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The Drawing Book on Substack!

8/22/2026

Hey folks, I have not written anything on this blog in YEARS! That's because in 2023, I started posting weekly comics on Substack instead. My newsletter is called The Drawing Book, and it's where I share my old sketchbook journal comics - the very same kind of thing I used to share on this blog. So, if you are looking for up-to-date posts from me, please check out my Substack here! It's free!

But if you look all the way down the sidebar on this page, you will see the archives: many, many old comics and stories collected here on this blog. That old stuff is kind of fun, too.

This week in The Drawing Book: fragments of an unfinished collection of long-ago Calgary indie comics. Straight from my sketchbook to you!

- Sam Hester

Read on Substack

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TD Artist Incubator at Calgary's Arts Commons

10/20/2023

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I signed up to participate in a program called the TD Incubator, that helps to connect and mentor Calgary artists. I'm not exactly a new, emerging artist, but I've been feeling pretty disconnected from Calgary's artistic community, and this sounded like a good opportunity to rediscover my own local scene. Anyway, I took part in this weekend-long event at Calgary's Arts Commons, which was pretty cool. And I made some sketchnotes.

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Indoor Air Quality!

2/10/2023

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When I found out that COVID-19 spreads through the air, I got interested in IAQ (Indoor Air Quality). Turns out that air filters and ventilation can help to stop the spread of airborne particles - not just COVID, but all sorts of stuff you'd probably rather not breathe in (forest fire smoke, for example). I am not an expert in this subject, though, so I listened to a 2022 online talk by IAQ expert Joey Fox, and took some notes:

Learning about IAQ led to me getting curious about indoor air quality at schools, which are high points of transmission for airborne illness. I've written a few letters in the form of comics to my local school board here in Calgary (the Calgary Board of Education) asking what is being done about this. If you're interested in that, skip ahead to the long comic strip letter I presented at a January 2023 school council meeting. Otherwise, just scroll down through my most recent blog posts, which provide a bit more context about this subject, before getting to the letter.

The Calgary Board of Education has yet to provide more than just stock answers and form letters to the many families who have been asking about improvements to Indoor Air Quality measures in schools. Stay tuned for more on this subject, as we continue to advocate for conditions that will keep staff and students as healthy as possible!

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A letter to the Calgary Board of Education Trustees: Continued

2/10/2023

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On this blog, I've posted a couple of updates about the comics I've written to the Calgary Board of Education Trustees, about Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in schools. I thought I might as well add a couple of other related comics here - I wrote these back in November and December 2022.

After sending these letters, I was able to have a on-screen call with my local school board trustee. What happened after that? I wrote about that in my previous blog post - take a look!

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A letter to the Calgary Board of Education Trustees: Continued

2/10/2023

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Hello!

Over the years, this blog has been a place for writing about local community events and art/writing projects that I've been involved in. After a long hiatus, I opened up this blog again! But this time, it was to write about a letter I sent to the Calgary Board of Education (CBE) Trustees.

In my most recent post, I shared my letter, written in the form of a long comic strip. It's about some concerns I have about indoor air quality (IAQ) at CBE schools. The comic has had some good responses. I talked about it (and handed out copies) at a meeting at my local school, in January 2023. A few parents, who were at the meeting, gave the comic some good reviews. And at least one parent who saw it online, was inspired to ask her own school council for a meeting on this subject. The Calgary Herald, a local newspaper, mentioned it in a recent article. So I'm hoping that the comic will help to spread awareness about this issue.

A photo from the Herald article

But, unfortunately, the message doesn't seem to be getting through to the people I was addressing it to: the school board trustees!

It was written in response to a conversation I had with one of our school board trustees, who asked me to clearly state "the problem we are trying to solve." In the comic, I phrased it this way:

"I'm perplexed as to WHY the COMPELLING EVIDENCE presented by many MEDICAL & AIR QUALITY EXPERTS in favour of the use of HEPA filters as a tool for REDUCING THE SPREAD of airborne illness in SCHOOLS, has NOT persuaded the CBE to RECONSIDER its decision to forbid their use!”

When my school board trustee read this, she said it still didn't seem like a "solveable problem" she was equipped to respond to. (That's another problem, I think!) But I gave it a shot: I drew one more panel, rephrasing the problem in even simpler terms, in hopes that this would be acceptable to her. Here's the panel:

Was this acceptable? I don't think so. I received a letter from the Board of Trustees last week, and here's what it said:

Dear Sam Hester,

Thank you for taking the time to write and illustrate your creative letter to the Board of Trustees of the Calgary Board of Education (CBE), dated January 19, 2023, regarding indoor air quality at CBE schools.

Now that all Trustees have had the opportunity to read your letter, we want you to know how important it is that you took the time to write and illustrate it. Your input helps the Board be aware of Calgarians’ concerns as we fulfill our key role in providing oversight of the CBE and monitoring student success.

As Trustees, we need engaged people like you to share your vision for public education, and to hold us accountable to the Board of Trustees’ core values: Students come first. Learning is our central purpose. Public education serves the common good.

Thank you, again, for taking the time to write.

Best regards,
Trustee Vukadinovic, on behalf of the Board of Trustees

It's just a form letter! There isn't even a glimpse of an answer to my question, or even an acknowledgment of the question. So I guess I will have to write another letter.

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A letter to the Calgary Board of Education Trustees

1/18/2023

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I wrote this letter to the Calgary Board of Education Trustees so I could ask them about Indoor Air Quality measures (or, really, the lack thereof) at CBE schools. I haven't written anything on this blog in so long! But this comic is too long to attach to emails, so I thought I'd post it here. We'll see what happens!

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Real Talk about COVID-19 in Alberta

12/7/2020

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It's been a really long time since I posted anything up here, but this was important!

Last week I heard my old friend Dr. Darren Markland, an ICU physician at Edmonton's Royal Alexandra Hospital, speaking on Ryan Jespersen's new show, "Real Talk."

Darren already does an amazing job of informing the public about the realities of COVID-19 in Alberta. But when I heard this interview, I wanted to help amplify this urgent message. So I made some sketchnotes to share.

If you'd like to have this poster, I've put a digital file of the image into a Dropbox folder.
Click here to open the folder.

In the folder, there's a big file you can use to print the image at a large scale (the original poster is 32x36"). And there's a smaller version that can be used to print the image on an 8.5x11" page. I'm also putting some smaller cropped sections in there, in case those are handy for sharing this story!

If you'd like to use the digital files to print the image on something other than your home printer, may I recommend Little Rock Printing in Calgary - they do great work for me, and they ship all my posters everywhere.

I'm sharing these images for free - but if you'd like to support this work, please consider making a donation to the Royal Alexandra Hospital where Darren and his amazing colleagues are working to keep Albertans safe! It's easy to do with just an online click right here.

Look at the pictures and read along with Ryan and Darren's conversation. Here's a link to the Real Talk episode featuring their interview on November 24th, 2020.

Stay safe everyone, and let's get through this together!

-- Sam

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2018 Ramsay newsletter comics

12/15/2018

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This year, a few wonderful artists-in-residence contributed comics to the Ramsay Community newsletter, along with a few of my usual newsletter comics. I posted some of the 2018 comics on this blog, but I didn't get around to posting the rest. So, I'm hoping to amend that now, by putting up the last few missing 2018 comics here. Of course, you can also see them on the Ramsay Community Association website.

We'll start with the May 2018 comic, which was really an image from a drawing/brainstorming session at Of the Wild Preschool in Bridgeland.

The June comic was created by Aria, a youthful comics-artist-residence who's a student at Ramsay School. You can see her investigative inclinations are placing her on the right track for a career in comics journalism!

The July comic was contributed by Calgary artist Nicole Wolf, who's busy right now being the New Central Library's inaugural artist in residence (wow!!!). When I saw that Nicole had written this comic about a "chicken incident," it just seemed like a story well-suited to Ramsay, a neighbourhood with a long history of strong feelings about chickens. And, I loved Nicole's comic, too. Sorry it is a little bit hard to read in this online blog format.

Here is September's comic on "Ramsay at Night."

For the November newsletter, I compiled a few snippets from past Ramsay comics, over a 2-page spread: here they are!

And the last comic, wrapping up the 2018 newsletter comics artist-in-residence series, is a Christmas card by Calgary artist Al Gerritsen. I can't find much of Al's work online, but I did find a blog written by a visitor to his workshop, who posted some pictures of his wonderful work.

And that is the end of this story. Thanks Ramsay newsletter and Ramsay readers! Happy new year and see you in 2019!

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October 2018 Ramsay Newsletter Comic

10/10/2018

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Every month (just about), I write a comic for my community newsletter, and when I remember to do it, I post the comics here. I just took a look at my blog, and realized I've missed posting the past few comics. I'll have to remedy this, soon! Especially because a few of the 2018 Ramsay newsletter comics weren't actually by me, but were submitted by a few wonderful artists-in-residence who shared their own neighbourhood stories with Ramsay readers.

I'll post those missing comics sometime soon, but in the meantime, here's the October comic - featuring my friend Andrew. You can read more about Andrew here. See you in the neighbourhood!

Why should I even care if nobody remembers "Buck Shot?" I care... because the Buck Shot Show is an important part of the Calgary story!

A few years before I wrote that comic, I wrote another comic about Ramsay for the Calgary Herald. In that one, I mentioned that one of my neighbourhood's claims to fame, was that Buck Shot had been a former resident! (I stole the picture of Benny the bear, from that earlier comic.) Here's a piece of that Calgary Herald comic (you can see the whole thing here).

Did Buck Shot really live in Ramsay? All my knowledge is just based on this anecdote. I hope I've got it right!

I just realized that, in this comic, I called Buck Shot an "artist." I guess he was an artist of the beloved children's television show variety. But I wonder if he would consider himself an artist? I hope so!

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Aznavour comics

10/1/2018

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My kids are picky eaters. So imagine my delight when my four-year-old told me, this afternoon, that he'd tried some lasagna at preschool, and liked it enough to have two helpings! My first thought was: hallelujah! And my other thought, of course, was: Aznavour!

So that second thought is a little more obscure. My dad loved the music of "the French Frank Sinatra" Charles Aznavour, and when I was small, records that looked like this were always spinning on the turntable in my house. And, as a little kid, I always thought that the reddish-orangish-yellowish swirls on the record looked like... lasagna.

Which is how I've ended up with a lifelong association that I'd never have bothered to mention to anyone, if not for the fact that, just a couple of hours after my lasagna conversation recalled Aznavour to my mind today, I heard from a friend that Charles Aznavour had died, at the age of 94.

I saw him perform at Toronto's Roy Thompson Hall a long time ago. It seemed like an opportunity that wasn't to be missed. Around that time, I drew this seemingly self-obsessed comic to illustrate an Aznavour song that felt like the soundtrack to my life, back then - as I went through that gloomy stage of trying to get over a relationship that had ended. Here's a link to the actual song as sung by Aznavour.

Right now I'm laughing because I can't be quite sure, at this distance, who the relationship was with! I guess the boyfriend didn't make that much of a lasting impression. But the song, of course, has stayed. I hope Aznavour's music will be with us to stay, for a very long time!

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sam hester

I am a graphic recorder based in Calgary. I like local stories. I write comics when I have free time. And I leave eraser shavings everywhere I go.

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www.the23rdstory.com started as a blog and now includes some information about my graphic recording practice as well.

I also have an (old) website which features a lot of my (old) work. Look out, it's a bit clunky and there are a lot of links that don't go anywhere, but there are still a few interesting things there:
www.thedrawingbook.com

sam hester

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