I write and draw comics about real-life stuff. Here are a few places you can find them:
Curious Calgary zines in 2024!
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For a few years, I've been writing comics for Calgary-based independent journalism outlet The Sprawl (scroll down for more about that!) In 2023/24, together with The Sprawl, I started a new zine series called Curious Calgary. (That link goes to the 2024 zines - click on the menu to see the 2023 zines).
These short comics tell quick stories about Calgary history and infrastructure stuff. They're designed to be downloaded from The Sprawl's website and printed on a single 8.5x11" sheet. Then you can fold them and pass them around in your own community! The "Curious Calgary" series won a 2024 "Innovation Award" from the Alberta Magazine Publishers' Association! And if only I have time to keep doing this, we'll keep making more in 2025. 
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Here's the cover of one of the "Curious Calgary" zines.
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The Drawing Book (my Sunday Substack newsletter!)
In 2023, I started posting comics from my old sketchnote journal series, The Drawing Book, on my new Substack. It's called...
The Drawing Book! Some posts are about my adventures following Bob Dylan's tour around... some of them are about my life as a flight attendant long ago... and some are new comics I'm working on today. Click the thumbnails below to check out posts from those three categories. Take a look and subscribe for free, here! (samhester.substack.com) |
Bob Dylan Comics
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The Old Drawing Book |
The New Drawing Book
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More comics for The Sprawl
Since 2018, I've been writing "The Listener," a comics column about life in Calgary, for The Sprawl, an independent journalism outlet.
Here's a link to The Sprawl's 2021 projects, which include quite a few "Listener" comics. And here (below) are a couple of the comics about life in Calgary at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic that led to a 2021 nomination by the Digital Publishing Awards for Best Column (in Canada!!), as well as a 2022 Honorable Mention for Best Column. Wow! 
The Listener, March 13, 2020
The Listener, March 21, 2020
The Listener, April 4, 2020
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For The Sprawl, I've also collaborated on some comics about transit, trains and infrastructure, together with my transit-obsessed teenage son Alec. Our 2022 series "Ride of the Day" was nominated for an Alberta Magazine Publishers Association Innovation award. And our current series, "Curious Calgary," won that same award in 2024! You can read all those comics (and learn about trains, transit, and other historical stuff) on The Sprawl website.
Sam Hester's Ramsay
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Between around 2012 - 2018, I wrote a monthly comic about life in my neighbourhood for my community newsletter. I haven't done the greatest job of posting all the comics online, but you can find some of them on my blog, and the earliest ones are here on my very old website that has a lot of broken links.
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Random old comics
I haven't done a great job of collecting my published comics into one place, either. You can find a few of them here on my old website (beware of aforementioned broken links). And here are some random samples.
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I'm also part of a group of Alberta comics creators called Panel One. Check it out!
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