Hop, hop and away!

I promise, no complaining about the new Zack Snyder movie, except for this bit here.

Another honest-to-god-true-life-adventure.  Ah, the life I lead…

I suppose my other children are pretty cool, too.  No, really.

Ty the Guy OUT!

————————————————————————–

As long time readers of this blog might recall, my eldest son, Kellam once went out on Halloween as BLUE SUPERMAN!  

Perhaps the only Blue Superman ever on Halloween.  Not a single house knew who he was.

Below is a conversation I had with Taylor about the Archie characters.  It’s an ongoing education with my brood.

And, of course, me and the lad aren’t the only ones with a Christopher Reeve man-crush.

Jerry Seinfeld’s man-crush on the big blue boy scout is so strong, a few years back, American Express actually hired me to draw Superman and Jerry palling around together.  No, really.

I think Superman is tickling Jerry here.  What was I thinking when I drew this?

———————————————————————–

For last week’s Bun Toon, click here!

If you life in the Toronto area and are interested in learning to write or draw comics, click here.

Have Bun, Will Travel. YAY!

Happiness is a warm bun.

They’re never going to pass any useful laws in the states.  There’s only one solution left…

It worked with drunk drivers and it worked with smokers.  I propose a campaign of shame.  Let all the gun owners know that WE know they all have small penises.  Let all gun owners know that WE know they’re all cowards.  Let gun owners know that they’re not fit to be with decent people.

Eventually, there might be a few less guns, and a few less dead students.

Ty the Guy OUT!

———————————————————————————————-

It’s not like guns have been glorified and romanticized by our fiction…

But we should never forget, a gun killed Batman’s parents…

…and a gun killed Archie Andrews.

————————————————————————————————-

For last week’s Bun Toon, which offered MORE solutions to the world’s problems, click here.

For the Bun Toon Archive, featuring hundreds of Bun Toons from years past, click here.

The NEW Silver Snail!! The Old Ty Templeton!

It’s been an incredibly busy couple of months what with starting up my COMIC BOOK BOOTCAMP, attending FanExpo Canada 2012, Montreal Comic Con, all while still working on Marvel Ultimate Spider-Man Adventures ( as well as other projects, currently too secret to discuss!!) This week is particularly packed with events–(Including an open house at my new school/Comic Book Embassy this Saturday!  392 Spadina Ave. in Toronto! I’ll discuss this more in depth tomorrow) but I still made time to be at the opening of the brand new Yonge Street location of Silver Snail Comics.

Checking out the Spidey hanging over the front stairs

The Silver Snail is one of the planet’s best comic stores (and JUST awarded the Shuster Award for Best Comic Store in Canada, 2012, so there’s proof) and the store and I have a personal history.  When it first opened in Toronto at its original Queen Street location in 1976, I was its first customer through their doors on opening day at the age of 14 (buying some back issues of Captain America-Clear Memory Ty), and so with the new change of ownership and change of location, I was honoured to be asked back to do the same thing…

Checking out the new comics rack

So, yesterday morning, I packed my kids in the car…and let Keiren drive so we could all nap as it was only 7am. We arrived at 329 Yonge Street as the store opened for the FIRST DAY at 8am. Because of the café located at the front of the store, proud new owner, George Zotti and his partner, have chosen to open at 8am each day, and remain open until 10pm.  Yup, you heard that right…until TEN PM!

With an actual glass bottle of Coke in hand from the café, I got to walk around and check out the impressively huge new space. My kids got to browse as well, eventually sitting in the kids’ area, a table and chairs set in front of the rack full of kid-friendly comics (including my latest issues of Ultimate Spidey!)

So, the family got to be the official first customers of the new location (although technically, it was my daughter as she actually paid so she could take quick posession of her Archie Comics digest) and my son, former Silver Snail employee, Kellam was the second official customer.

The first stack of comics sold at the new Silver Snail!  I chat with new owner George Zotti about gray hair, baldness and the lost dreams of my youth.

Dreams fulfilled…I have my morning Coca Cola, and all is well.

My daughter Kate, showing off the Archie comic that was on the top of the stack, making THIS digest from Riverdale the first OFFICIAL comic book rung up at the new store!  ARCHIE RULES!!

No, you can’t buy this kick ass Batman Jacket at the store…my wife made it from an old bed spread from back when I was the Snail’s original customer.  Once again, mixing the old with the new.  (I’m the old…)

So…you’re all too late to be there first, but PLEASE come and be there second, or at least part of a ten thousand way tie for second.  The new Silver Snail rocks out, and is great danger of becoming a Toronto Yonge Street landmark for decades to come.

Ty the Guy OUT!

Here now, your BONUS New Silver Snail Moment:

A nice close up shot of the New Silver Snail’s New Mascot, Venom/Spidey!  He hangs over the entrance stairway, either protecting or threatening the customers…As long as he can save Gwen if she ever falls down the stairs, or off a bridge or something, I’m good…

Daughter and Daughter-in-law Toons! Yayy!!

This is normally where there would be a witty comment from Ty that makes people laugh and laugh.

I had all sorts of things I was going to say to sound just like Ty–but I forgot what they were. I’m tired, I’m busy, I have deadlines–it takes sleep and time to be funny! Can’t do it.

So here’s the part where I say something mildly salacious and just a wee bit naughty…here’s the part where I realise I’m about to introduce the idea that today’s Toons are done by the daughter, Katherine Templeton-Smith, and the daughter-in-law, Jessica Costley, so I have to get out of that faint whiff of blue.

Phew! Past that!

So, Ty’s too busy signing and sketching and generally telling hilarious stories (I’m guessing, since I’m stuck here in Toronto and he’s swaggering around Calgary having just a great time!) and he couldn’t get a Bun Toon ready for today. He begged each of the children to do a Toon for him…the daughter, who is the youngest child, and pretty determined to show that she can outdo anything her brothers do, had it almost completed before he left yesterday morning. As her father’s daughter, she distills for you the essence of an Archie Comic.

written and pencilled by Katherine Templeton-Smith

Our daughter-in-law Jessica was the other person to get her “assignment” completed. Jessica distills for you the essence of living with a son of Ty:

It’s funny because it’s completely TRUE!! (Which reminds me, guys–there’s still several more boxes of Kellam’s stuff by the front door).

Tomorrow, will be the boys’ turn to show off their Toons. I chose not to post them today because…well, because they’re not done, actually. Like all good freelancers, they’re trying to ‘push’ their deadlines.

Not-Ty the Guy OUT!!

Now here’s where Ty says something funny and introduces his

Bonus Girl-Accomplishment Moment!!

Don’t have a cartoon for this but, hey Ty–After taking part in the Fibonacci Contest, your daughter is representing her school for the Math Olympics!! Yayyy!! (If you’re at Calgary Expo, and you read this–can you tell Ty, because he probably won’t have a chance to read this for a day or two?)

And from our daughter-in-law Jessica Costley who is a baker, an Avengers’ birthday cake she did a year or so ago:

_______________________________________________________

I know this will be a shock to you--but Ty can be JUST as opinionated as all the other guys. Here, he tells you what HE thinks.

Click here for all the Bun Toons EVER!! And done by Ty!

Riverdale Deep, Mountain High Bun Toons. YAY!

Are you a Betty, or a Veronica? Take this simple test!

Time to turn our attention to the world of comics that people in the world of comics sometimes don’t consider to be in the world of comics.  By that, I mean comics not published by Marvel or DC.

Don’t worry, I’m still interested in super-heroes.  I’m not THAT well rounded. But today, we talk about…

Who thought they’d live long enough to see a world where Archie Comics is the brave, hip, upstart on the comic stands?  The one challenging the status quo?  The one kicking Marvel and DC’s ass on this issue?

And a big shout out to my man Dan Parent, who’s been doing all the heavy lifting on the Kevin Keller comic series.  Dan gets some love.

Ty the Guy OUT!

Here now, your Bonus Archie Comics Super-Hero moment.

Forget the Mighty Crusaders for a moment...Does anyone else remember this old series...when Archie and the gang would turn into super-powered teenagers every now and then?

I have a bunch of these from my misspent youth. I thought they'd been entirely forgotten...

...but they've come back with ALL-NEW stories quite recently, with scripts by Tom DeFalco and art by Ron Frenz and Al Milgrom! The team that brought the world THOR turns to Riverdale and Captain Hero! Amazing stuff.

————————————————————————————–

For last week's Bun Toon, click above.

For every Bun Toon ever, click the widdle wabbit.

Top Seven Most Awful Things To Find in your Stocking

Last December, I helped festive up the internet yuleing by offering up a sampling of the most inappropriate Santa Claus images from Christmas comic book covers of yesteryore.

The corruption of our cherished funnybook memories continues with…

The Top Seven Most Awful Things to Find in your Stocking

#7

TEENAGED BOYS

As someone who lives with an actual teenage boy, trust me, this is something you do NOT want to discover in your home on Christmas morning.  The reason it takes a teenager twelve years to attain its final form is so that the parents have become used to the child at that point, and less likely to attack it out of fear.  A brand new teenager in the house would be dead within a week.

#6

LIVE DOGS

I don’t know who the darned puppet is, but he’s clearly saying “Howdy” to the dog doody that even I can smell across the room. What sane person would put a puppy, too young to be house trained, into a confining sock over night?   The only thing more foolish would be to stuff five of them in there!

Wha..?

#5 

THE WEAPONS OF EVIL

Hot Stuff is a demon child, part of the hierarchical system of HELL, and he will someday grow up to be one the torturers of the damned.  The pitchfork is the weapon of choice of demons, and Santa knows how to supply them.  The theological implications of this cover could set Christianity back MONTHS.

#4

BETRAYAL

Look upon the face of the cat.  He stares out at us in existential pain.  Did he deserve this vile fate?  The rodent  emerges from a Christmas stocking on the very day of peace and joy, when such an attack would be at its most duplicitous and unforgivable.  Super Mouse is a creature without honor, and the cat dies a martyr in my eyes.

#3

ANYTHING NAMED SLUGGO.

Be it human being, ice cream treat or industrial byproduct, I do not want anything named “Sluggo” in a stocking.  That’s just good policy.

#2

VULGAR IMMORALITY 

The woman on the cover is either a prostitute, a Russian bride, or someone with a complicated set of emotions about her father and men in general, and since there’s brothers involved in this sordid tale of anonymous sex, one of them will get possessive, fists will fly, and so will tears.    Santa destroys families with this flashy pimp stuff.  He should know better.

#1

IMPROPERLY STORED MEATS

Forget the fatal toxin factory brewing in that simmering stew bag all night and consider that poor girl’s fate even if the stocking HAD been refrigerated: cardiac-arrest at age twenty-nine, after billowing into a 400 pound emo-goth chick with tattoos she can’t find, all because of a sick, sick enabling Santa on the ONE Christmas it might have mattered.

This delightful Holiday cover wouldn’t be so funny if Little Lotta was bathing in Jack Daniel’s and snorting cocaine off a chained-up leopard’s back, now would it? No, that we call a DISEASE. But THIS we can laugh at?

Shameful.

I have to assume the editor removed her right foot as a horrific reminder of the grim diabetic future she may be facing.

————————————————————————————–

See you tomorrow for SANTA:  MASTER OF THE EDGED WEAPON!

Ty the Guy OUT!

NOW your BONUS Christmas Stocking Cover:

This image is a fascinating collection of what the hell?

Click below to see past Christmas lists and Christmas Toons:

AND it’s a little late to get ’em for your stocking, you can still order SKETCHBOOK by TY for a little post-Christmas goodness. Click below to get the details, and to see some pages;

Bun Toons Countdown Part III (Blasphemy Edition)! The Glories and Failures of 2010!

Take one part blasphemy  – one part corporate owned super-hero property -and mix well.  You end up with the most popular recurring gag I did this year in Bun Toons.  Super-Heroes vs. the Gods!   Don’t blame me, I was only filling a need.  Coming Soon:  The Mighty Xtapalatakettle vs. Herbie the Fat Fury!

–

–

As of this writing, in the fight between Dr. Hawking and the Spectre, the score is Hawking 1,  Spectre 0.

Expect to see more of these preposterous team-ups as I think of religions I’m okay with making fun of.  Scientology, Wicca, Nascar, etc.   My mother won’t let me do the Wonder Woman vs. Mohammed strip I had planned, and the coward in me agrees.

——————————————————————————————–

Here’s one of my favorites from 2010 toons…but it got overlooked in the ongoing media circus surrounding the Palin daughter on Dancing With the Stars.   For weeks, our blog numbers sagged as we steadfastly refused to weigh in on the Palin “voting”  issue, and the following Bun Toons went unnoticed by the interweb during those trying times.

Besides, it only offends blind people, and they never read my blog.

See you tomorrow with the Bun Toon that brought down the 2nd biggest Science Fiction franchise in history, and I’m NOT talking about Planet of the Apes (which is probably, like…sixth or something).

Ty the Guy OUT!

HERE NOW—your team-up of the gods comic book moment of zen:

Okay, sure we still gasp in awe at this.  Did you ever see the ALT cover that came out from Marvel?

I think they used clip art.  And that tag line is so defensive about the whole project, it’s like you caught Marvel drunkenly groping your sister.

By the way, did you notice that I went the entire blog entry without mentioning that the big Mad Magazine Top 20 Dumbest Things of 2010 issue is in stores NOW?  I never talked about it once.

And I never showed you this cover.

 

CHRISTMAS COMIC COVERS V: Tingle Bells, Chestnuts Roasting, and the Seven Most Inappropriately Sexy Comic Book X-Mas Covers!

The nights get longer, and so do these blog titles.

Work the camera, you hot bitch.

Not For Kids today.  Sorry little ones, head out of the room while the grown ups giggle about boobies and stuff.

And big powerful rockets...

It’s Christmas Eve, and naturally, my mind turns to uncomfortable moments of inappropriate sexuality on Christmas Comic Book Covers.  It’s who I am.  At least, I’ve stopped posting images of Santa Claus’ corpse… for now…

Whereas this sort of thing is making a comeback.

Today, check your innocence at the door, and expect to get it back all covered in carpet hair and something awful, as I present to you…

THE SEVEN MOST INAPPROPRIATELY  NAUGHTY COMIC BOOK CHRISTMAS COVERS

#7

Okay, first:  That’s a sex-face that would make Greg Land proud.  I’ve never seen that expression on a girl in any other Archie Comic, or else I would have been a life-long subscriber.  Second:  There’s just a whole mess of wrong in the way Reggie is posed all dry-humpy like that, and though I know it’s part of the ladder, it might have been best not to have that bit poking up between his legs.  Once you start to see it the wrong way, you’re not so sure about what Moose and Archie are up to either.

#6

The girl in the sexy Santa suit is a staple of the holiday season.  I get that.   But the bra-less come hither look that Sue is flashing the reader while her brother and husband are in the room just creeps me the hell out.  And let’s not ignore Ben’s massive sack or the weird, vein-y shape we’re getting from Reed’s head.  Everything about this image shouts “Think of old nuns and baseball or your very soul is imperiled!”.

#5

For children.  Children of ALL ages.  Give this to your thirteen year old boy, and see if you’ll get him out of his room before New Year’s Eve.   You have to admire the marketing to the youngsters.  It’s like a Joe Camel, only for starter porn.

#4

Who doesn’t love Paul Dini’s JINGLE BELLE?  She’s an adorable little minx who gets into trouble at the North Pole in these adorable little specials that Dini and his pals do every year.   You can ignore the stripper pole image to the left, or the many butt-centric poses she finds herself in, as her stories are usually light-hearted fun that wouldn’t raise an eyebrow, or anything else.  But the big cover above contains what is clearly an image of Santa checking out Belle’s ass, and raising his hand to give it an ol’ rump slap, possibly for stealing those cookies.  This is all fine, until you recall that Jingle Belle is Santa’s teen aged daughter.  Then it all goes straight to hell.   Go wash your eyes.

#3

Why?  Why would Mac Raboy and Fawcett Comics make this cover and force the image of Santa Claus in tights into my brain?  I mean, we can see everything, okay?  Just ew.  It’s bad enough that Santa was riding on Captain Marvel like a pony-boy the previous Christmas, (as seen to the left…imagine the feeling of being perched atop those rock hard buttocks, molded from the flesh of Greek Gods as you fly through the sky, and get back to me…) but does Santa have have to strip down to the spandex leggings when he hangs out with the crippled teenaged boys?  Whertham was right.

#2

By all that is holy, Wonder Woman, run!  Don’t listen to Green Lantern, that honeybee condom isn’t going to help.  Stay true to your Amazon heritage and RUN!!  Okay…I might be seeing smut where it wasn’t intended in this cover (though it’s hard not to see it) but you’ll never convince me the next cover was an accident…

#1

Right?  Right?  That is one damn happy carrot she’s holding onto, and one heck of a pile of snow.  For god’s sake, she’s actually not even wearing pants.  One wonders if Mike Deodato Jr. ever stopped giggling that they actually put this into comic stores.

Tomorrow is Christmas Day, and so I’ll post only lovely, friendly, happy Christmas Covers, I promise.  (I can’t imagine anyone will be online…but just in case).

Ty the Guy OUT!

NOTE:  The Santa countdown has been running all week:

Click HERE for Seven Most Homicidal Santas

Click HERE for Seven Monster Santas

Click HERE for Seven best DEAD Santas

Click HERE for Ten Best Santa vs. Superhero fights

And now your comic book horrible Santa Sexuality moment of zen:

The Ultimate Warrior from the WWE, steals Santa’s pants after…something…happened between them in his Christmas Comic Special.  This is a double page “spread”, and not a cover, or else it would have been #2 on the above list.  The cover itself isn’t that bad….

 

Saturday Morning Bus Stop Comics! Yayy!

Damn that calendar and its relentless devotion!  It’s Saturday Morning AGAIN!

The toons! The toons! (Said in a Colonel Kurtz voice)

–

—————————————————————————————–

My kids pointed out that the funniest thing about this strip is the  young person reading a book.

And now, because I demanded it, another of those cartoons and comics I did back when I was a teenager, hoping to get a job at Playboy, or the New Yorker.

–

You can never go wrong with a joke about hat envy.

I drew that when I was about sixteen, and was going to re-draw it, using the  far less embarrassing level of skill that I currently possess, but the wife thought it was okay as it was.   And I did promise a while back I was going to force some of these ancient cartoons on you from time to time….the inevitable has caught up to us all.

And finally, because I stole the idea from The Daily Show without any sense of intellectual property rights–

Here now,  your COMIC BOOK moment of ZEN.

–

That’s it for today.  See you tomorrow (as the blogging goes back to being regular – like a man on high-fiber Metamucil).

TY THE GUY, OUT!

PS:  Last week’s BUN TOON is here!

To share post: