It's the middle of March, and this month's Ramsay newsletter was delivered to Ramsay neighbourhood mailboxes a while back! I haven't had a chance until now, to post this month's newsletter comic here. This is the second in 2018's newsletter artist in residence series, introduced in last month's blog.
 | As you might already know if you're reading this, I wrote some comics for the newsletter, about life in my neighbourhood. But this year, I invited other artists to contribute, starting off last month with Lethbridge's Eric Dyck. This month's comic comes from American indie comics creator Phil Dokes. What brings Phil to the Ramsay newsletter, you may ask? Well, to make up for all the time it's taken me to post this, let me tell you a little bit about that story! It starts (of course) with Bob Dylan... |
I met Phil at a Bob Dylan concert WAY back in the 1990's. It was only my third show, but he'd already seen Dylan dozens of times! Dylan was at the height of his "Neverending Tour." Fans came from all over the world to see Dylan, but a secondary benefit of coming out to a show was the opportunity to meet other people who shared the passion for the music. It was early internet days, and you couldn't make these kinds of connections online. You'd travel out to the concert venue and hang around early and late in hopes of running into those friends you'd seen before. You got to know the seasons and the hemispheres in which you'd be likely to find certain fans. And you'd have conversations you couldn't have anywhere else.
Ok, so I'm waxing all nostalgic about my days as a Bob Dylan groupie. Suffice to say, one of the friends I made on the road, was Phil, and although a love of Dylan's music was the initial connection between us, we quickly discovered we also shared a love of comics.
Comics Collectors vs. Comics Makers
| Now indie comics people fall into different groups, I have found. Some (like me - and like Calgary's awesome Damian Willcox, currently writing daily comics about a baby dinosaur), are interested in MAKING comics. Others are more interested in reading, studying, collecting. This was Phil's hobby, and I have often told people that he's the only reason I know anything about indie comics. I'd started writing the Drawing Book (featuring tales from many Dylan show adventures), and whenever I saw Phil, he'd quietly hand over a couple more beautiful volumes and say: "You should check this out." Lynda Barry, Kyle Baker, Posy Simmonds, Neil Gaiman, Craig Thompson... every once in a while Phil would send me some magical new work. Even when it was something that didn't really click with what I wanted to do, still it educated me about what was out there. These days, my kids totally love "A Chance of Sunshine" by Jimmy Liao, which Phil sent to me longer ago than I can remember. (I think they just like the way the author is depicted in a lion suit on the flyleaf.) These days, you can actually find all sorts of amazing comics right here in Alberta - but back when I first met Phil, these books weren't always easy to find, even at your local comic book store. |  |
And as Phil gently nudged me towards some comics education, others (myself included) were nudging Phil to make the shift from a comics reader to a comics maker. One of my favourites among Phil's self-published works is Drawing Crazy Patterns, a narrative about the so-called BobCats - the Dylan fans who met on the road, their paths crossing and diverging again, until the next show. I've been digging through boxes of comics and I couldn't find that particular one (argh, I know I have it somewhere) - but if you really want to see some comics about the Dylan fan scene, you could take a look at this old blog post of mine.
 | Such a Fine Memory I did find another of Phil's comics, a 2015 mini-comic called Such a Fine Memory. I really like the unconventional format he used here (a long vertical strip of paper) and the fact that it's a real artifact made of paper, not just a web comic. Phil's comics-making progress has benefited from his proximity to the seemingly amazing Pittsburgh indie comics scene. There's a festival just for independent comics creators! We're certainly seeing a trend towards this kind of event in Canada, with events like CanZine, the Prairie Comics Fest, and Calgary's own Panel One Comic Creator Fest - but I feel like our local scene still has a lot of room to grow. Phil's also told me about how his transformation into a comics maker owes some thanks to the way in which his local comics store, Copacetic, has nurtured a scene for creators to connect and learn. I hear that Eric Dyck has something like that going on, down in Lethbridge, with his Drink 'n' Draw with Eric Dyck. I like hearing how community can grow creativity! |
| Ok, so back to the whole "community" theme: What's Phil's connection to Ramsay? I've visited Phil in Ohio and Phil has visited me in Calgary. In fact, he was one of the first visitors to see my then-brand-new house in Ramsay - the house I still live in now - right after I bought the house 2004. When I asked Phil if he'd write a comic for the Ramsay newsletter, I suggested he might re-purpose a neighbourhood-themed story he'd already written. I remembered that he'd written a couple of stories that reference neighbourhood settings. Instead of looking for something he'd already done, Phil drew a new comic - exclusive for the Ramsay newsletter! To me, Phil's comics always have a somewhat dreamlike quality. The panels have a rhythm that reminds me of the slow in-and-out of breathing. Each one is a place to pause and consider, before looking ahead to the next. Anyway, more than enough from me. Now, check out Phil's artwork on Instagram, and of course, here's his Ramsay newsletter comic! Thanks Phil for contributing to our local scene! |  |
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