Welcome to my website! My name is Sam Hester and I'm a Calgary-based graphic recorder and comics artist/writer. Take a look around to see what I'm up to!

November 2026 Workshop in Calgary!

Some news: I am co-hosting a graphic recording workshop in Calgary this November! Take a look here to find out more. I hope you can join us!

Free weekly comics!

On Sundays, I publish a little newsletter on Substack, featuring comics and stories from my old sketchbook journal series, "The Drawing Book." This is my favourite art project. Subscribe for free!

Graphic Recording

Start here to learn about graphic recording and how visuals can help you to tell your story!

Image Gallery

You can take a look here for examples of my graphic recording work.

Comics & Illustration

I write a lot of comics! Take a look here to see some examples. 
You can read my old sketchbook journal comics every week in my free Substack newsletter, "The Drawing Book."

You can also find my comics about life in Calgary at The Sprawl, an independent journalism outlet that I've been working with for almost a decade! You can see my Sprawl comics here on The Sprawl website.

And, sometimes I do illustration work! You can see some examples of that work here.

Video Gallery

I have worked on a few video animation projects! Take a look here to see some examples. 

Here's a very short video I made as part of my application to be the 2023 Alberta Artist in Residence. (I made the shortlist!) I was really talking too fast - sorry! But the pictures look ok.

Graphic Medicine

Here's some information about an emerging field that is transforming health care! And there are lots of pictures, too!

TED Talk

In 2021, I was invited by the folks at TEDxYYC to give a TEDx talk in Calgary. It was during the early pandemic, so it was filmed in my living room (by the awesome Chris Hsiung).

I talked about graphic medicine: how pictures can help spark empathy in a health care setting. In 2022, my talk was picked up by the TED team. It's now on the TED site, where it has been viewed almost 2 million times! Take a look!

I'm @calgaryhester on these platforms:

And on Substack, I have a weekly free comics newsletter called The Drawing Book. Take a look!

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