Classes, Commissions and Christmas

Ty got his last set of pages into his Marvel editor, he’s in the middle of his teaching week, and I’m about to compile the list of commissions he’s going to be working on…

If YOU would like a sketchbook commission, please read the details in the post from last week, Sketch Cover Commissions, and email Ty at tybunny AT gmail DOT com.

This sketchbook was done for The Hero Initiative, for auction.

And…for those of you who have been asking about Ty’s upcoming classes–all the details about COMIC BOOK BOOTCAMP PART ONE and his completely brand-new-never-been-taught-before-oh-boy-he-can-hardly-wait HEADS, HANDS AND FACES are on Ty Templeton’s Comic Book Bootcamp site.

And…no, we’re not yet doing a Digital Coloring course, but we DO have a One-Day Workshop RENDERING WITH MARKERS, in which animator/illustrator/webcomic artist Meg Kearney will teach you how to use copics and other markers to colour your comics/pinups. You’ll learn to choose colours, to mix them, how to layer them and more. The information on that course is also over at Comic Book Bootcamp. You can pay at the class, but we do need to know if you’re planning to attend so the instructor will have enough sets of markers for each participant.

This illustration was drawn and coloured by instructor Meg Kearney, using copics.

 

Keiren

Fan Appreciation Event

So just a few more days until Toronto ComiCon Fan Appreciation Event. Yes, it’s not that long after that last con, but this one promises so much more! More comic book artists, more special guests,  more exhibitors…and there are workshops too. Ty will be doing a one hour “taste” of his TCW workshop, Drawing the Human Figure from Memory, (the actual seven week worskhop begins May 2–check TCW’s website for more info and to contact Sean Menard to register).  That will be Saturday April 9 at 3:00pm.

The next day will feature a workshop with Leonard Kirk, based on his TCW course, Comic Book Pencilling and Inking (the full course starts May 5).

Artists will be doing sketches, selling pages, and telling stories…and we’re not yet sure what will happen exactly but the Joe Shuster Awards‘ Kevin Boyd is contemplating the future of his Rob Granito hockey jersey. Boyd says he was given it a couple years ago and given the events of the last few weeks, does not wish to hang on to it. He is entertaining suggestions as to it’s possible end/demise and finding a way to use that demise to raise funds for charity. While Japan would clearly seem the obvious choice to many, especially as Toronto comic creators plan a fundraiser for Japan, it has been suggested by others, Ty amongst them, that The Hero Initiative would also be a good choice. As Ty commented (on Boyd’s FB wall), “I’d say Hero Initiative so Rob can contribute to the Comics Industry instead of stealing from it.” (He also said a lot of stuff about urination but we don’t need to discuss that right now!).  Stay tuned for further details on the hockey jersey…

Keiren

Take a Workshop with Ty!

For those of you in the Greater Toronto Area, there are still a few spaces available in Toronto Cartoonists Workshop workshops. Ty will be teaching his WORLD-FAMOUS Comic Book Bootcamp Part 1 (he’s starting to infect me with his all-caps!), on Mondays and Tuesdays.

There will be other workshops starting March 3–check the website for details.

 

Alas poor comic strips, I knew them well.

I teach a class on writing and drawing comics at the TORONTO CARTOONISTS WORKSHOP, and the first class of the new semester started yesterday.  As I always do, I asked what comics the new students currently read, and what they grew up reading…to get a sense of the sort of stuff they’re looking to make.   This is the first class in which no one volunteered a comic strip as something they grew up reading.

Not Calvin and Hobbes, not Peanuts, not nothing, baby.

And last week, when I posted the Seven Best Gay Characters in Comics, it was noted that I included comic strips in that list as though that was odd.  So clearly, it is, nowadays.  I’m a relic.

It’s not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing, but it’s a new thing, and so I mark it down.

Now, obviously there are still GREAT comic strips still being made.  I read Doonesbury daily, and I head over to www.gocomics.com when I need a massive comic strip/political cartoon fix, it’s one of my favorite bookmarks.

But there’s a big difference in the influence and penetration of the “newspaper comics” nowadays if you have to go FIND ’em online, instead of just getting them delivered to your breakfast table while your parents read Sports – or finding a Sunday Comics Section on a table at a pizza place, or in any one of the thousands of places that newspaper comics used to be in the world.

Don’t get me wrong, I still prefer the internet and cures for diseases and stuff.  Future World all good, hoo baby!

But still…

Ty the Guy OUT!

Here now, your comic strip moment of zen.

a star is born

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