Curmudge's Sutff

mistake

2026-04-12T00:38:31Z

I spent a while today whipping up quick loose doodles of one of my characters for my WIP, and ended up with one that was so "sloppy" that I got the shape of the head all wrong….

….but I dug it. So I played around for a while with the idea of changing the character design! But eventually decided no, it isn't the right vibe for my character. But I'm keeping this design handy for some other character someday, cuz I really do like this one.

FYI, the original of this is really small… like it would fit on a postage stamp [if you remember postage stamps], or within a square inch [if you remember inches].

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something I am grateful for today

2026-04-02T01:21:02Z

Today I finished drafting the script for my graphic novel. ~~Now to draw it!~~ Now to figure out how to draw it!

This is such an odd project for me, and such an odd place for my head to be in during a project. I can imagine all sorts of problems and complaints readers will have with what I'm doing and how I'm doing it, but none of them dissuade me. I feel like I've never before made a comic that is so much for me, and if other people don't like it, that doesn't mean I'm wrong. It's weird not needing to worry about audience reaction....

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This is the year.

2026-03-30T22:07:12Z

This is the year I re-invent myself.

I didn't choose this year, more like it chose me... and why now, I don't know. But there it is — I can feel it. This year I re-invent myself as a cartoonist, as a painter, and [if I can manage to tackle poetry] as a writer, too.

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where I'm at

2026-03-14T00:07:27Z

Just decided I wanted to update my influence list, o lucky reader!

Here are my current all-time Top Ten Cartoonists. Today's list is geared toward those whose work I not only enjoy and appreciate, but whose work speaks to and inspires my own current work. So they're more about where my cartooning head is at right now — therefore, some old major idols and influences don't appear, or appear differently ranked:

And, to flesh things out further, here's my Top Ten of cartoonists currently working:

Enjoy and/or dig!

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geeky treasure

2025-12-09T23:14:32Z

Comic-strip historian-geeks will appreciate this treasure I stumbled across today, in a thrift store, for less than CAN$2: a book collection [which appears to be a first printing, 1945] of the comic strip Male Call by Milton Caniff . Non-historian-geeks will need to be informed that Caniff is like the Shakespeare and Rembrandt of comics — one of the greatest and most important cartoonists in the history of the medium.

And the sweetest bonus of all: autographed.

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something I am grateful for today

2025-11-18T23:14:55Z

making a breakthrough [okay, maybe more like a baby step forward] in designing a character for my graphic-novel WIP

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Dishman turns 40!

2025-08-04T12:02:57Z

The first issue of The Mundane Adventures of Dishman was released in August 1985.

Since then, it has had a modest and very spotty publication history, and yet is still remembered in an obscure corner of comics readership. Big thank you to everyone who has been on his side all this time!

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lesson

2025-04-16T00:05:16Z

As a part of training my eye and hand for a new upcoming project, I've been drawing studies of Lee Holley's Ponytail panels from the early 60s. And I find myself learning [yet again] the lesson that comes from pretty much any 20th-century cartoonist: while the drawing may appear and feel pretty simple, it is deceptively simple. There is always a lot more intricate work involved than that. Always an inspiring eye-opener for me.

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something I am grateful for today

2025-03-13T18:32:17Z

I spotted a back issue of a magazine online, one with an article I wanted to read. I was about to buy it when I thought, "Wait, I have a few issues of that magazine down in the basement — maybe I have that issue and just forgot?" So I went to check, and: yes and yes.

Grateful that I stopped to think, and saved myself a buck.

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shoes?

2025-01-16T21:44:14Z

pencil doodles which are studies of shoes from Ponytail, an early-60s comic strip panel by Lee Holley. Not sure I can explain why, but I really dig the way Holley drew shoes in his strip then. [Among cartoonists, there are a lot of Jack Davis shoe fans, but for me Lee Holley is my Shoe Guy®!]

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doodle

2024-12-22T22:29:30Z

The tiles on our bathroom floor have a design of random swirls and smears and splotches. Every once in a while, I will suddenly see a face in one of them. I decided to doodle one such face:

[Please give a holler if you can't see the pic! Not sure this trick will work....]

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more food for thought

2024-12-02T18:46:52Z

Lately I've been seeing a lot of old indie comic books [someone on IG is selling off a big collection, looks like], and it shames me to admit this but... some of these books get me feeling kinda judgy.

Like, they look poorly done, and the subject matter doesn't interest me in the least, and some of it looks tasteless or pointless or dumb, and I feel like You really thought it was worth your time and effort making this?

But today I suddenly thought: there may well be lots of people who think those same things when they look at my comics. And the guys who make those books may well believe in what they do as much as I believe in what I do. So we all gotta do our thing and be ourselves, right? Nothing wrong with that.

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stretching

2024-07-18T23:44:50Z

For the last couple days, I've been doing pencil doodles which are studies of faces and figures from Ponytail, an early-60s comic strip panel by Lee Holley.

This year I've also been doing a lot of mental work and planning for a new graphic project, and I find a lot of inspiration in Holley's approach, as if it could lead me into something new. Drawing these makes me feel like I'm Onto Something® — it's kinda exciting.

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cartoonists influencing Not That Magic

2024-04-08T22:01:52Z

Dik Browne

The clean simplicity of Browne's character designs throughout his career, and his hand-hewn ink line in Hägar, have always been an inspiration to me.

Anthony Auffret

Again, clean and simple, and even more hands-on -- clearly hand-lettered, and with borders and word balloons inked without a ruler. I love this feeling of something made by a real human being.

Thom Zahler

I admire Zahler's graphic novel series Love and Capes - an ongoing comic-book adventure story, but broken down into sections of four same-sized panels with a punchline, so that it could also be run as a regular comic strip. I dig that storytelling rhythm.

Gisèle Lagacé

Lagacé is an artist I've been following for years, who also uses that rhythm of a series of four-panel punchline strips to tell an ongoing story.

Tonči Zonjić

Zonjić is better than anyone [IMHO] when it comes to a creative use of black, white, and one single tone of gray -- that was a huge influence on how I approached Not That Magic.

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TIL

2023-03-06T23:42:27Z

In my recent cartooning work, I've been using a cheap round watercolour brush to fill in large black areas with ink. Sometimes I've tried inking some of my lines with it as well, but it's not quite as good for that because it's not a great brush.

Today, I dug up some better brushes I bought years ago, when I wanted to learn proper brush inking someday, and decided to test-drive one. I ended up choosing an Isabey No. 1 Kolinsky sable round. Kolinsky sable brushes have been considered top of the line for decades in both comics inking and watercolour painting, and Isabey has a decent reputation, so it seemed a safe choice for today.

However, I couldn't help noticing how ragged the brush looked [you can see it on the left]. I didn't remember it being such a mess when I bought it, that's for sure. One of the most important things a round brush needs, in either inking or painting, is to be able to form and hold a sharp point — this gives you the control and precision you want in a round. I figured I could still use this one for low-precision fills anyway, and I gave it a whirl.

But then I noticed what happened when it got wet [you can see it on the right]. Gorgeous point that it holds together while in use. What a pleasant shock, I gotta tell ya. This brush doesn't look like much at first, but the quality of its performance is all you could want. (Kinda like me!) And yes, after I cleaned it and let it dry, it went all ragged again — that's just its way.

So there's that whole “don't judge a book by its cover” aspect to this, yes indeed.

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so I got thinkin...

2023-02-19T22:55:48Z

( WARNING: a lot of wanky shop talk about comics, but with a more general observation at the end )

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something I am grateful for today

2023-01-23T23:29:22Z

staying on track

In retrospect, I feel like I had a pretty decent day. Ran an unusual number of errands this morning, all successfully, including a physio appt. Navigated the snowy streets without incident. Remembered to change the furnace filter. Stayed on top of the dishes despite being tempted to blow them off. Inked a page of comic strips. And got thru most of the day without needing meds. So yeah, I feel like I stayed on track today a bit better than some days.

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my year-end wrap-up

2022-12-31T13:50:53Z

[as if you aren't seeing enough of those]

Looking back today, I see 2022 as one of my most challenging years, and not one of my happiest. The unintelligence and unkindness of the world at large continues to reach new depths, and there's little to give me hope for better in the new year. I face ongoing health problems at a higher intensity than any other year in this century. My creativity is at something of an ebb — most notably, 2022 was the first year in the past five that I didn't write at least one novel. I've pulled back from social media, no longer posting things I used to share regularly. For me, it was basically a year of hunkering down and huddling up.

But, believe it or not, I'm here now looking for some positives to focus on, and here are a few:

My love for being retired remains undiminished. I've never once regretted making this move.
I managed to hit my weekly deadline for posting my comic strip without a single miss all year. I can't help feeling that this matters to me more than it should — certainly more than it matters to anyone else. But it's like a vestige of professional pride, I guess.
When I did manage to work on my art, I learned and grew to at least some small extent. There were ventures into new techniques and media, including one of my fave pieces of beginner's luck.

I feel like covid has taught me to not have expectations of what an upcoming year might bring, and not make plans. So, while I realize that such prognostications for 2023 are more or less expected at this time of year, I am going to demur, thank you.

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something I am grateful for today

2022-04-28T02:04:05Z

getting something creative done this afternoon when I didn't feel like it

in this case, it was only doing some lettering for upcoming comic strips, so not like real artsy or anything... but at least I did something and didn't just sleep [so wrung out and beat today]

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gobsmacked

2022-01-04T17:36:07Z

Late last year, a regional comics publisher, Black Eye Books, contacted me about crowdfunding a collection of my Dishman small press comics series. I had nothing to lose by agreeing to it, but I wasn't confident that this project would succeed. I never saw myself as a name draw in the field, and Dishman has been available to read online (for free) for years now. So no one needed to buy this book, it seemed to me.

The crowdfund was set to launch officially this morning, and I found out that it met its necessary goal in an hour. I am pleasantly (but thoroughly) shocked.

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Dik Browne on Hi & Lois

2021-10-04T23:05:23Z

For the past few days, I've been devoting my drawing time to doing studies of Dik Browne's work on Hi & Lois. And, as so often happens when I spend any time studying Browne, I come away with renewed awe at his genius. The only reason I rank Bill Watterson higher as a cartoonist is because of Watterson's peerless writing, so that he is The Total Package of cartoonists. But if we are just talking cartoon art, then no one beats Dik Browne.

Before he began working in syndicated comic strips, Browne had a thriving career in advertising art [he designed the classic 50s overhaul of the Campbell's Kids]. But Mort Walker hired Browne to tackle the art for Hi & Lois, where he very deliberately modelled his work on Walker's style, a unique and groundbreaking style that would take its classic shape in early-60s Beetle Bailey. Walker's style was extremely simple and open, meaning that it could still look good when significantly shrunk [a prime consideration in newspaper strips]. It was also cute and expressive and appealing, easy to read and easy to grasp.

Browne essentially perfected this style by adding a sense of grace and beauty to pristine immaculate economical linework, along with his mastery of cute. (Off the top of my head, the only cartoonists I can think of whose kids can equal his in cuteness would be Warren Kremer and Gene Hazelton.) His H&L work captures the formica ideal of postwar suburban America like no one else.

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something I am grateful for today

2021-06-15T16:57:03Z

rediscovering old loves

Last night I got thinking about cartoonists who inspire me... in this case, a particular few whose work is very stripped down and simple, but evocative and unique. None of them are household names, but all of them are personal heroes: Fred Lucky, Jerry Marcus, and Vahan Shirvanian.

I went downstairs to see if I could find any of their books to look over again. All of these are very old, long out of print, but I got great bargains on all of them from used booksellers [one I got at a garage sale for twenty-five cents!]. And lo and behold, all of them were gathered together in one spot, as if to say, "Yep, we knew you'd come looking for us some time!"

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something I am grateful for today

2021-01-01T23:08:10Z

reaching a goal

Last January 1, I told myself I wanted to try and draw something, good or bad, but something, every single day for the entire year. And it was a leap year, so that meant at least 366 drawings.

Yesterday I drew for my 366th consecutive day and passed the finish line. This, as far as I can recall, is the first year in my life that I managed to draw every day without fail. So yeah, I am kinda pleased. Also looking forward to a break from the relentless deadlines. :P

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something I am grateful for today

2020-09-10T12:33:08Z

getting it right

Today I was working on upcoming strips of my new comic strip “series” Not That Magic: Tales of Vernor Magus... and I drew a couple of panels that really worked for me, I mean uncommonly well. So much so, that I want to post them here and brag about them.

When I look at these drawings, I see characters who are natural and alive and convincing, despite the stripped-down cartooniness of how they are rendered. Not saying they are perfect, but they are Plenty Good Enough®. I am grateful for times like this, few and far between, when I feel Plenty Good Enough®.

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something I am grateful for today

2020-09-06T17:22:07Z

feeling competent

Today I am on day two of a migraine, and looking for some way to distract myself from it. I debated starting a new painting, since the light is good today, but told myself, No, I think I'll do some cartooning, I can relax with that a bit better.

And I realized what this means.

Painting is still something I need to focus intensely on. I feel like a rank noob, I go slow and second-guess myself every step of the way. But when I draw comics, there is still focus, but it's less scrunched-up concentration and more meditative mindfulness. I feel like I know what I'm doing and can simply rest in that. And today I am taking pleasure in that sense of “knowing what I'm doing”...

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