t exactly tell you guys to run out and get a copy of a forty year old magazine, long out of print.

But run out and get a copy of something.  Star Trek, the Outer Limits, hell, even BOY and his DOG.  Something with Harlan’s name on it that he didn’t sue the publisher or producer.  (He did that a lot…but he was always right.)

I have a pile of Ellison books on my shelf I recently found in a used bookstore, and since I’ve known Harlan was ill, I’ve avoided reading them, as I didn’t want to be in the middle of one when he passed away.

I’ll be reading them now.  I’ll be reading Harlan Ellison for the rest of my life.

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For the last Bun Toon, another tribute to a lost legend, click the cat above.

 

Bun Toons.

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Isis has shown up in the BUN TOON a few times over the years….here’s one of them from 2013.

Very tough week around my house.

Ty the Guy OUT.

 

Click the rabbit above for the last BUN TOON.

Silly Pointless Bun Toons! YAY!

In these troubled times, there is no greater message than pointlessness.

Bunny attendance has been spotty, but he remains your humble hopping reporter of reality….here with another Honest-To-God-True-Life-Adventure!

Of course, I realise tomorrow is Memorial Day for my neighbours to the South, and not Weasel Day.  But few Americans are living on BRONSON TIME!

More’s the pity.

Ty the Guy OUT!

Just in case you’re into La Jour Des Weasels, there’s a comic book for you.

So many Weasels

Again, with weasels…

Are we not men?  We are WEASELS!

and of course, comic-dom’s most famous weasel….

What is it with the Marvelous Mustelidae that so catches the imagination of us all?

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For the most recent (of the recently rare) Bun Toons, click the singing pastry above.

Very Late Bun Toons! YAY!

Hoppy Birthday to me.

Wow.  This isn’t just late, it’s DAYS late.

We had a blackout on the weekend, and I couldn’t get this Bun Toon up on Free Comic Book Day as I had planned….and then the blackout fried my computer, and I couldn’t get to the password that allowed me to post on my blog.

Oy, such a mess.

So here’s the Bun Toon.  Half a week too late to be topical.  But seriously, what’s happened in the last few days worth talking about?

FCBD is our version of Christmas, only we get to do ALL the giving…hoo-hah!

I don’t know about you folks, but even four days later, I haven’t finished all the fantastic FCBD issues I picked up! (I had a special deal where I got one of each, and that’s about thirty or forty issues to dig through).

Personal faves so far:

This was ridiculously charming.

 

Didn’t love the cover, as I didn’t realize this was Vaughan and Martin for a while (hard to read their credits).  When I finally opened the book, I was BLOWN AWAY by everything in this.

Yup.  Patton Oswalt, Dan Harmon and the best WORLD’S FINEST story evah.

My buddies Dan and Fernando always bring their best for their Grown-Up-Wendy-the-Witch-with-Boobies parody.  

More of the ridiculously charming (Cats, with a dog secret identity?!?) from the ridiculous and charming Ian Boothby and Nina Matsumoto.

The perfect translation of the series into comic form.  What’s not to adore?

Ty the Guy OUT!

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For the previous BUN TOON, click the annoyed rabbit above.

Upcoming Classes Spring 2018

UPCOMING CLASSES: May – June 2018

How To DRAW THE HUMAN FIGURE

LOCATION:  392 Spadina Avenue Second Floor, Toronto Ontario

DATES:  TUESDAYS 7 – 10 pm May 8 – June 19 2018 (seven weeks)

FEES:  $360 + HST (Payment accepted by cash, cheque, interac/email transfer or PayPal (There will be a fee for NSF cheques). Payment is due by the end of the first class.

PREREQUISITES: none.

MATERIALS:  Bring paper or a sketchbook, pencils and erasers for drawing. Paper, sketchbook, laptop for notes. 

REGISTRATION/INQUIRIES:  email comicbookbootcamp@gmail.com to book a space, and to make payment arrangements. Please note that spaces are limited for each class; registration is on a first-come first-reserved basis.

Visualizing the human form in three-dimensional space is one of the basic skills needed to make comics, and our bootcamp class makes this often difficult skill surprisingly easy, with a unique geometric approach to skeletal and muscular systems.  In seven weeks, you’ll understand the movement  of the elbows, shoulders, hips, knees and hands, basic human proportions, the muscle system, and balance (yes, in just seven weeks!) without needing a model to see it in your head.   Previous drawing experience is not required, we can teach this method to anyone willing to learn.

Bring lots of paper and pencils, this is a class for drawing, not for listening to lectures.

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HOW TO WRITE FOR COMICS PART TWO

LOCATION:  392 Spadina Avenue Second Floor, Toronto Ontario

DATES:  WEDNESDAYS 7 – 10 pm May 9 – June 20 2018 (seven weeks)

FEES:  $360 + HST (Payment accepted by cash, cheque, interac/email transfer or PayPal (There will be a fee for NSF cheques). Payment is due by the end of the first class.

Because class space is limited, if you find that your schedule/plans change and you are unable to attend the class, please let us know as soon as possible so that another student can attend.

PREREQUISITES: How To Write For Comics Part One  or How To MAKE Comics

MATERIALS:  bring what you need for taking notes; laptop, paper, pencils, pens, etc.

How To Write For Comics Part One grounds the student in the rules of plot, character, dialog, scripting and storytelling forms, we step up to a master class on practical writing. The students will learn the standard applications of tropes and genres, the rules of pacing and scene work, the secrets of world building, character bibles, supporting casts, sub-plots, comedy writing, ongoing series and much more.

Like all our workshops, we’ll be creating scripts and stories in class under a deadline. This time around, we’ll expect a complete short story about half way through, and by week seven students be pitching their own original series or graphic novel to the group. Bring your brains, and have no fear.

You’ll need something to write on, paper or laptops, whatever you prefer to use, as long as you can make it legible to fellow students.

The Metaphor Goes Up, Up, and Awry!

It occurs to me this might sound like behind the scenes, Superman is a real sausage party.  Nothing of the sort.  Get your mind out of the sausage gutter.

Ty the Guy OUT!

 

Someday, I’ll share you with you, how I became an “brother of the Fraternity of the Sausage” with Neal Adams and Scott Hampton, both of whom have contributed their own links to the wonder of Superman.

It happened in Paris, many years ago.

I’m still haunted by it.

 

For last week’s BUN TOON, click above

A Tale of the Heart, and of Chickening Out! YAY!

Bun Toon Resurrection!

Haven’t been around for a few weeks….I had a crippling deadline with a Moon Knight project that kicked my white Canadian butt for a couple of weeks, and I literally didn’t have the five spare minutes it would have taken to scribble a rabbit.  Then I was in Indianapolis for a convention.  Then I was recovering from a brief con-flu.

What I’m saying is that I’m still here.

I still love.

I still bunny.

But I am human, after all.

(Well, more lagomorph than human, technically, but you know what I meant).

On with the silly rabbit.

I walk for exercise nowadays, and one of the routes I often take walks me straight through the parking lot of a KFC down the street from my house.

I look forward to April 15th SO much every year.

Ty the Guy OUT!

KFC looms large in my legend, and I have Bun Tooned about the Colonel a few times.

Don’t get me started about the family history of this story.  My brother claims I’ve stolen one of his memories, I claim the same.  Someday it will all end up in court.

Mr. Sanders (he wasn’t really a colonel) has become quite the comic book icon of late…

That’s a real comic book.

Friends of mine worked on it, it’s real, I swear.

The madness continues…

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For the last Bun Toon, click the waving bunny above!

 

Ford Model-D Bun Toons! YAY!

They had the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Toronto today, so you’re getting a green background.  I’m part Irish.  It’s a duty.

Speaking of Toronto….

There’s nothing funny about Doug Ford.

What the hell is happening to the planet reality?

Ty the Guy OUT!

Just in case anyone from out of town is reading this, a quick refresher on the one-two joy bash that was the Ford Brothers from their heyday.

Pretty well all the above quotes are true.  More or less-ish.