Happy Bunny Weekend Bun Toons! YAY!

It’s a special time for rabbits.

On turkey day, folks eat turkeys, but on Bunny Day, folks eat jelly beans, chocolate and roast lamb.  Looks like the rabbit population knows how to work the game.

The part I didn’t make up:  The illegal “K” sound in the 18th Century.  It’s one of those parts of history you just don’t expect…

TY THE GUY OUT

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Glenn is releasing a NEW album of songs in a couple of months, and once again, I’m playing and singing my way into the backgrounds of most of the tracks.  Frankly, I’m not sure how most people release an album without my keyboards and vocals on it, but thankfully Glenn doesn’t make that mistake.

This time out, Mr. Reid is hoping to make a video to promote the new collection of songs, and he needs our help to get it kickstartered.

The song is a fun, country-fied peppy ballad called “THE SHELTER OF YOUR SMILE”, and as long as you’re not young enough to know what dubstep was, you might like it!

You get to hear the song, and watch a BAD video, asking to help make a GOOD one.

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For last week’s Bun Toon, click here

For last year’s Easter Bun Toon, featuring stoner heroes, click here.

For a slightly racy Easter Bun Toon, click here

For a fairly disgusting Easter Bun Toon, click here

For a blood soaked thriller of an Easter Bun Toon, click here.

For the Bun Toon Archive, click here

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Happy Hangover Day Bunny People! YAY!

 

NUMBER #1

The way I hear it, the best cure for the party from the night before is leftover bacon and sausage pizza and warm nog.

My wife, apparently, did not enjoy 2013, what with my many trips to the emergency room, and her mother’s many trips to the hospital, but I’m a different kind of person, I fondly remember all the trips HOME from the hospital, so…good times.

But as we say goodbye forever to 2013, never to be recalled, unless we still have bills from last month to pay, we finish with the MOST popular and LEAST popular Bun Toons of the previous year.

The winner humbled your bunny blogger…mostly because it wasn’t even remotely about me.

 

Well, it worked.  HOO boy did it work.  The Bun Toons got to feel for a week what it must be like to be Neil Gaiman for a day.  He linked, we got avalanched, fun was had by one and all.

Please….. the experiment is over, no need to do it again.  I feel all dirty about getting all those page hits the first time.

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The SECOND of my ego-destroying entries today, comes from the LEAST popular Bun Toon of the year.

I’ve been playing music and singing since I was about five years old, and for a good chunk of my twenties, it was my primary source of income.  Marriage and Batman curtailed the chart-topping success that was just inches from my grasp, but I like to keep my hands moving and my throat warbling whenever I can trap an audience in a room.

Last summer, my friend, singer-songwriter Glenn Reid, released a new jingle jangle country-pop adult contemporary single that I played and sang harmonies  on, and I thought I’d take a moment to promote it on my Bunny Blog, since I don’t get a chance to show off my fingers and pipes all that much around here.

Apparently, if you don’t mention Neil Gaiman or Batman, the numbers just aren’t there.

 

If ANYONE clicks to the link, there’s some fun country-pop songs there that Glenn wrote and sang, and I sing back-up and play keyboards on….heck the page is full of ’em!

Next year, we write a song ABOUT Neil Gaiman and Batman and send this internet into a tizzy…

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Since this is a celebration of last year’s ego-destroying moments from the Bun Toons, I thought I’d finish the retrospective with a Bun Toon that was fairly well received (though not quite top five material), and perfectly demonstrates why ego is the enemy of us all.

 

Enjoy your new year, Bunny Peeples.  I’ll be back soon with ALL-NEW Bun Toons for the needs of a 2014 type of audience.

Everything else is SO last year.

Ty the Guy OUT!

Bun Tunes Bun Toons! YAY!

When something is a pun, it’s automatically a good idea.

To steal a line from an old pot-smoking tax avoider, “The life I love is making music with my friends”, so I felt it was time to share this secret part of my waking hours with the dozens of people who read this weekly webcomic.

Ty the Guy OUT!

Okay, I’ve imported a few more songs to include in the bonus section, linked with some delightful cover art, created by the keyboard player.  Click on the CD cover and hear the song…

from Glenn’s first album “WORKIN’ MAN” this is called THE JOURNEY:  A song which features your humble bunny rocking out on the zydeco accordion (as well as creating the spiffy post-modern ironic cover)

From “Keep on Walkin'”, it’s the single that rocketed to the top of the charts in Sweden (and Belgium and New Zealand!) – the smash hit, “Another Hank Williams Night”. Another cool CD cover, too!

Another song from the newest album. The title song “Chetwynd Girls”. Templeton does Vargas goes Country for the art on the cover, smacks the piano, and strains the vocal chords behind Mr. Reid as well!

and of course, if you’re suddenly the biggest Glenn Reid fan walking the Earth after hearing all this…head on over to www.glennreid.ca and you can check out his other music, his books, t-shirts, and the whole mess.  Tell ’em the Bunny Sent You.

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For last week’s Bun Toon, which features no one singing (but the fat lady), click here.

for the Bun Toon Archive, which only SLIGHTLY includes singing, click the musical bread product above

Remembering the brave.

Fictional Canadian Soldier

It’s November 11th, and time to think of someone other than ourselves for at least one day.

Real Canadian soldiers, one of whom was lost to a bomb in Afghanistan.

Around here, I tend to treat war as a subject for adventure comic books, and exciting fiction…but I’m never too far away from thoughts of the real men and women who put on the uniform and serve.  My stepfather was in the Canadian Air Force during WWII…my father-in-law served as a company clerk and supply sargeant for the American Army…and one of my closest friends Glenn Reid (a former roommate and band-member) spent years in the air force as a mechanic and ground-crew tech.

Glenn wrote and performed the music on this CD, the proceeds of which went to the families of the fallen, an organization that helps the loved ones of lost soldiers in Afghanistan. I was honoured to have played on this record and been allowed to design the cover. That's Glenn with his arms folded, standing under the number 182...in his youth, in the RCAF.

I’ve never been in the armed services, I’m too much of a wimp to have even considered it, but I can tell you what it’s like to know veterans, and have them as part of your close circle of friends and family.  It chokes me up inside to think of what they did….and what others still do every day to keep my ass safe on the ground.   Years ago, I was helping an old fellow across the street near where I lived…he was moving a little slow and I offered my arm to help him make the lights in time.  He thanked me, and we crossed to the sidewalk, where he needed to to lean against a building for a moment to catch his breath.  He told to me that he’d been having trouble with the leg lately, which surprised him, since it had been years since he caught a bullet there on Omaha beach.  When I heard that, I became weak in the knees and couldn’t stand myself, as I’d never met anyone who’d survived Omaha before.  I started crying and shaking his hand, and acting like a complete baby around this guy, whose name I never got.

I hate war.  I hate the occupation of Iraq.  I hated Viet Nam.  I hate some of the things that have happened in Afghanistan, and Bosnia on both sides of the conflict.  But the men and women who march towards danger because it’s their job, are the people that own my heart in a way that’s hard to describe.

Thanks, people.  So many of you are humanity’s best example.  I hope they retire your occupation someday.

Ty the Guy Out!

Here now, your comic book moment of zen:

That’s  a page from Scott Chantler’s “TWO GENERALS”, a graphic novel about Scott’s grandfather, who served with the Canadian Infantry in WWII.  You may order a copy here.

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And Comic Book Connection Initiative, which gives disadvantaged children and teens comic books and graphic novels, is working to send comic books to soldiers serving overseas. If you know of any soldiers who might appreciate some reading material, check out the contact info on CBCI’s Facebook page.

The NEW GLENN REID CD is done! And so is the Addams Family!

Some fun housecleaning today.

Glenn Reid. The Eveready Bunny of Canadian Pop Country

First off, the latest Glenn Reid cd is done!  It’s dropping, as the kids say, in a couple of weeks.  YAY!  In fact, I was the hold-up, as this should have been out by now, but I am the slightly computer-incompetent package designer

Sorry girls, he's married.

for the project (as well as Glenn’s lightning-fingered keyboard player in his band, I’m still a self-centered bastard in this blog, and that’s why you’re reading this).  See, I’m a long time Photoshop guy, and the printers wanted everything in Illustrator files, which I know next to nothing about.  As a result, I sent the wrong files, with the wrong settings to the wrong ftp, like five times over the space of two weeks, and it’s remarkable that Glenn is still speaking to me, considering what I’ve put him through.

As I say to the ladies, want to see my whole package?

Above, at the top of the blog, is the cover and if you click on the little image to the left, you can see the final package, as sent off to the printers.  Glenn likes the whole thing, and that pleases me.  The cover DOES get across who he is as a performer and as a character, which is “ the Rocky of Canuck Country”.  You cannot make him fall down.  After decades of stomping the floorboards of every bar or hall that had a microphone, and writing mountains of great songs along the way, he’s recently become a survivor of cancer AND the Canadian Music Industry, to produce another terrific collection of fun Saturday Night shitkickers and Slow Dance Ballads.  And like the iconic tortured artist he isn’t, really, Glenn is beloved overseas, but ignored at home.  His latest single SING LIKE JOHNNY CASH is climbing the charts in Europe, where Disneyland’s motto is “Come, and Watch ze Suffering of ze Mouse”. Western Culture 1.0 has embraced our Glenn like Jerry Lewis and runny cheese, but all you highly sophisticated websurfers can listen to all the tracks for free on Glenn’s website, and download ‘em for your ipod-pad-phone-bluetooth-eyewear as an mp3 before the old fashioned version is available in….wait for it….RECORD STORES….hah hahhaaa.  (And you get to perk up your ears every time you hear a piano or organ…it’s Ten-Fingers Templeton).

Oh, wait, the version in record stores will be the only version with my cover art on it.  There’s a back cover, and an inside fold out, and the disc itself has my art on it…wait…record stores…come back!  Come back, record stores, I didn’t mean it!

This is what CDs looked like before mp3 players.

Nah, the 21^st Century is still better than the last couple.  Those other centuries SUCKED.

Now this…

Ty was right. Ty is always right. We have spoken.

Yesterday I ranted about the new Addams Family Musical, and today, the New York Times ranted about it, with their review picking apart all the things that were wrong with it that I expected.  And I only saw a five minute sample on Letterman.

Now I feel bad.  As I said, there is a friend involved in this production, and a review this bad might help close it early.  I never like seeing stuff based on cartoons and comics do poorly, as it dampens the chances of the next one being tried… so I wasn’t really hoping for a review this bad.

Nathan Lane and company, lining up for the exits before the audience does.

Read for yourself.  They’re gleefully savage about it over at what used to be the highly respected New York Times.

Later today, after a few hours of actually drawing something I am SO behind schedule on, (with at least TWO Avengers in it, so it’s fun)…HOVERBOY RETURNS!  And don’t forget Weekend Webcomics.

Ty the Guy.

I can't believe I have the audacity to continue to plug this new Simpsons book, in stores now.

My SECRET MUSIC Identity

If you’ll look up at the very top, it says Art Land, which suggests drawing, and paintin’ and that sort of thing.  But illustration is but a fraction of what I spend my day doing.  To be fair, most of the day is spent stopping my children from setting the furniture ablaze, but when I get a spare moment, in between drawing swinging Spider-Men and D’oh-ing Homer, I’m at the piano.  And when I’m not at the piano in my living room, I occasionally step out and play on a CD recording session or two.

Don’t get excited, I’m not THAT good.  As I’ve said elsewhere, to untrained ears, I sound okay on the piano and guitar, but I have no illusions, I’m competent at best.  The trick is, to work a competent music career into a competent comics career, while no longer having my competent acting career.  (The brief time as a stage magician is for another day.)

So, there’s this teeny tiny indy record label in Toronto called Bambrick Records.   So far they’ve released work by Glenn Reid, (ex-member of Cats and Dogs), and David Henman (ex-member of Canadian stadium rocker group, April Wine), and I tend to play piano and keyboard on their albums sometimes because, well…they’re old friends, and I’m dirt cheap.  I also design their album covers, and promotional material, and….good lord, I seem to be an indentured servant around there!

Glenn’s latest disc is about to drop next month, and I just finished designing the cover last night (so I can’t show it off to you guys before Glenn sees it!), and in honor of that sleepless night, I’m doing a post about my secret identity as a musician.

I designed the various album covers, company logos and Glenn’s Christmas card you see all around you, and in exchange he lets me play on his albums.  And as a result, when Glenn had a NUMBER #1 COUNTRY HIT IN SWEDEN a while ago, he gave me the gift of having played on a #1 hit record!  Okay, it was in Sweden…and the country charts at that.  But it’s legit.  I’ve played piano on a number #1 record.  Has Mike Mignola done that?  What about Alex Ross?  Oh sure, they’ve designed Academy Award posters, and made movies, but the country charts in Sweden are notably absent of their names.  So there, nyah.

If you care to hear any of this, head on over to Glenn Reid’s site, where a number of his songs are listenable on live streaming audio to the right of the opening page.  When you hear a piano or keyboard of some sort on the record, it’s probably me playin’ it.   My favorite is Hank Williams Night (the runaway Swedish Smash Hit), but if you want to dance to the straight up zydeco funk of my kick-ass accordion solo, you have to listen to “The Journey“.    Another recent favorite is “A Mother’s Son“, the cover art you can see to the right.

And I’ll let you know when the new CD is out.  The Swedes are putting their cowboy hats on as we speak.

Someday, I’m gonna find a way to digitize my one and only flexi-disc/comic book extravaganza called “TEDDY PAYNE AND THE BLUEBEARS sing EVERYBODY’S GOT A RIGHT TO THE BLUES“.  It’s a song I wrote, sang, played guitars, drums, piano and bass for (except for a lovely lead guitar part by the aforementioned David Henman.)  For those old enough to remember what a flexidisc is, imagine my excitement when I found my song was backed by a single by Alan Moore!  (If you’re lucky enough to find a copy of Critters #33, that contained the single, you’ll be hard pressed to find a turntable nowadays.  CURSES!)

Ty the Guy

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Credits

I’m not going to do a list of Ty’s credits when there are a number of places online that keep a thorough list…trying to get Ty to remember all the work he’s done always reminds me of a story of the actor Richard Burton*:  a reporter once showed him a list of movies Burton had been in hoping to trigger some interesting anecdotes.  Turns out that Burton had no memory of half of them and kept asking the reporter why he thought he had been in them.  Okay, that was because Burton was a roaring drunk, and Ty doesn’t touch a drop of the stuff…but Ty’s memory is about as bad.