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Thought I should just put in one last (hastily-scrawled) installment of my story about Gian-Carlo Carra's campaign for Calgary City Councillor: 
If Gian-Carlo ever gets tired of city politics, he could open a Mexican restaurant... yum!
I'm looking forward to the city council's new term in office. There should be lots of good stories - stay tuned!
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Well, everyone, it's the night before Calgary's civic election and here I am posting a last-minute final installment of my "Carra Artist in Residence" comics. The idea was that I'd follow along with Gian-Carlo Carra's campaign to be re-elected as Calgary City Councillor in Ward 9, and draw some pictures about that. I did draw some comics about Gian-Carlo's campaign (which you can read here), but over the past month or so, I got busy with other things (as you will see below). So here's my summation of how the last few weeks of the Carra campaign - which, by all accounts, has been both busy and fun - has looked from my vantage point!  And now, if you haven't already done so, go out and vote!
 Here's the (rather slow in coming) next installment of "Campaign Artist in Residence" comics for Councillor Gian-Carlo Carra, who's running for re-election in Calgary's Ward 9. I was thinking it would be fun to pepper this blog post with all sorts of links and references to the things that are mentioned within, but in the interests of a good night's sleep I think I'll just leave it as is. It's pretty self-explanatory, and if you follow Gian-Carlo on Twitter, you've probably seen this all before anyway! But if you don't use Twitter, well, now you can get a taste of how much fun it is to kind of legitimately eavesdrop on what someone's doing, by following their messages and conversations. I guess I should mention that these excerpts from Gian-Carlo's Twitter feed are just highlights from a longer list of posts - by no means the whole story of what he's been up to! To find out more about that, check out his actual Twitter page. And I should mention one other thing. I just finished scanning all these drawings, and now I see that Gian-Carlo has JUST CHANGED HIS TWITTER ICON! Well, this comic strip is now a historical document, I guess. And it's all for the best... the new one (which you can see above) is great! Hope this strip provides a glimpse of how this City Councillor has been interacting with real live Calgarians over the past couple of weeks!      Apologies... I think that should have been "almost $4500 was raised..." - for Brown Bagging For Calgary Kids and the Calgary Foundation Flood Recovery Fund! To find out more about Polibowl (and see pictures of the participants decked out in their campaign/bowling gear), take a look at CalgaryRants.com.    Hey, I just saw that Edmonton journalist Annalise Klingbeil wrote an article (in Edmonton's Metro) about how a couple of civic campaigners are using art in their campaigns. You can read the article here.
Klingbeil mentions Scott McKeen, running in Edmonton's Ward 6, who "doesn't have a campaign office. Instead, he has a campaign gallery." Now that sounds cool. And she also mentions Calgary's Alderman Gian-Carlo Carra, who asked me to be his campaign's "artist in residence." I've been writing the occasional comic strip about what he's doing and posting it here on my blog. You can see these comics on Gian-Carlo's website, too. (And I just noticed this nifty graphic on his site: if you scroll over the drawing of Gian-Carlo, it changes to become a drawing of me holding an "Artist in Residence" sign. Well, you know, there are some things about politics I don't like, but I do like the way election campaigns... and great campaigners... can inspire people to work hard, be creative, and even have fun with things like website graphics!) I just thought I'd mention this here, in case Klingbeil's article sends readers here to my blog. I write about other stuff here, too, but if you're looking for my campaign artist-in-residence comics, you can find them here. Enjoy! Or... even if you don't enjoy, at least remember to vote on October 21st!  This is the story of how I went to the Inglewood Sunfest, missed a pie-eating contest, and stayed for some politics. It's too bad I missed the pie, because I had this picture from Harold and the Purple Crayon all ready to post. Harold was a boy who had his priorities straight: he was hungry, he had to draw something tasty and edible, and so he drew pie. Of course, pie makes me think of my friend Phil Nel's blog, which is about Phil's "...many and varied obsessions. Children’s books. Music. Comics. Humor. Ideas of all sizes and shapes. And probably some advice." And which is named "Nine Kinds of Pie." But this really has nothing to do with my Sunfest expedition, which was supposed to be about seeing what Gian-Carlo Carra was up to, as his campaign for Calgary Ward 9 Councillor moves ahead toward the October 21 vote.  That looks like Vance is saying "daddy!" as he reaches up for his mommy! But no - he was saying "daddy" as he reached up towards the poster that was hanging behind her - which featured the Sesame-Street-inspired street sign that I drew here, but also a picture of Gian-Carlo. You can see the real poster here - along with (I only just discovered) a rather less cartoony picture I drew of Gian-Carlo! Ok, just thought that might need an explanation.  In case you didn't know by now: yes, I am the aforementioned 7-months-pregnant lady. Which is why I haven't been posting quite as much stuff up here over the past month or so. I'm hoping that when I have a few more things sorted out - like, finished the artwork I'm supposed to finish before I have this baby, and maybe got my house in order (I guess I should get a bassinet, or a cot, or a cradle, or something for this baby to sleep in...!?) - I'll be back with more!
By the way: the baby is due October 2nd. So I might have to take a bit of a break from some things... but I'm still planning to vote on October 21st! This strip is about an event that took place a couple of weeks ago, but I've only had time to finish drawing it now. As Gian-Carlo Carra's "campaign artist in residence," I was invited to accompany Gian-Carlo to a garden competition in Calgary's SE neighbourhood of Riverbend. A nice spot! You can read about my adventures here, but I also just noticed that some highlights from the competition (including interviews with the judges) have been posted on Ward 9 TV (so you can take a look and see if my comic-strip version matches the video).   Here's Maureen's website: www.calgaryplantlady.ca     I don't know when I've ever looked at so many gardens. I felt like I should put a gardening picture in here somewhere, so here's one. Ok, so it's NOT from Riverbend, but from my own street (23rd Avenue) in Ramsay. I can't take any credit for these gardens. As you've gathered, I know zero about gardening. But here's one thing I've noticed. I definitely like the fact that the 23rd Avenue gardeners work on their front lawns. (Who knows, the probably have amazing gardens hidden away in their back yards, too.) Front lawn gardening means you really get to know the neighbours - not only do the gardeners work side by side, but admirers can really enjoy the wonderful results! (I can tell you this is a nice view to have when I look across the street!)
To find out more about Riverbend, you can take a look at the Community Association website here. And this community webpage has lots of info about the neighbourhood, but confusingly seems to suggest that Shane Keating is the neighbourhood alderman. Last time I checked, he was the man for Ward 12, not Ward 9. Maybe something changed since that website was constructed? There's a lot I don't know about Calgary municipal ward boundaries, history, and communities. Not to mention about gardening! But what I really want to know is: who won the competition? P.S. The German joke is about this street. P.P.S. Here is the Elvis Costello song: "Good Year for the Roses." Which I just found out this minute is actually a cover of a tune by George Jones. Who knew? P.P.P.S. In case you're tuning into this "campaign artist in residency" for the first time, you can see some more comic strips about Gian-Carlo here. Here's a bit more of what Alderman Gian-Carlo Carra told me about his experience of the Calgary flood.     I might have to take a break from flood-related comics for a little bit, but that all depends on what happens next. The story of Calgary's post-flood recovery is just beginning - I'm sure there will be many more stories to tell...
A little story about what my alderman, Gian-Carlo Carra, has been doing during the flood. If you'd like to read more about his own version of what's been going on, you can check out his Facebook page. And you can find updates about Calgary's ongoing State of Local Emergency post-flood, on the City of Calgary website.      As I wrote here, I'm going to try my hand at being Gian-Carlo Carra's campaign "artist in residence" and draw some pictures of his campaign for re-election as Ward 9 City Councillor. I think I'll just put down my impressions of what's going on, as events unfold. And of course try to include any good stories. Anyway, the campaign just kicked off, so here goes:   I discovered the identity of the mysterious musician: Brent Tyler. But did Gian-Carlo really TA a physiology class? I'll have to find this out. By the time I left, another singer has just finished performing a cover of a song I really like... "Us" by the unusual and talented Regina Spektor. That is really neither here nor there, but it is such a great song I am always happy to hear it. By the way, the sun did come out later on!
Well, here's something new that I'm kind of excited about. But I'll let the comic strip speak for itself. Stay tuned for the first installment of this series - I'll post it later today!     You can find out more about Gian-Carlo here.
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sam hesterI 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
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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
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