I’ve been trying some old-new things..

Hey, it’s been a while since I posted, but I was reading another WordPress blog and I saw the little logo for this one and I thought…why not?

I guess writing this blog is one of those old-new things.

As you can see above, that’s one my more recent purchases I’ve wanted for the past decade or two, I always loved Snowjob so getting a whole vintage set of Arctic Joes always tempted me.

I went through a whole period where I felt way too much guilt about how much time I spent looking at toys, how much money I spent buying toys, and the same goes with comics, video games, movies, etc…

…but I realized (again sorta) recently that doing those things is the source of at least 2/3 of my happiness and inspiration.

When I worked a regular job (gross) I’d think about how many hours I’d need to work to buy something I really wanted and it made some shifts a lot easier.

When I’m sitting looking at toys and their marketing materials and such it fills me with a lot of the same joy and excitement I had as a kid, the excitement that made me want to be a better artist and one day, a cartoonist.

I think people who start filling their lives with too much guilt over these things really start to have their creativity, drive and inspiration decay slowly into the nothingness that is “I used to be really into that stuff but y’know, you get busy, life happens…yeah.”

I’ve heard that from so many people over the years and every time it just makes me shudder. How did you take a kid who would pause his VHS so he could have a still version to copy down in his notebook of Optimus Prime who grew up reading How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way until the pages were brittle, yellow and dog-eared…and turn him into this shell that just kind of…died inside? That whenever they talk about stuff they like it’s all guilty pleasure, don’t tell the wife, and other horrid phrases?

 

Don’t grow up…it’s a trap.

 

I’ve been fighting against being in this headspace as I too speedily approach 30 (gross) and it’s been working. Instead of forcing myself to pick up a pencil, I can’t help but pick one up and start jotting down ideas and doodles and layouts.

The hardest part of your day shouldn’t be getting out of bed. When you’ve got Devastator behind the bed, Hulk Hogan beside the bed and some Real American Heroes across from the bed…you’ve got a whole team ready to pull you back into the world…whether that world accepts that or not.

 

That’s all folks!

RZH: ‘Bear Attack!’

I did this last month, it started out to just test 5 by 7 (inches, sorry Canadian heritage!) and I ended up liking the finished product so much that I threw on some colour (that you can see next post!) and ofcourse I think it has legs in grey…I hope you all do too.

There are some other developments going on in the world of Loonie Bin Comics too, I’ll most likely be at the local Cornell Picnic (fingers crossed!) next weekend, I really hope over the next couple years to make an impression and have a stronger comic community here in Markham, of all ages.

It’ll be my return to full-sized old school work (that’s 11 by 17…inches again…still sorry) with brush and maybe even some marker later on, trying to work on my portfolio.

I’m also (obviously) really trying to get back into blogging, with more than a sentence or two at a time, I hope you’ll all join me in my journey, I’ll be 24 soon and…I don’t know, I just want to have it more together..so I’m trying here, folks.

a series of arbitrary decisions…

• i am going to grow a beard
• i am going to sign up for fit to print, even though i’ve never drawn a full size comic page
• i am going to sign up for cerebus, though i’ve never read cerebus
• i am going to buy all the thundercats action figures
• i am going to make a list of things to draw…then draw them
• this list will include deadpool wearing dick tracy’s coat, presumably after he’s murdered the famous detective (see above)
• i am going to have a blogspot website…that’s bullshit (it’s this one)
• i am going have a wordpress website…that’s awesome (it’s this one)
• i am going to be a cartoonist
• i am going to quit my job
• i am going to no longer have a sleep schedule

….and so i did.