Danger! Danger! Bun Toons!

There’s a man who lives a life of danger…everyone he meets must be stay a stranger…

Most people understand the constant peril a cartoonist is in – we all get paper cuts, we all have to jello wrestle Joe Quesada, and we all get chlamydia (though rarely from Joe Quesada).

But here are the…

Here is the sad, sad, sad part.

Whenever Big Bang Theory is on, I end up paying no attention to any scene that takes place in the comic shop, because I literally scan the walls and bins for my work.  I’ve only caught my stuff two or three times on the show, but that’s enough for the syndrome to settle in.

It’s far worse than paper cuts, but about the same as jello-wrestling Joe Quesada.

Ty the Guy OUT!

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Of course, the REAL comic book hazard is this one:

That’s how a MAN punches out a redheaded fellow in short pants.

Man, who is that blonde?  She keeps goading Johnny into fist fights.  I’m not sure about her moral code…

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For last week’s savage take down of the new Fantastic Four movie, in only four panels, click here.

For information on how to order your very own illustrated sketch cover (for Chicago and Toronto FanExpo Convention pick-ups only, sorry…) click here.

For the Bun Toon archive, click here.

Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and Me, Bun Toons! YAY!

I’m officially better than you, now.

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I swear to god, I’ve been so busy lately, I haven’t had a chance to get out to SEE the movie…but I hear I’m excellent in it.

Ty the Guy OUT!

At least, this time they got the costume right.

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For the last time I was in a movie Bun Toon, click here…

For the story of what happened the day I shot the Spider-Man film Bun Toon, click here.

for last week’s FCBD Bun Toon, click here

For the Bun Toon archive, click here

What’s in a Name Bun Toons! YAY!

Rain and sleet can’t stay this courier from his appointed rounds, but a writer’s conference sure can.

Sorry I’m late,  folks, I was at the CANSCAIP “Packaging your Imagination”  conference yesterday at Humber College (a delightful symposium for new writers of YA fiction to get to meet professionals and listen to talks and Q&A sessions with the writers).

It’s the price of fame, fellow babies.  It’s always glamorous like this when you’re a celebrity…

You’d think he’d have twigged that I was a cartoon character.  How many other animated rabbits were in that production?

Ty the Guy OUT!

I’m not the only actor who made it big in the comics biz.

I heard Bill was jealous of my convention groupies and decided to horn in on my action. If only he hadn’t gone with BLUEWATER…

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It’s a re-run, but my Rob Ford cartoon of six months ago seems oddly prescient.

The Bun Toon Archive, available free of charge…all you have to give me is YOUR SOUL!

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Just in case you didn’t see this yesterday…my son Kellam’s take on our mayoral troubles in Toronto.

Memory Tricks Bun Toons! What?

Again? I did one of these yesterday?

Didja read yesterday’s Bun Toon?  Didja?

It’s up there as a link to yesterday.  Read that and then come back and read this:

Enhanced Honesty Plus.  It’s not just for American Media any more.

Ty the Guy OUT!

Your Bonus Moment isn’t a happy one… A Bun Toon from a little over a year ago…

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For last week’s haunting Bun Toon (co-created with the wife!), click here

For the Archive (Yes, it needs updating!) click here.

Joe Kubert Bun Toons. Sigh.

Sgt. Rock…Tarzan…Enemy Ace…Tor…Viking Prince…Hawkman…Punisher…

Joe Kubert.  The last of the Golden Age artists still working at his craft, passed away this week with art yet left to be published on the Before Watchmen comic he’s been inking.

Year after year, his work got bolder, more confident, and more gorgeous with every passing day.  I can’t think of any other artist in any other field who continued to improve as long as he drew breath.   There was never a period of decline.

Now that I’m a teacher of how to make comics, I often think about Joe and the magnificent institution he built known as the Joe Kubert School.  I never went there, but always felt that he taught me a hell of a lot in every conversation I ever had with him.

Thanks for the world you helped make, Mr. Kubert.

Ty the Guy OUT!

Here now, your BONUS Joe Kubert Moments:

The first Joe Kubert artwork I ever saw. This comic belonged to an older brother.

The first Kubert comic I ever owned. I bought this when I was about eight years old, ENTIRELY because of that cover.

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For last week’s Bun Toon “Brush with Greatness”, click above.

For every Bun Toon ever, click above.

For a previous blog entry about this very subject, and Mr. Kubert’s advice, click here.

LEARN PROFESSIONAL LAYOUT AND STORYTELLING FOR COMICS…

…from me! My next set of courses for the Toronto Cartoonists Workshop start up in just a couple of weeks.

My Comic Book Bootcamp Part One ended last Wednesday. I like to say that once students go through the first Bootcamp they’re good to go off and make comics, and some of them will. But we do offer a Part Two through TCW and many of my students return–I do introduce new ideas, expand upon the anatomy I teach in Part 1, and more. It’s really up to individual students to decide what they need. But often students find that they like the atmosphere so much at TCW, and realise how much fun it is to be in an environment surrounded by people just like them–people who are creative and interesting and want to learn and create. I love watching as friendships are made, and finding that students get together outside of class and start working on projects together, or simply meet to help each other out with a script, or to act as a sounding board. That makes my day every time!

Before the next session of classes start (on May 7), there will be a SNEAK PEEK WORKSHOP. Thursday, May 3, I will be teaching Professional Layout and Storytelling from 7-9pm. Sneak Peek Workshops are $25/hst.

Then, next Monday I will start the full class–the ‘official’ course description is:

From thumbnail layouts to finished pencils, this art focused course teaches you everything you need to know about the unique process of telling stories with pictures.  Learn to THINK like a comic artist as well as how to CREATE like one.  Essential learning for future Marvel zombies, Indy artists or Web comic creators.  While basic drawing skills are helpful, they are not necessary.

You can enrol through the TCW site; contact the school owner if you have any questions, info@cartoonistsworkshop.com.

Ty the Guy OUT!

Calgary–I’m on my way!

This Friday, I’ll be heading off to the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo for the first time ever. I’m pretty excited to be there–for a couple of years various friends like Gibson Quarter and Yanick Paquette have told me that I have to go. (In fact, I’ll be on a panel with Yanick, and Whilce Portacio—The Art of Batman)

The cast of Star Trek:  The Next Generation will be reuniting for the show. I got to write a list of my favourite things about Next Gen for the show’s program booklet–when I get back, I’ll post it here.

If you go–keep an eye out for me, come by and say hello. I’ll have some of my sketchbooks (if I run out, I’ll take names and addresses for anyone who wants one, and Keiren will ship them out, when I get back), and original artwork. I’ll be bringing the pages from the first issue of Ultimate Spider-Man Adventures #1–still looking around my studio to see what else I find in the piles of papers there.

And I’ll be bringing a copy or two of Bill the Boy Wonder:  The Secret Co-Creator of Batman, written by Marc Tyler Nobleman and illustrated by me. It’s available for pre-order right now (not coming out until July 4) so this is the only way you can get a good look at it!

Ty Templeton’s Sketchbook! Yay!!

Ty had this idea that he was going to have lots of free time once he finished up his last assignment–ha! He forgot that it’s “that” month. He’d started drawing up a great Bun Toon for last Saturday but he had to finish work on the sketchbook he’s having printed up, so he posted a sequel to Son of Bun Toons instead (and there’s more! Taylor had a lot of comic book ideas in him at the time…these days, he’s much more about the video games).

But the good news is that Ty finished all the work he needed to do putting together pages for the sketchbook, and I finally finished all the work I needed to do prepping it for print.

And all for what? For this Friday December 9! Toronto Cartoonists Workshop is hosting a Faculty Art Show for its very own staff members. Ty will be there, with Leonard Kirk, Dave Ross, and Eric Kim. The guys will have artwork for show and sale, and will be answering questions about their upcoming classes.

587A College Street (at Clinton), 7-11pm. $4 suggested donation ($$ go to the Toronto Public Library), and a cash bar.

(I’ll be the woman at Ty’s table–stop by and say hello!)

Keiren

The Warm-Up Sketch

A couple of days ago, I was talking to a fellow cartoonist/illustrator, and we got to asking each other what we did for warm up sketches…those doodles you do on a piece of scrap paper, or in a sketch book, to start off your day of drawing.  You’ll never get a decent drawing first thing in the morning, so illustrators work out the kinks for twenty minutes or so with indulgent exercises to get the brain started.  In my case, about fifty per cent of these are just anatomical studies of some part of the body I was having trouble doing the day before.  The page above followed a day when I felt I wasn’t getting hands just right, so I built a bunch from the ground up the next morning, starting with skeletal forms, and tossing skin and muscles on.

Some days I doodle heads, constructing from scratch to remind myself of the basic maps.

And some days I’ll whip down drawings of the characters I’m doing that day as fast as possible, to reduce their forms and costumes to rote shapes.  These character sketches are never allowed to go for more than two or three minutes, five at the most.

I think I might have penciled this in five minutes, and inked it in five, as I was doing the pages for Spider-Man 657 a couple of weeks back, so it's a long sustained piece as far as sketch-book stuff is concerned.

Here’s one that came out of my hand in under two minutes for a day I was working on a Green Lantern spoof for a Mad Magazine thing (a Fundalini Page thing that never came  out, unfortunately).  I really do time them to be under two minutes as an exercise.

I have about fifteen books just filled with this sort of nonsense.   It’s part of the detritus that accumulates when you doodle for a living.   There’s one or two in the huge pile that are actually worth seeing, and I’ll probably find ’em and scan them for the blog someday.

Ty the Guy OUT!

Here now, your BONUS sketch-book page:  I was re-reading a Golden Age Marvel collection and came across this actual-not-making-him-up 40s Timely character about six months ago, and couldn’t help sketching him as my warm up that day…

There's a twelve issue mini-series in this guy...if only I had the time.

Bun Toons Fans part THREE

Again with the Saturday?  All right, time/space, you win again.

Just in case you forgot about me, I'll give you a reason to...

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-For the first two parts of this unforgivable screed –

Go HERE for part 1

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Go HERE for part 2

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PS:  I’ve been VERY bad about blogging last week…mostly because I had actual comic work to do that had looming deadlines.  I loves me the blog, but I needs me the job.  I hope you guys understand.  But this week, I have a bunch of stuff lined up, and I’m not lying THIS time, baby.  It’s all gonna be different from now on…

–TY THE GUY OUT!

Here now, your comic book moment of zen: