It snuck up on me, but luckily the internet reminded me about Hourly Comic Day. Always adds some fun to an otherwise unremarkable day. Or are they all remarkable?

Halloween comes and goes. I didn’t get up to too much more than getting together my costume to wear at the dayjob. It turns out wearing a fur suit makes one quite warm. My costume was inspired by those Wilder Mann photos I was drawing early in October. My costume confused people all day long!

My department decided on a theme of “Scary Forest” (downgraded from the more evocative Haunted Forest). The decor included trees made from cut up brown paper bags, and a whole pile of branches from my back yard. It looked better in person, of course.

Manien has been on a run of going through old boxes and was inspired Saturday to tackle the legendary box labelled “Crap from our Trip” and she got me to look at a box labelled “Jason Kitchen.” Neither of these boxes had been opened for oh ten years or more. As well as old kitchen stuff, my box contained some comic pages I had been looking for, and this old jacket I had been wanting to dig out.

Back in late high school/university days I kept adding and adding mostly comic oriented stuff to this white jacket I wasn’t that crazy about.

On the front…
1. I am not sure what those trees were about, to be honest
2. LoN. League of the New, a superhero group I made as a kid and kept returning to for role-playing games and a FULLY PAINTED dark and gritty comic inspired by the Dark Knight Returns.
3. I loved throwing crosses on stuff. How edgy of me! J t! So bad! And an alpha/omega.
4. Background for the first panel of the Watchmen, where I pinned my Watchmen smiley face button.
5. Boot to the Head – referring to the Four on the Floor TV show. Hell Toupee was something from Eddy Current…

6. I had another jacket that I covered about a third of the sleeve with pop can tabs. I would keep my eye open for them on the ground when I walked around.
7. Dishman! by John MacLeod
8. I AM HE AS YOU ARE HE AS YOU ARE ME AND WE ARE ALL TOGETHER from a Beatles song and this graphic from Rick Veitch‘s “The One” comic.
9. Eddy Current by Ted McKeever was a big influence on me.
10. Dark Knight style bats

11. Men Without Hats forever!
12. I was quite into Matt Wagner‘s first “Mage: The Hero Discovered”
13. Go Canada!
14. Also Matt “Wagner’s Grendel”

I had a kind of unproductive long weekend. But I did draw a bird comic today.

Someone on Google+ linked to this great autobiographical comic the other day and I have had it open in a tab reading them periodically ever since. There is something compulsively readable about it!

Also, I needed somewhere to put up pages by my drawing area for reference so Manien made a frame and I filled it with corks.

True Loves is a little behind schedule this week, due to a weekend on the Island and a column for Broken Pencil being due. Hopefully I’ll have something by Friday. Meanwhile…

TCAF was a blast. Such a good show, such a good time. So many cartoonists full of so much joy. Here are some photos and thoughts.

Ed and I had a room – nay a SUITE in the Town Inn Suites at Church and Charles. After I booked it I realized it was almost right across the street from where I last lived in Toronto, on Isabella – a great location, as you are minutes from Yonge and Bloor and therefore anything you could possibly need. Also minutes from the Reference Library, which is handy for TCAF. We were on the 24th floor facing west, which afforded this amazing view towards Yonge Street. It was slightly scary if you stood too close to the balcony though.

When we were leaving the hotel one day, I realized that when Manien and I used to live across the street, we would make fun of the Town Inn Suites, as it looked like the saddest hotel around. It was sort of low end, but our suite had a nice little kitchen and a separate room for the second bed, so that was all quite decadent. Also just that it was only Ed and I staying there, not six people or whatever is convention normal.

Our table was right by the Beeton Auditorium, and I was worried that we would get blocked by lineups for panel discussions. As it turned out this only occurred twice, for Chris Ware and for the Machine of Death panel (pictured above). Once the lineup was stable and standing there a while I would ask people what they were lined up for. I forgot to get schedule until late Sunday. The best to see was people who would walk up past the lineup, super-focused because they were going in to see this PANEL… blocking out the existence of this lineup going down the hall and back out and onto the main floor.

I guess I must have taken this late Saturday. So I didn’t capture the jam-packed insanity of the floor that was evident most of the day. Our table was off to the left, away from the main loop, in a little cul de sac. People would wash up at our table and go “Whew it is so nice to get out of the crowd!” which roused conflicted emotions in us at our table that seemed less busy than everyone else’s. But despite the grass is always greener syndrome, I did great. Sold a good amount of my Year 40 Project sets, sold quite a few True Loves. So I was happy.

After the Saturday show was done, I went for dinner with Dave Lapp, Dave Howard, Diego and Dalton Sharp. I tell you it is the best thing to hang out with the Daves and Dalton, they have such interesting discussions of comics and culture. It makes me feel smarter just listening to them. Then we went back to the hotel to hang out a while before heading to the party. Here we see Dave H, Diego and Dalton being rock stars on the hotel balcony.

Here we see Brian Evinou at the Pauper’s Pub party. Last year it was crazy crowded and hot in there, so our gang got there early to snag a table.

Mike Yoshioka persuaded Paupers to put on the hockey game because Vancouver was playing. Here we see Mike having his heart broken.

The real revelation of the Paupers night was having the rooftop patio available. Maybe it was last year, I don’t remember, but it made the crowdedness completely bearable. It was a gorgeous night and it was easy to hang out there drifting from conversation to conversation.

I guess I should get over it and use a flash, but I have a great fondness for the crazy blurry photos. Here we see Inkstud Robin Mcconnell with Brian Fukushima, who recently relocated from Vancouver to Toronto.

Sean, Avi and Britt.

I was happy to make the acquaintance of James Turner. We were happy to make many jokes about being related.

Dalton Sharp. You just don’t get that many faces out of a person with a flash.

The Bixibike rental system just started up in Toronto, and Ed was most intrigued. So intrigued that as we walked back to the hotel with Dalton, Ed was determined we should get bikes to ride. Luckily he couldn’t get it to work, so we were spared disaster and broken limbs.

Now we have skipped past the Sunday part of the show completely. That day was slower, and was a shorter day (starting at 11am rather than 9am). Between friends visiting the table and lunches and so on, it was 4pm before we knew it. And the only book I had bought at that point was Cat Rackham. So I ran around and bought a few things. The one other book I was determined to get was Chester Brown’s Paying for It. It happened that there was only one person in line for him at 4:45, and so I managed to sneak in and get a book and get it signed!

The photo above reflects how everyone felt by Sunday night. Exhausted but content. I heard of quite a few people selling out of books. Pretty much everyone was happy with their sales. And ready for one last party, the closing event at Clintons.

I managed to spend some more time with Dave Lapp and Dalton Sharp. Many Scotches were had, plans to smite enemies were made.

Here we have Chris Butcher making his closing speech, thanking the army of volunteers and everyone who helped make the event such a success. Peter Birkamoe in attendance. They look very serious here, but only because they are offering sincere thanks. And I thank them for making the event so great.

One last blurry photo to show how the party this year expanded into the entire bar. It was great having this whole bar just wall to wall cartoonists. Also, I love that the front of Clintons is like a log cabin, as it makes me feel like I am in Twin Peaks.

For some reason yesterday I started to think about Saturday mornings twenty years ago. Back when I was going to York University, living in residence. Jesse and I would get up and watch the Beetlejuice cartoon with Di or Dawn and then get ourselves across the quad to the cafeteria for some breakfast. Have a doughnut, some coffee with lots of cream and sugar. Maybe some rice crispies with chocolate milk on them. And then, hopped on caffeine and sugar we would begin the long trek downtown.

A bus to the subway, the subway to Spadina station. Walking along Bloor was exciting and exotic. There were people sleeping in doorways! Then we cut down to Harbord. To the Beguiling. It was a little intimidating going in. There would often be loud punk music blasting. Would the Scary Guy be working that day? And the comics themselves seemed strange and harsh too, with names like Hate and Jizz. Weird black and white photocopied comics on the floor like Butt Biscuit.

It’s not like I was completely new to alternative comics. I had a good chunk of Yummy Fur (oh the memory of reading the Man Who Couldn’t Stop on a Christmas morning, laughing until I cried), loved Eddy Current and Mage. But the Beguiling had more and different and dirtier things than what I could find at the comic stores of my teen years in Guelph. It was an exciting time in comics too, with the early issues of Eightball coming out, the Drawn and Quarterly magazine introducing us to Joe Matt, Dirty Plotte, Unsupervised Existence, Taboo. New things to be found every week.

After hitting the Beguiling we would wander down through Kensington Market, and along Queen Street, soaking up the city. Maybe cut up through the Eaton Centre and along Yonge Street. Refuel with a burger from Harvey’s before starting the long journey back to North York.