Healthy Wealthy and Wise Bun Toons!

It was the 51st anniversary of Star Trek a couple of days ago.  Keep that in mind as you read on…

Since last time I Bun Tooned, this humble little bunny won a Joe Shuster Award for Best Webcomic.

Thanks for any and all who nominated or voted for the rabbit.  He’d blush if he wasn’t covered in white hair.

Speaking of which….

My wife is convinced there is a context for which this woman’s comment wasn’t horrible.  She thinks the cashier thought that two hundred books is too big a collection for one person and that it’s an achievement worth passing along.

I think she believed I wasn’t capable of reading that many books in the limited time on Earth I have left.

I read at least one of these per week when I have the spare time, sometimes two a week.

I’m fairly sure I have more than four or five years left breathing.

Ty the Guy, not yet OUT!

I’ve only gotten through about forty of them since I started buying them at the Value Village, but quite a number of them have been rip-snortin’ fun little yarns.

My favourites so far:

David Gerrold, creator of Tribbles did this one!

Spock’s son takes the stage.  Pretty good story, actually.

First contact between Vulcans and Humans, NOT the story told in First Contact, and I’d argue it’s better.

Adventures of Captain Pike and Lt. Spock.  Much good.

Fun little thriller with a great set-up…Kirk gets a court martial for breaking the Prime Directive!

This was an unfinished episode written by THEO STURGEON!!

For the last Bun Toon, click here.

Family Values Bun Toons! YAY!

Think of the CHILDREN!!

You think it’s easy living in this modern world?

It’s a struggle.  Each and every day.

Ty the Guy OUT!

I should point out, young Spock has been around the Trek universe almost since the beginning.

He first appeared in the animated episode YESTERYEAR, a time travelling Spock-Meets-Himself-as-a-Child story.  It’s actually, a pretty good Trek episode, but it gets death-duel arguments from Trekkies about it’s level of canonical acceptance.

Of course, there’s Genesis Planet Spock, grown from his own dead cells to house his own katra on Star Trek’s Eden World.

A couple of scenes later, we are treated to “Pon-Farr” Teen-Spock and his very special after school episode with Lt. Saavik.

“This won’t be creepy, because you’re not the real Saavik anyway.”

And of course, we must include NuTrek’s baby Spock–from the first/eleventh movie.

Okay, I shouldn’t have gotten so excited.

There’s already a LEGION of baby Spocks.  It’s like Spider-Verse at this point.

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For last week’s Bun Toon, which OBLIQUELY references the new Star Trek Discovery series, click the words FICTION EXPLAINED.

Happy Star Trek Fiftieth! YAY!

I’m not a rabbit.  I’m a Vulcan.  This is entirely irrational.

It’s Star Trek’s FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY this weekend, and I’m in PORTLAND at a comic convention.  I can’t be here with you again live at the Bun Toon, but I’m raising money for the Hero Initiative, so my conscience is clear.  I’d just be Tooning about what a jackass Trump is, so we’re spared that at least.

Instead, another Star Trek Related Bun Toon from some time past.  This one from the day after Leonard Nimoy died, and I had to digest the information in cartoon form.

Since I was a little boy, fifty years ago, Star Trek has taken over about 10 percent of my brain and about a third of my heart, and I couldn’t be happier to be both a Trekkie fan, and a creator (occasionally) of Trek comic books.

This is the best franchise, with the best fans in all of Pop Culture.

The word is given.

More information about my latest Trek-adjacent, comic book-adjacent project, (Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go) click HERE.

The Convention Season will be over shortly, and I’ll be back to Bun Tooning as regular as an old man scarfing down prune smoothies next week, I promise!

Ty the Guy OUT!

 

Presented without comment.  But this was a real thing.

FanExpo Canada: FRIDAY

Once again, I’ll be back sitting at P57 (changed from what’s in the program) today, 10am – 7pm! Doesn’t look like I have any panels or workshops scheduled today, so I’ll be at my table (unless I can sneak away and find some dollar bins! I’ve got a long list of comics I need to find to finish off some mini-series so I can finally read ’em!).

I have a commissions list and a pile of sketchcovers I’ve done.

I will have The World of Star Trek for sale,

and The Trouble with Tribbles,

And so much more!

And remember…to check out the Kickstarter for Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go! You can click on Spock or McCoy to get there:

Ty the Guy OUT!!

 

 

Where No Bunny Has Gone Before! YAY

Live Long and Hop Around More.

Last week, mere moments after I posted the Bun Toon, I headed out to my local theatre and took in the latest Trek Movie.  This week (with very very slight spoilers), I report back with…

Beyond turns out to be my favourite of the last three NuTrek movies.  Maybe because it wasn’t so ambitious, and maybe because they got Spock and McCoy bang-on-bullseye for all their scenes, but it “felt” right, and I was grinning the whole time.   I’ve warmed to the Earth-2 crew, even the new Kirk, though he’s the only one that still doesn’t “feel right” to me.  The rest of it was delightful.

It’s nice to see Trek back on track for the Fiftieth Anniversary coming up in less than a month.  With a new TV series, and other little things here and there, there’s much to celebrate for this old Trekkie, including a return to doing NEW Trek related projects that I can’t talk about in public quite yet…but I promise, I shall shout and howl and promote like crazy when I’m allowed to.  (I probably wasn’t even allowed to say as much as I just did.)

So forget I said anything.

I can’t wait for the next Trek Movie, already announced…with the GHOST OF KIRK’S FATHER!  BOO!

Ty the Guy OUT!

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A few days ago, another one of my heroes passed away at the age of 91:  Long time Mad Magazine legend, Jack Davis.

I first encountered Jack, like most of us did, in a Mad Magazine when I was about nine or ten.  He was one of the “gang of idiots”, the cartoonists’ cartoonist, whose casual excellence, and confident line work has been a primary inspiration in my career.

In my twenties, I consciously tried to draw like Wally Wood, Neal Adams and Jack Kirby, but some years ago, I realised that SUB-consciously, I always draw like Jack Davis.

At least I do when I’m at my best.

His aesthetic, his line, his easy precision, and his lack of pretension, worked together to create what I consider the perfect “cartoon” style of the 20th Century.  It was accessible, and impossibly skilled at the same time.  There was something about the way he seemed to splash colours or tone on his drawings as though he had only minutes until a deadline, and yet EVERYTHING looked like it was in the right place.  The effect was magnificent, and obviously in high demand as Jack did a heck of a lot more than Mad Magazine.

When I finally got good with a crow-quill, I went to Jack Davis art for instruction on how to create all those fabulous textures and tones. It’s a master class on how to make crosshatching and greys work in illustration.

Around the age of nine or ten, I noticed the same guy who was killing it in Mad Magazine, was the guy that did those fantastic TV Guide covers, and those wonderful movie posters, and those album jackets and those back cover adverts.  Jack Davis was everywhere a cartoonist was called for, and no one ever did it better.

Here’s a gallery of some of those MANY TV Guide covers, not as often seen as his Mad Magazine or Time Magazine covers.

Last week, the Bun Toon FEATURED artwork inspired by and swiped from Jack Davis.  I was still using him as inspiration as recently as seven days ago.

That’s never going to stop.

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For last week’s Jack Davis based Bun Toon, click here.

For the Bun Toon archives of years gone by, click here.

 

 

Celebrate Good Times Come On! YAY!

Love Long and Perspire

Oh my lack of god, there’s been a lot of my favourite people dying this last two weeks….  Writer Terry Pratchett,  Simpsons Co-Creator Sam Simon, Golden Age DC artist Irwin Hasen,  and of course, two of the giants of Star Trek:  Harve Bennett and Leonard Nimoy.

Enough feeling bad about this.

I’m not kidding.  If you’re reading this on Saturday afternoon, come on down to the TRANZAC CLUB at 292 Brunswick Avenue, just south of Danforth, west of Spadina.

It’s ten bucks at the door (two Spock Fives!)

and the proceeds go to the Lung Association of Canada.

I promise an evening of illogic and joy.

Ty the Guy OUT!

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Because Marvel eventually used every syllable in naming their various monsters…

…that purple monkey fellow up there is named “Grok”.  He’s in the Marvel Wiki.

‘Nuff Said.

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For my tribute to Leonard Nimoy Bun Toon (from two weeks ago) click here.

For last week’s non-Star Trek Bun Toon, click here

For The Bun Toon Archive, click here

Happy Birthday Leonard Nimoy.

Happy Birthday Len!  Actor, director, photographer, national treasure, icon, and tied with Batman as the fictional character I most wanted to be when I was twelve years old.  (Then I discovered girls, and wanted to be Kirk, as he got more tail!)

I wish I had a larger scan of this one. It's my portrait of Spock I did as part of an audition to work at Mad Magazine.

When I was a teenager, I used to suffer from terrible migraines in both my head and my stomach.  Debilitating, awful pains.  Pain relievers didn’t work (they still don’t, I’m immune to morphine, believe it or not), and I had no other tools to battle these pains but mental concentration.  I used to repeat Spock’s mantra at times like this “There is no pain.  It is all an illusion, it is not real…etc.” paraphrasing from a few episodes put together, admittedly.  But it WORKED.  I discovered the very useful trick of controlling my mind and learning to control the pain.  And all because of my rock-solid belief in the reality of Vulcans, Mr. Spock, and his world.

I would not have gotten through my teen-age years without him.  So this is personal.

Thanks for being in our world, Leonard, from the bottom of my heart.

TY THE GUY OUT!

And now, some personal Templeton/Nimoy bonus moments!

To start with, there's the Star Trek mini-series I wrote...

ALSO:  I auditioned for a small part in the film “THE GOOD MOTHER” which Leonard directed.  I didn’t get the part, but I got to meet the director at the audition, which was a thoroughly pleasant experience.

Pictured: Actors I didn't get to work with.

ALSO:  My ex-brother-in-law Michael Burgess, DID have a part in the movie THREE MEN AND A BABY (another Nimoy Opus), but had nothing but unpleasant things to say about Nimoy, so screw Burgess.  He’s divorced from sister, he’s an epic ass, and not much of an actor, anyway.

 

Pictured: More actors I've never worked with.

Also:  I have every Leonard Nimoy music album ever made, all original vinyl pressings,  and once produced a video for the song “If I Had a Hammer” when I worked at CITY TV in the 80s.  I can’t find the video, or you’d be seeing it everywhere, believe me.

Feel? Feel? What are these emotions you speak of?

Unseen Star Trek – from the LOSER.

As promised on the weekend, I said I’d do a fun blog about my recent Star Trek graphic novel whether I won or lost the Shuster Award for Best Writer for that very project.

As you can see from the title of the blog, I lost.  The winners of the awards can be found here!  Congrats to all the talented folks who were recognized for the contributions we get to make to canadian, and comic culture.  YAAAY all around.

But here’s the fun blog anyway.

Star Trek:  Mission’s End was illustrated by a wonderfully skilled young Canadian named Stephen Molnar, who worked himself ragged to get the likenesses, the costumes, the backgrounds, the aliens, and the whole “feel” of Star Trek absolutely right.  He’s a big part of the reason people liked the book, if they did.  I’m going to show you guys a couple of Steve’s elegant pages in pencil and inks in a moment.  You’ll have to get the comic, GN or phone app to read it in colour; the final product belongs to Paramount and IDW.

Not mine to give away online, without a spanking.

But here’s where the fun comes in.  A couple of months ago, a fellow named Darrin Egan took one of my Comic Book Bootcamp courses, and was interested to try his hand at a full set of sample pages, based on an existing script that was yet to be published (so he couldn’t be influenced by the published version).   Though the Trek issues had already come out at the time, Darrin hadn’t seen them, and was interested in trying his hand at the pages.    Below are both versions:  First, the terrifically talented Steve Molnar, artist of the published story, in either inks or pencils,  followed by the vivacious version by Darrin Egan, from the same script, but without seeing Steve’s art.

Obviously, I’m a pushy writer, as the basic storytelling is remarkably similar.  So the parts that mirror each other, are the fault of a micromanaging writer…it’s the little ways in which they differ I find fascinating.  At any rate, I thought you guys might enjoy.  They’re both good at likenesses, and storytelling rules.  Each has strengths.  It’s like the Tiger and Princess.

Steve Molnar, pencils and inks

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Darrin Egan - pencil

page two and three was a double page spread.  Click on the images to make them bigger…

Steve Molnar - pencils and inks

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Darrin Egan - pencil

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Next:  The sexy moment, with the ripped shirt and the flirty, sweet GLAVIN!

Steve Molnar - pencil and ink

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Darrin Egan - pencil

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Finally, the two page spread that reveals that we’ve been inside a HUGE space ship, originally piloted by giants, and now long abandoned and overgrown with foliage and giant insects.   I think they both knocked it out of the park, though I do confess, the last panel of  Spock in the Molnar layout, is what made this whole introduction work for me.  The concept of the satanic character in the middle of Eden, interjecting and ruining everyone’s appreciation of the nature.  Darrin did a GREAT job on every panel,  but his Spock is a little too friendly for the “beat” of that moment.

Again, these are double page spreads, so click on ’em to make ’em bigger.

Steve Molnar - just pencil this time

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Darrin Egan - pencil

Wasn’t that fun?  I’d love to hear how much you like Darrin’s pencils…so would Darrin, I imagine, and he deserves a little slap and tickle for these excellent pages (and please, feel free to equally gush about Steve Molnar’s work, but he’s already a comic book superstar, so he’s getting raves from all quarters fairly continuously!).

And one last bit of unseen Trek before we head on over to Ten Forward for the afternoon….When I first found out I had a chance to do some Star Trek comics, a good friend of mine, Richard (Pitt, X-Man)  Pace (here’s his blog, where he’s doing a GORGEOUS painting of a jungle girl at the moment…) jumped up and asked if he could participate.  Schedules and other things precluded his helping out, but the sample sketch he tossed my way was so lovely, I’m including it here at the bottom of this entry.

Richard Pace pencils

I’d love to do a Star Trek comic book with ANY of these individuals in the future, should the fates or the Great Bird of the Galaxy allow.

Ty the Guy

To share post:

My inner Mad

When I put up those Harvey Pekar sketches last week, I mentioned that neither of the drawings were in my “usual” style of doing a likeness.  At this point in my career, I’m not sure I have a style, but I do have some vague idea of what sort of final drawing will look right to my eyes, and these ideas are usually rooted in Mort Drucker and John Severin…two of the great Mad artists of my youth.

As you can see by the drawing of a young Jay Leno (done for a Canadian TV Guide some years ago) and the Movie Spock (done for my own amusement last year), my line work tends towards Drucker’s when I’m just trying to make a portrait.

Oddly enough, when I fit a likeness into a story (as I did with these panels from various editions of the Factoid BIG BOOK series, or as I’m currently doing with my fun Dexter gig), I find my line work and sensibility tends towards John Severin.   Probably because Severin was slavishly realistic, and Drucker was more playful.

Either way, when you add the Jack Davis influence in the Pekar drawing below (coupled with a blatant attempt to inject a little R. Crumb in there, another Harvey Kurtzman protege), I’ve obviously never gotten over my early crush on Mad Magazine.

And I ain’t never gonna.

Ty the Guy