Super Bowl Football Toons! Yay!

Too busy to blog. Never too busy to Bun Toon!

The annual Super Bowl madness is once again upon us this weekend.  The testing of men, the tasting of triumph, the gating of tails.  For those unfamiliar with this ritual, I give you…

This sporting event does not involve a puck in any way, Fellow Canadians, so  go back to your hibernating sleep, it does not concern you.

Ty the Guy OUT!

And now, your Merry Marvel Football-related Comic Book Moment:

 Mutant NFL players with Superpowers!  Gaze upon it, ye mighty, and despair.  This series ran for more issues than you’d think in the late 80s.  

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Bun Toons Sells Out! And you’d better buy into it!

Behold, I finally make it commercially.

I’m no fool.  I understand the audience and what’s expected of modern entertainment.  And so, I follow the trends and present the first adventures of an all new character:  The Contessa Kristine Margarite Von Shoenefeld –  beloved teenage celebutante heroine.

I wait by the phone for movie offers.

Now, to go draw for a living!

Ty the Guy OUT!

Here now, your sticky comic book moment:

Peter’s a teen-aged boy.  Pray that it’s webbing.  Pray with all your might.

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And for last week’s Belgian Bun Toon mashup:

Asterix and Tintin Bun Toons. YAY!

Et maitenant, les toons de bun!

Bun Toons presents the greatest Belgian team-up since that Jean Claude Van Damme movie where he played his own evil twin brother…It’s

Oh, those irrepressible French barbarians!

Back to the drawing table or they don’t feed me and the wife and kids.

Ty the Guy OUT!

Here now, your Asterix Comic Book Moment:

Yup, it’s real.  Asterix and Obelix guest starred in Action #579

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CLICK HERE or on the IMAGE ABOVE for LAST WEEK’S BUN TOON.

We hit the moon. Metaphorically, of course.

Let's fall in love. Why shouldn't we?

It’s about a quarter of a million miles to the moon (it’s exactly 221,463 miles if you’re being a dick about it).  I remember that number from when I was a kid and people were driving and golfing on our heavenly neighbor all the time, so it was in the news.

Well, over the weekend, we had our quarter-millionth blog hit and we’re blushingly amused by it that.  The number made me think of the moon, so there’s your metaphor – if miles = blog hits.

Couldn't have done it without space cows and Hoverboy!

I’m not foolish enough to think it means we’ve had a quarter million readers.  I’m aware it’s a few thousand who’ve come back a couple of times, and a few thousand more who had enough after one visit…and it took months and months of that sort of traffic to build the number- but it’s still a fun milestone to pass, especially when one considers I’ve fruitlessly wasted that many man-hours of other people’s potential productivity with my frothy bon-mots.   I’m just doing my part to slow the economy and contribute to the complete breakdown of our system.

 

Above: The Ty-bunny of Anarchy in one of my many other guises. TRY to be a productive member of society after you've fallen into its distractingly seductive gaze...

Milestones matter.   It’s like suddenly realizing you’ve had your tenth child, or spent your twenty-fifth year behind bars.  I’ll never forget those days either.

Ty the Guy OUT!

Here now, your  Comic Book Moon Moment:

This masterpiece was one of the first comics I ever saw. Take that, people whose first comic book had Dazzler in it.

Superman In Four Panels, YAY!

Doing my court ordered community service

He’s our first super-hero, if you don’t count Hercules.  And he’s the first super-powered hero in the comics, if you don’t count Popeye.  And he’s our first costumed hero, if you don’t count the Phantom.  Superman was there before any of them, if you don’t count the ones that came before him.

For those who are unfamiliar with his world, here’s…

There.  If you suddenly have to write his adventures, you’ve got a foundation to build from.

Enough of this cartooning, I have drawings to do!

Ty the Guy OUT!

Here now, your Sole Kryptonian Survivors Comic Book Moment:

When the only other member of your race is your first cousin…sigh…

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For SUPERMAN vs. JESUS, and more of the Blasphemy Collection, click on this:

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Back to teaching, starting tomorrow! Come on out for learnin’!

The holiday is over, and I’m back at my post, teaching comic book courses at the Toronto Cartoonists Workshop tomorrow.  Besides writing and drawing comics for a living, I also instruct on how you guys can waste your life doing the same things.   Classes for the scriptwriting courses are more or less filled up (though I think we can squeeze one last student in before we run out of space) but the layout and storytelling courses have about five empty chairs as of now.  If anyone’s interested in learning the ropes of comic layout, and you live in the Toronto area, then get in touch with Sean Menard, the Workshop’s fearless leader (Call 647-328-1656.  E-mail info@cartoonistsworkshop.com ), and give him a shout, the classes are more fun when they’re filled up.  You learn more from the other students than you’d expect.

Shameless plug over, back to drawing Spider-Man, Homer and the gang.  (And no, I’m not drawing a cross-over, as cool as that would be…I’ve merely got two gigs on top of each other this month….bragging bastard that I am.)

Ty the Guy OUT!

Here now, your shameless plug afterthought:

I think it's clear from this cover that Plug is a shameless person.

 

2011 Animal Facts Bun Toons! Yay!

it's 2011 and what do you get? Another year older and deeper in debt.

It’s all about the animals today, at Bun Toons.  We love ’em, we pet ’em and we eat ’em when the dinner bell sounds.    You can never have enough knowledge about the critters of this world, and so we present…

More amazing animal facts as my crack team of researches finds them.

That’s enough tooning for today.  I’m back to sleeping on silk cushions whilst well toned maidens slowly wave palm fronds at my perfumed body.  The life of a cartoonist is difficult in this way…

Ty the Guy OUT!

Here now, your cartoon bear moment of zen:

No amount of honey is going to improve any of these recipies.

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Ty Templeton on the Planet of the Apes

I’ve got piles stuff on the drawing board to work on, and OH, so little time to play Art-Land this week  –  but I cannot let this moment go un-blogged!

I’ve been made into a character in the Planet of the Apes.

Look! It's like photoshop, only crappy!

I’ve been a Planet of the Apes fanatic since birth.  The first film I ever saw in a real theater was Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and the poster hung on my bedroom wall for my entire childhood – the first image I awoke to every morning:

Good morning, Ty. The world is filled with armed gorillas, and perhaps, a half-naked girlfriend.

After that, I could go deal with school.

I was lucky enough to work on an Apes comic a few years back –  writing/editing a six issue mini series called Revolution on the Planet of the Apes.

 

The original, unseen cover for Revolution #1, rejected because Fox didn't want a burning American flag anywhere near their properties and logos in 2007. Painted by Dennis Rodier.

As a result of my participation in Apes comic book, I got to know Rich Handley, our planet’s No.#1 expert on the Apes’ Planet, and Rich has recently written a delightful Apes book called:

Available from Hasslein Books (www.hassleinbooks.com)

It’s an exhaustive and very entertaining encyclopedia of EVERY character, location, institution, and scroll ever mentioned in a movie, comic, novel, or back of a toy box.  Apes fans must own it.

I was surprised to see a listing for Templeton on page 319, because the book only lists the fictional stuff, not the writers, actors, artists and such…

Apparently , Templeton is the name of the narrator of the ANSA Space Program promotional film included in the recent Blu-Ray versions of the original movie.  It’s a DVD extra, and a minor one at that, but the character shares my name.  How cute.   BUT WAIT…!

He’s going to be in an upcoming Planet of the Apes novel, and his name isn’t a co-incidence.  He’s named after me!

Now, I know, this is a teeny nothing of a throwaway character, not even a trivia question in the Apes World –  but if I could go back in time to the the thirteen year old kid who woke up every morning to a Planet of the Apes poster and told him that one day he’d be a teeny nothing throwaway character in that world, he’d have fallen over dead.

If you at all care, you can see the ANSA film here on Youtube.

Sometimes, it all works out in this grown up fanboy’s life.

Ty the Guy OUT!

Here now, your comic book Planet of the Apes moment of Zen:

Why was this my favorite Kirby comic ever?

 

Saturday Christmas Comics YAY!

Just like raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens...

‘Tis the season to be jolly, and what better way is there to usher in that feeling than a visit from Santa’s agent, Sid Meshkin?

More Christmas silly as the week continues…we’re counting down to the big day when Merry Kringle comes to visit.  See you ’round Art Land.

Here now, your comic book moment of zen:

Dean Martin, during his nine year stint as a Howling Commando.

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Some Unseen, and some SHOULD be unseen

Hey folks.

Over the weeks and months, I’m always drawing little things that have nothing to do with my job, but are still kind of fun to see anyway.  So, this being my blog, I get to put anything on here I want, nyah!

First up…it was my brother’s fiftieth birthday last week, and I got him a card.  Well, I never get ANYONE a card, it’s always so much cheaper to just draw one.  Unless you count the fact that the time I take could be spent earning money to buy a card, and then they’re bloody expensive.

Either way, this is my brother’s B-Day card.  It’s reproduced here online roughly size as.  And it looks like him, more or less, you can check it out here…(though Brad thinks he has more hair than this.  Dreaming, my brother.)

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I had some correspondence to do with Joe Giella last week, and since Joe is still doing the MARY WORTH comic strip every day, I thought it would be fun to send him a sketch of his own character on the outside of the package, done in the Joe Giella style (it’s not a swipe, though, it’s just me “doing” Joe).

Mary Worth. For those folks who think Miss Marple is "too sexy".

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And finally,  just a quick comment about the JONAH HEX movie.

Um.  Guys….

Why did you make a Jonah Hex movie?

I’m actually a fan of the comic book (it’s been fairly wonderful for years, despite anemic sales), but it’s silly to pretend the character is much beloved or well remembered by a generation of movie-goers and comic fans.  B-List would be a kind phrase.  Certainly he’s not a big enough character to lure in large enough crowds back to the western genre, which has been clinically dead at the box office for decades.   And from the looks of the AWFUL trailer, they’d added some pointless supernatural nonsense to the story, which meant it wasn’t even a real Jonah Hex movie.  On paper this movie has nothing going for it, I’m afraid to say.

But it does have this sort of thing, so you know, it's not ALL bad. Or are we all supposed to hate this woman now? I'm never sure what's expected of me.

It opened last weekend to a box office return of five million.  And that’s with some legitimate stars in it like Brolin, Malkovich, and the above pictured Megan Fox.  And to be honest, that’s about the box office I expected from it.

THIS is a DC movie, my friends. THIS is what they give us.

It’s not that I mind anyone making a Jonah Hex movie in principle.  (I’ll probably see this on video in a few months).    It’s just that there are SO many DC movies to make BEFORE the Jonah Hex movie that it’s mind boggling.  What is DC/Warner thinking this last decade?  The iconic characters, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, and others, all flop around in development and go nowhere, while they’re shelving these CASH COW characters for  Constantine, and the Losers?  Captain Marvel or Plastic Man movies are no where in sight, but there’s room on the schedule for STEEL and Jonah Hex?!?

No matter how truly excellent both STEEL and Jonah Hex might be, as pieces of auteur classic film making.  They’re still no damn World’s Finest movie, if you catch my drift.

Meanwhile, Marvel is a machine.  Spider-Man, X-Men, and Iron Man franchises all making A-List blockbuster movies, plus a fun set of B-List money makers like Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Kick Ass (closing in on a hundred million in world wide sales this week).  All because they seem to be in the business of making entertainment for a mass audience, instead of whatever the hell DC/Warner is doing.

I’ve heard through my sources that the well know SCALPHUNTER film treatment that’s been drifting around Hollywood has just been green lighted, and the epic AIR WAVE movie trilogy that was shelved by New World twelve years ago is up and running again.  As is the Sea Devils direct to youtube series.   God Help Us.

"Us make-um big wampum with right actor attached."

Ah, there’s always the GREEN LANTERN film to come along and ruin my theory be being really good.  Don’t hold your breath, though.

PS:

I have a theory about why there’s no Wonder Woman movie in production.  Who could wear this costume as convincingly?

Best Live Action Super-Hero Performer Ever.

Okay, I'm not being fair.

TY THE GUY OUT!