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Calgary Comics Expo tweets - Day 3

4/29/2013

Third time's the charm: Finally got that latte fix from Ramsay's Caffe Rosso that I'd been dreaming of.

I met Damian long, long ago when it seemed like we were among the tiny handful of Calgarians who were creating indie comics. I've been out of the scene for a few years (see Alec's Year Book for details) but I knew Damian's Dorkboy Comics was still out there. Now we finally met again at the Calgary Expo and confirmed our apparently mutually long-held suspicion... that we're still among the tiny handful of Calgarians who are creating indie comics.

Is there anybody else doing this? I mean, Damian has been doing it for more than a decade (so have I, on and off)... but are there any other folks writing and drawing print comics in this town? Is this a dead art? Does Calgary have - or want - an indie scene? It's the element of the Calgary Expo - despite its amazingly all-encompassing embrace of all things geeky, nerdy, and comic-booky - that I've found lacking. Maybe because there just isn't an indie scene. Or is there?

A sign you'd never see anywhere else.

Why I need to get a bit more high-tech if I want to do this kind of thing at next year's Expo.

Ashley's dinosaur met all the stars it had hoped to meet, including Gillian Anderson - who apparently rode the dinosaur. That t-rex will remember this weekend forever. Let's hope Ashley will be able to live vicariously through its adventures. And that she's grateful to her dinosaur-lugging friends.

And here's one more note for the end of the Expo: It was really a fitting day for me to be surrounded by crazy obsessed star-struck fans, because it also happened to be the 17th-year anniversary of a star-struck day of my own: the anniversary of my first Bob Dylan concert.

By now you might have figured out that, much as I love the Calgary Expo, I'm not really in tune with the Expo scene - I don't have any costumes, and I hadn't actually heard of most of the celebrities who were coming (which may have something to do with the fact that I don't have... and never have had... a TV). But that's not to say I can't relate to people who are wildly, madly passionate about the ingenious work of a celebrity icon. I saw Bob Dylan perform for the first time on April 28th, 1996. I don't know how many times I've seen him since - I stopped counting after about 40 shows. Bob Dylan still rocks my world (even though I don't follow his tour around the way I used to). You can read some comics about my touring adventures here. Suffice to say - all you Expo fans who are right now coming down from your Expo high - I know how it feels. Just hang in there till the next show comes to town.

Calgary Comics Expo tweets... Day 2

4/28/2013

Welcome to another day of live-tweeted Calgary Expo comics. I have to give an enormous shout out to the Calgary Herald's Features Editor Tom Babin for linking my updates to the Herald's Expo blog. Hooray for creative local collaborations - and for newspaper comics!

Here's Saturday's batch. One more coming up after this!

I really enjoyed talking with my table neighbour Sho Uehara (and his "booth babe" Sebastian) about life, art, work, and the ongoing challenge of finding a balance between all three. Having friendly neighbours made the Expo even more fun. I like finding out what other Calgary artists are up to - especially when they incorporate local scenes into their work, the way Sho did with this recent cover for "Adventure Time!"

I feel pretty strongly that artists (and writers) should feel that it's ok to set their work in the real places they know - not just in famous locations or in nebulous nowhere-lands. Otherwise, how will audiences learn that these real places even exist? And how will those real places gain enough confidence in their own art-worthiness? Anyway, I say thumbs up to anybody who puts the Calgary Tower on their cover. Now if you really want to read a long, boring comic strip I wrote about my own path to discovering the courage to make my hometown part of my art - you can find it here.

Now that's a good friend.

That previous one is a guest post by my 4-year-old son Alec who is a fan of drawing train tracks.

This was just weird.

"The 11th Doctor," a helpful twitterer informed me.

Really, the longest line in the Expo was probably the line to see Stan Lee (pictured here in the alphabet I drew for the Calgary Expo Program Guide)!

As I made my way through the crowds I saw a lovely display of artists' materials - a booth run by Calgary's Sketch Art Supplies. I was really just drawn in by the sight of all these Micron pens - which are the only ones I use (I'm addicted) - but later I found out a bit more about this cool-sounding shop from their website:

"Sketch Art Supplies is a unique artist supplies store and gallery located in the Mount Pleasant area of Calgary’s Northwest. Our business is literally housed in a 1910 starter home. We feature fresh work by emerging artists, artist supplies, custom picture framing and adult art classes. The owner is resident artist Ljubica Todorovic, a recent Alberta College of Art & Design graduate (BFA Drawing 2006)."

A business in a house. A new business in an old house. A start-up in a starter home. I like everything about this (I've always liked the idea of combining a home/work/client/customer space). I am glad to hear that something like this is happening in Calgary! I will have to check this out... the next time I need to get my Micron pen fix (I mostly go through the 01's, but I drew most of these Expo comics with 1's because I wanted a good, thick, visible line that I wouldn't have to go over.

I never found out what that thing was.

Calgary Comics Expo Alphabet

4/28/2013

Here's the alphabet I wrote about this year's Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo. It's featured in the Expo program guide and was inspired by a similar alphabet I wrote about Edmonton's Expo last fall.

What should I do with the original art? Right now it's at my Expo table in Artist Alley. I haven't had any takers. Interested? Make me an offer!

Calgary Comics Expo 2013 - Live Tweeted Comics!

4/27/2013

I drew some comics at the Calgary Comics Expo today and tweeted them to the Calgary Herald's blog. Here they are! More to come (you can see them on Twitter: follow @calgaryhester)!

There's Rik, and here's where you can find out more about what he's up to.

I met Rik about ten years ago and I will always remember how impressed I was by the fact that he knew how to use Photoshop. I didn't even have a computer. Thank goodness I have joined the 21st century.

And here it is.

Stay tuned for more tomorrow!

And... for those of you who've been following my InvestYYC campaign to raise the money to print this little comics series: here it is, Alec's Year Book. You can find out more about the books - and the campaign, which was a lot of fun - here. If you're at the Expo, come and take a look!

Here are all four books wrapped up in a cute little package.

And now - good night!

Lost Comics Unearthed!!!

4/22/2013

Folks, I couldn't make this stuff up. If you've been reading this, you know by now that I've been putting together some little comic books about the exploits of my son Alec. Today, I picked up the final copies of Alec's 4th Year Book (from the wonderful - despite their lack of apostrophe - Rileys). So I have all the books. I'm ready for this weekend's Calgary Comics Expo. And to make everything even better, my last-minute, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants InvestYYC campaign to raise the money to have my books printed, has taken off like a rocket - thanks to some amazingly generous donors (some of whom I'm lucky to have as friends too!). So that's it! Happy ending to this tale!

But no! I have a confession to make. There's something I didn't tell you.

The Alec's Year Book stories are made up of daily entries in a series of sketchbooks that I've been keeping since Alec was born. For the first couple of years I kept them in green sketchbooks like this one. But then those sketchbooks were discontinued (don't you hate it when that happens!?) and I had to find something new (see below). So there was a period of a few months in which I didn't have any steady place to keep track of my comics. And somewhere in there... some comics were LOST.

I was sure I'd drawn a few pictures at the beginning of 2012, but I couldn't find them anywhere. Ever since I decided to compile the last two years' sketchbooks into two new installments of Alec's Year Book - which was this January - I've been hunting for those lost comics. But to no avail. So finally - deadlines being deadlines - I just decided to go ahead and have the final book printed without the missing pages.

This afternoon I was getting some stuff ready to take to the Expo and I opened up an old portfolio. You've already guessed what was inside.. yes. The lost sketchbook. Did I mention I'd been looking for this, for almost four months??? Did I mention I just picked up the book from the printers', about two hours before this??? There's a rule about this kind of thing, right?

Well, it's too late to print them now, but I'm going to put them all up here - for posterity!

Thanks to everyone who's been so supportive of my Alec's Year Book campaign (and at the time of writing, there's still ONE DAY in which to do so!) - not just the awesome donors but all sorts of others such as my colleagues on the Ramsay community newsletter editing team, who right this minute are proofing our monthly intake of content so that I'll have free time to get ready for the Expo (of course, here I am frittering away that valuable time on this blog...) - thanks everyone! I couldn't do it without you!

"My Letters & Pictures"

4/21/2013

I think this page from Alec's Year Book pretty much sums up what it's like to be a freelance comics person/full-time parent. At least, the full-time parent of this particular precocious kid.

Only three more days to help me raise the money to publish this little book series! $10 will get me to the halfway mark! Here's where to find out more about that. Please check it out... and thanks!

By the way - did I mention that Rileys (awesome local business and supporter of the arts) is doing the printing? They've printed just about everything I've done in the past ten years or so, and I wouldn't go anywhere else. You should check them out, too!

Sneak Preview!

4/21/2013

Here's a tease for those of you gearing up for the weekend of geeky mayhem that's about to descend upon Calgary... the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo. This is the title of an alphabet/comic strip I drew for the event program guide: Check out the guide this weekend to read the rest! I've also posted a couple of other panels from the alphabet which you can see here and here.

And - here's another newsflash - you can follow me on Twitter at @calgaryhester to read live comic-strip updates from the Expo! It's never been done before, folks, but in the bold, innovative, groundbreaking spirit of the Calgary Expo, we're going to try it now! I'll be doing this with the help of a great local partner, but you'll have to wait a few more days to find out who.

Is there anything you'll be wanting to hear about this weekend? Let me know!

And you know who Edward Gorey is, right? Ok - just checking.

Kitchen Party

4/18/2013

I just had the pleasure of hanging out in a friend's kitchen, and somehow people started talking about Gary Burns' 1997 movie "Kitchen Party." This brought back fond memories of the making of that movie. Not that I was actually involved in any way, but my brother's friend Dave Cox played the character of Lester. (He's the guy on the far left in the picture.) Since I remembered Dave from back when his big brother's impressive engineering calculator was one of his main thrills (see below), it was fun to see Dave, as a teenager, getting to enjoy a rather more thrilling experience - that of being part of a cool Canadian film.

When Kitchen Party premiered at the Calgary International Film Festival, I drew this page in the Drawing Book to celebrate the funny and unlikely stardom of Dave. Here he is thinking about getting advice from a worldlier friend (who is wearing the same "pee/poo" t-shirt Dave wore in the movie). The depiction of Dave as a movie star is meant as a joke, since a less snooty, pretentious, movie-star-ish person you could not find.

By the way, I hear Gary Burns lived in Ramsay at some point or other, if the rumours are true.

Buttons

4/18/2013

Another donation to the comics campaign at InvestYYC - my friends are so great! This one's for you, Franki....

And now - just one week left to raise the rest! Watch this space for more comics!

X

4/18/2013

While rushing around getting ready this morning, I asked Alec if he'd like me to post any new pictures from the latest, almost-ready-to-pick-up-from-the-printers' Alec's Year Book. He said he'd like this one about his objections to me leaving the house. Here ya go.

I also wanted to put up something from Alec's Year Book this morning, as a big THANKS to a neighbour of mine whose donation to my InvestYYC campaign, with one week to go, has just propelled it into a new category (i.e. wow, I'll actually get some funding - so awesome!). Check out this exciting development HERE. More on that later - but now it really is time for mama to go!

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.

Looking for a
graphic recorder?
Look here!

contact me

sam@the23rdstory.com

my website

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

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Some nice things people said about my work:

“If Breitkreuz and Foong [founders of the Calgary Comics & Entertainment Expo] represent the Type-A side of Calgary's self-publishing community, Hester may be the community's right brain.” – Tom Babin, FFWD Magazine

“…A strong graphic style similar to other autobiographically-inclined Canadian cartoonists like Chester Brown and Julie Doucet.” – Gilbert Bouchard, Edmonton Journal

The 23rd Story: an indie comics creator's tales of life in Calgary