My goodness - I drew this whole thing at the Edmonton Comics Expo, and it took me a week to find the time to get it up here. Hope you enjoy my graphic recording of a great weekend at the expo. As before, apologies to Edward Gorey, who came up with this alphabet/poem kind of format.

Also - don't you think this would look nice in colour? If there's enough interest, maybe I'll colour it in. Let me know what you think!

On the subject of alphabets... here's another one I painted on my son's bedroom wall a while back. All of the letters stand for something in English and German, too - pretty clever, nicht?

I really like the notion of graphic recording. And I also really like comic-strip alphabets (you can see another one I painted recently, on a Calgary utility box, here). So, the obvious thing to do at the Edmonton Comics Expo was to create an Expo Alphabet. I drew the alphabet while lounging around in Artist Alley, but I haven't had time to ink the whole thing just yet. So I'll just put the first part up here for now... with apologies to Edward Gorey, who invented this alphabet/poem style. The rest of the alphabet will follow soon! Once the whole thing is done, I'll put it up on my website in a format that's a bit bigger and easier to read. This will do for now!

I spent the weekend at the inaugural Edmonton Comic & Entertainment Expo. That was a good time. I am still tired! Anyway, here are some pictures...

Tomorrow's the Edmonton Comics Expo! I have to get some sleep! But first, I thought I'd post a comic. Here is an old one chosen at random (just because it's colourful, really). I wrote this in 2002. I still miss that old scarf!

Excited to report that Calgary arts & fashion blogger Vincent Law posted a review of our recent 23rd Avenue Artwalk on his acclaimed blog Binzento Vincente. I happened to meet Vincent at an ArtPoint opening this summer and told him about our upcoming artwalk. Not only did he come by to soak up some Ramsay-style creativity, he also did two other things that made me really happy.

1. He took some really awesome photos of our event. I'm so pleased about this because we were missing a few pictures of some of our artists, and now we have a bit more evidence that the artwalk really did take place! And:

2. He wrote in his blog: "I found a hidden gem in YYC few weeks ago. 23rd Ave SE location lies the homes of artists. Officially I can call it the most artsy part of town..." Wow! This is high praise from someone who spends a fair bit of time chronicling Calgary's arts & fashion scene. I've taken the liberty of posting one of Vincent's photos here, but be sure to take a look at his blog to read the rest of the review and see the pictures. Scroll down the page a little bit - the first event on the page is Vincent's review of another Calgary arts event, opening night at the Glenbow Museum's exhibition, Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination. Thanks, Vincent!

 

Bill Pagel posted my review of Dylan's Edmonton show on his site, www.boblinks.com! Thanks Bill! I sure wish I had been this internet-savvy fifteen years ago when I was writing illustrated reviews of Bob Dylan shows on a regular basis. I will just have to make amends for that by posting those old ones now, a little bit at a time. Meanwhile, after all this time, it looks like Bill Pagel is still out there keeping track of all of Bob's shows and set lists. It is such a cool project, and must take a lot of time and work, considering Bob Dylan is constantly performing. Here is a picture I found of Bill from a few years back, hard at work restoring Dylan's original home in Duluth, Minnesota. I met Bill a few times at shows long ago (although doubtless he doesn't remember me) - I do seem to recall one time... might have been in Normal, Illinois... when he had some extra tickets and passed them along to my friend & to me. How could I ever forget something like that! (Well, I've probably forgotten the city it happened in. I think it was somewhere in the so-called midwest. I'm not so good at remembering that kind of thing!)

By the way, it seems a bit odd to me that I've been writing so much about Bob Dylan in here. Don't get me wrong! Still perhaps the single most creative artist alive today! But I do think about other stuff, too. Must just be the buzz of recent Dylan excitement in my life that's spilling into this little blog. All right! On to other things! And thanks again, Bill!

Here's a nice nod to Peter Bushe and his innovative City of Calgary Painted Utility Box Program in today's Swerve Magazine! Cold weather is settling in, but I'm looking forward to being part of this again next year if the opportunity's still there. This was so much fun...

Pictures of my two utility boxes can be seen here!

Took in a great show by Bob Dylan in Edmonton last night. To see my full review (illustrated!), take a look here.

Two highlights:

1. Finding out that the opener, Mark Knopfler, is responsible for writing the riff that's featured in the now-no-more CBC Radio show "Dispatches" (it's part of a Knopfler song! I had no idea);

2. (Much more exciting!): Dylan performing a cover song (wow!) and speaking an extra three whole sentences to the crowd! This show was a rare treat indeed.

P.S. The mystery cover song was by Gordon Lightfoot (another song I didn't know... I guess I have to expand my listening beyond Dylan and CBC Radio). It's funny... I remember Dylan played "I'm not supposed to care" at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto 1998 - but that was because Lightfoot was in the audience (or, at least, it seemed pretty likely that this was the reason, since G. L. was sitting right there.) But maybe that's just something Dylan likes to do when he's in Canada. Ah well, what does it matter... it still was lovely.

I have drawn quite a few other comic strips about Dylan shows. A couple of them are online, and you can see them here. One of these days I'll get around to putting some of the others up.

I'm watching "A Room with a View" which, although I haven't seen it in twelve years (!), continues to resonate in so many ways. I have referenced it in so many comic strips I can't even track them all down at the moment... but here are four I can find easily. (These are from about 1997 or '98!)

This phrase in the movie inspired me to name a 1998 self-portrait "Young Girl Transfigured" (see previous post!).

This doesn't look as though it's about "A Room with a View," but let me explain. It's a bit from a story I wrote in 1998 about my then-new life in Calgary working as a flight attendant and getting messed up by new relationships (notice the guy I'm speeding away from in the first panel!). That new life had the following theme song: "I'm free - I'm free - and freedom tastes of reality." Everyone should recognize this as a tune from the rock opera "Tommy," the story of a deaf, dumb & blind kid who finally attained freedom!

The second row of panels shows "the tune I was singing a year ago"... back when my life was pretty gloomy and I was dangerously close to joining "the vast armies of the benighted" (to quote E. M. Forster). The lyrics are sung by Lucy Honeychurch in "A Room with a View." So lucky I escaped! Freedom wasn't always fun, but at least I was on the right track!