Montreal Comic Con

This year, the Montreal Comic Con is happening from September 17 - 18 at the Place Bonaventure in beautiful down town Montreal. I definitely know how beautiful the scenery is in down town Montreal. I was stuck in traffic there for about 2 hours one time. What else can you do in that time but look at the scenery? (All while hoping you're in the right lane the whole time). Anyway, about the convention, this year promises to be just as much fun or even more fun than last year. There are some big time celebrities in attendance. No doubt their meet 'n' greet sessions will be amazing. Here's just a small sampling of the whole line up:

Stan Lee - Yep, the man who reinvented comic books himself. I'm certain that most of the people reading this right now don't need to be told that Mr. Lee is an accomplished writer, editor, publisher, and a long time president of Marvel comics who developed such insanely popular charcters as Spiderman, the Incredible Hulk, the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Thor, Iron Man, Daredevil, and Dr. Strange and along with all these characters created Marvel's own distinct universe. So, there's no need to tell you all of that. All that needs to be said is that he will be at the Montreal Comic Con this year giving a talk, greeting his fans, and healing the lepers (oh, whoops, wrong messiah).

Adam West and Burt Ward - Holy Poutine!! Are those two really going to be in Montreal together?? Yes they are. There's also going to be a replica of the original Bat Mobile on display. I haven't heard any mention of Yvonne Craig (Bat Girl) showing up or if Bruce Lee's daughter is going to attack Burt Ward and finally get revenge for her father's stalemate with him 45 years ago. But, as it is with any con, there's always surprises.

Mercedes McNab - She's that Playboy and FHM magazine pin up girl who became famous for playing Harmony Kendall on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She's going to be sharing the love with her fans all throughout this con. (Take that to mean anything you want, sickos).

David Prowse - Yes, the ORIGINAL Darth Vader. He's going to be there greeting fans but hopefully not bringing too many people over to the dark side. Maybe if we all ask him nicely, he'll give us a sperm sample so that we can prove once and for all if Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father or not. The results of this test could change everything.

Michael Dorn - He's the actor who played the nice Klingon on Star Trek the Next Generation. He'll hand out autographs too. ghaH DIchDaq chot lIj wa'DIch bogh puq chugh SoH QeH ghaH tlhej lIj mu'mey!!!!!!! Translate that. You know you want to.

Gil Gerard and Erin Grey - They both starred in Buck Rogers of the

25th Century. Gil played Buck Rogers himself while Erin played the beauty with brains Colonel Wilma. They will also be in attendance signing autographs and talking of memories past. (Oh, by the way, here's another fun bit of trivia. Erin Grey also portrayed Kate, the "mom" on Silver Spoons, another beauty with ........brains?)

Sergio Aragones - Personally, out of all the people who will be attending this comic con in September, Sergio is the one I am the most excited to

see. His work has had a very huge impact on me and many of the things I try to do. If don't know who he is (and I think you should be shot for not knowing), he is the guy who draws all those little silent (mostly) one panel cartoons in Mad Magazine. Most of the time they're in the margins beside the main articles, but sometimes he gets a few pages all for himself. Truly a great and creative mind. He must run to a nearby farmer's field and rub his head in the manure pile in order to make the ideas in his brain so fertile. Oh, he also makes that long-running comic book Groo.

Jim Starlin - With a career dating as far back as the early 1970's, Starlin revamped Captain Marvel and Adam Warlock, and co-created Thanos, Dreadstar, and Shang Chi - Master of Kung Fu. He'll be there.

Gail Simone - She is a multi-award winning writer of comics and animation. Some of her books include Deadpool, Agent X, Birds of Prey, and Gen13. Right now, she is kept quite busy at DC Comics what with writing for Wonder Woman, Secret Six and The Justice League. But, she graciously took time out of that hectic schedule to talk with her fans in Montreal. Gee, she's swell.

Herb Trimpe - The first guy who ever drew Wolverine. All must bow to his glory.

And that's just to name a small few of the well known actors and artists who will participating in the festivities.

Oh yeah, there's one more person I should mention that will be in attendance..........

MMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

Yep! I have secured myself a booth at the Montreal Comic Con with the goal of selling copies

of my own comic book Jesus Needs Help. What better place to sell a comic book than at a comic con, right? If you're planning on attending this con, definitely come by my booth and pick yourself up a copy. Who knows, maybe Stan Lee will emerge from his entourage walk over to where I'm at just long enough to spit on me. Anything and everything can happen.

Or, if you're not able to attend this con for any reason, you can still buy my book on Amazon. Now that the postal strike is over in Canada, Amazon should be able to have my book delivered to Canadian residences without much of a problem now (well, no more than usual anyway).

See you ninjas there!!

On the air live in 3, 2, 1...

Exactly two weeks from today, I will be broadcasting live on the radio. The good people at station CKDU 88.1 FM in Halifax Nova Scotia have graciously allowed me to go on their station to promote my book Jesus Needs Help. I'll be on a program called The Book Club on June 14 at 1:30 pm Atlantic Standard Time until 2:30 pm. The host is one Stephen Clare, a very articulate young man who will no doubt ask me the hard questions to make me sweat a little but yet still keep things nice and friendly. If your radio is strong enough to pick up that station's frequency, definitely feel free to listen in. If you can't pick up the signal in your area, not to worry. The show will be available for podcast immediately afterwards. Just search the CKDU website through the archives, you're sure to find it.




Some of you may have noticed that I haven't been advertising my book here or anywhere else in the passed few months. That's mostly because I've been kept busy with something else, mainly helping my sister out by babysitting her kids / my nephews every day since mid April.

That's them. Their names are Michael and Gabriel. Couldn't you just stuff them into an over-the-shoulder tote bag and feed them pellets? (I may do that with them on Thursday). That's what's been occupying my time as of late. I've hardly had any time for much else. That should change in a few weeks when I'll be back home and able to concentrate on things better. Who knows how I'll be promoting my book in the next few months. Maybe one of you good folks reading this blog post have a suggestion (Just keep it clean and try not to use too many synonyms for guano).

Final reminder: Listen for David Germain on the radio sitting down with Stephen Clare to discuss the book Jesus Needs Help on The Book Club on station 88.1 FM CKDU on Tuesday, June 14, 2011 starting at 1:30 pm Atlantic Standard Time. If you miss it, kick yourself in the shins really hard.

I almost forgot, fellow babies, "BOOGERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!! "

Another update: There's been some more rescheduling at the station. Now I'll be on the show July 19. Remember, that's CKDU 88.1 FM in Halifax on July 19 from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Is this funny or offensive?

...or neither? Or both?

I MET IGGY

No, not that Iggy.

That's Ziggy.

No, that's Augie.

Geezuz!! That's Squiggy over there.

That's another Ziggy.

No, I didn't meet him.

WHAT??!! That's Engelbert Humperdink. Are you some kind of moron???

No, the Iggy I met today was none other than the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, namely Michael Ignatief.

For those in this world who don't know (or care), Canada is in the middle of an election campaign right now. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was held in contempt of Parliament and so now in about exactly a month's time, Canada will be going to the polls. Many Canadians don't forsee any surprises with the voting results, but you can't always tell at this point in the game. Anything could happen.

Anyway, I was in attendance at the Liberal rally at the Westin Hotel in Halifax today. It was a pretty good turnout. They had to utilize an overflow banquet room in order to accommodate all the people that showed up. Iggy did indeed please the crowd that was there. He held up a red book full of campaign promises (look familiar, Canada?) and made a speech full of positive reinforcement for the party and loads of seemingly well-supported Harper bashing. Luckily, I'm all for Harper-bashing so I was happy with that.

After the speech was done, his theme song played and he made his way out of the banquet room where people were lined up on either side of him ready to shake his hand and tell him how great he is. I was among those people in that line. But, what I did was give him a copy of my book Jesus Needs Help. He didn't seem so enthusiastic about it when he saw it, but his wife assured me that she will make sure he reads it. Immediately afterwards, the book was given to Iggy's aid in charge of schleping around all the gifts he gets. That aid asked me if I had a card with any other contact information on it. I did, so I gave him that too. So, a long story short, a candidate for Prime Minister has a copy of my book. If he does happen to become Prime Minister on May 2 (the day the polls open), then it will be Canada's Prime Minister who will have a copy of my book. Hooray!

But, Iggy's campaign does seem to be in trouble. I could tell when he first looked at my book. He read the title "Jesus Needs Help" and then he hung his head and said in a low forlorn voice, "I need help". Hmmmmmmmmmm! That's not nearly as confident as he sounded when he made that fired up speech just moments before. He seems to feel that things look really good for Harper and not nearly good enough for him at this point. But, like I said before, anything could happen. So, unless you feel Harper is doing a good job, (in which case I'd tell you that there is a time machine leaving for 1214 A.D. that glorious year just before the Magna Carta was signed. I think you'll be much happier there.) I think it would do Iggy a world of good if you voted for him or at least came out to any other of his rallies on the campaign trail and showed him some support. That might put a little more spring in his step. Just looking out for you buddy.

But, I should probably end this tale on a happy note. So, right below is another Iggy for you to enjoy.

Oh, but before I go, I have some other news I feel I should post here. That book of mine that I previously mentioned (namely Jesus Needs Help. Does everyone know the title of my book yet?) is now for sale in Berlin Germany. Oh, you don't believe me??!! Well, here's a photograph:

There it is, right near a Sarah Palin comic of all things. If you're in the Berlin area right now, the address of this comic book shop is Grober Unfug, Berlin, Mitte Torstr 75. Buy your copy before the "other guys" get it.

Planning a trip to the windy city?

If so, you'll want to watch this short video first.

I'm in print again

Once again, a little comic of mine has appeared in the Dalhousie Gazette. This issue is all about

food, but my comic is not. Here's the comics page below. My comic has the bunnies in it.

You obviously can't read the speech balloons no matter how far you zoom in to the picture, so I will indeed post the original comic from my computer. Enjoy!

I find it rather interesting that they found the breast-feeding joke in the last comic too gruesome but they think the dying bunnies are just fine. Everyone has a different drummer to march to I guess.

Oh, hey, I guess now I'll post some book news. I'll be selling copies of Jesus Needs Help at a Flea Market this comic Sunday March 13. The address for this is 613 Main Street in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Anyone who lives in that or in any surrounding areas, come down and see me, maybe even buy a book from me. I'll even autograph it if you ask.

See ya there!

Unpublished again

Some time ago, I posted a comic that I had submitted to the Dalhousie Gazette that they didn't accept for various reasons. Well, it's happened again, although for slightly different reasons.

The one that was rejected before was more political in its nature and so their objection was more based on the lack of civility in my opinion. However, this one is not political in any sense. It's just a small joke that they found disturbing. It does feature a bit of nudity so it does push the envelope for that reason too. I thought the joke was strong enough to overcome both those conditions, but I guess I miscalculated a bit. I've posted it

below. You be the judge.

It comes across as a rather risque Addams Family gag. I also notice that the punchline is a very

blunt mixture of sex and violence, much like AC/DC's song Shoot to Thrill. As disturbing as that is to some people, the thing that I find most disturbing in this comic is that Mrs. Hannibal

Lecter came out resembling the Progressive Insurance lady. I don't know where that came from.

I'd also like to mention a rather small belated anniversary. My blog here turned 5 years old

last Friday. In those 5 years, my blog has survived 2 trolls, one published book, a small smattering of comments, and a huge wave of indifference. It's true that blogs aren't nearly as popular with artists as they used to be. Some have been taken down while most have been abandoned. But, I'm certainly not going to let that stop me. I'm not one to jump on and off bandwagons just to follow a big crowd of strangers. As long as there are vast easy-to-use search engines like Google around, I know my work and my voice will be accessible to everyone.

Happy birthday, little bloggy. I can't wait for another 5 years when I'll probably be uploading files from space.

I made some ink

I drove down to Dalhousie University today to pick up my copy of the Gazette because I know that new issues come out every Friday.

According to the cover, this is the Feb 4 - 10 edition. Anyway, I turned right to the comic section and there it was...

That's my comic in the bottom right hand corner. It's hard to make any of it out in this blurry image. If you live in the Halifax area, you can easily pick up a copy of the Dalhousie Gazette yourself. It is free. For those that don't, I do happen to still have that comic filed away in my computer. I'll post it right here for all to read. Enjoy!

They liked it, of course, (they wouldn't have printed it if they didn't) and I'm glad. But, now that I look at it, the comic seems more depressing than funny to me. Oh well, the important thing is that my work is out there in the media giving me some name recognition. That can only lead to good things. I hope I get many more comics printed in the near future (as well as more books sold. Jesus Needs Help is still on sale.)

The Westboro Baptist Church has done it again.

Leave it to good o'l Freddie Phelps to say something so tasteless. This time he's gone too far.

Penguins like it

See?

Some work coming my way

I'll take a little break from promoting my comic on this site to talk about a job I'll have in the near future. The good people who run the Dalhousie Gazette at the Dalhousie University here in Halifax want me to do some artwork for them on a regular basis. They want either comics for the comic section or illustrations for their opinion section. This should be some good work expereince for me, that's for sure.

Immediately below is the first comic I tried to submit. On the phone, they told me that the entire staff had a creative discussion about it and eventually decided not to run it. However, the managers of this blog went into a meeting about it and all unanimously decided that the comic was indeed ideal for this blog. As you can see, I weigh in with my opinion about the recent controversy over the reprint of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. I think the comic speaks for itself about what my opinion is. Read for yourself.

Viva la free speech.

Not so fast

I've just been told that Golden Age Comics in Vancouver is no longer a location that will be selling my Jesus Needs Help comic. It seems that one employee was happy to accept the comics for retail, but then another grumpy type of employee overrode him and flat out rejected

them. I'm not mad at anyone over this. It happens all the time when one is selling a comic, both to upstarts and veterans alike. That's not the only store in the world. I can easily take my business elsewhere.

This situation has piqued my curiosity however. I wonder what it was about my comic that upset him so much. Could it have been the subject matter? That doesn't seem too likely. From what I've

observed, comic book fans for the most part are notoriously hard to offend with subject matter. You could make the most blasphemous comment against God, country, and their momma and they would not even flinch. They would laugh uproariously until they lost the ability to breath, and then once their respiratory system was operational again, they'd continue their laughter, even if the joke wasn't all that funny. They'd tell you that you should have added more stuff about sodomy and pig's blood. BUUUUUUUUUUTTTT, if

you make the HORRIBLE MISTAKE of confusing Batman with Spiderman or something equally as heinous, THAT offends them. Then you're in for an earful of tears and bile from these people.

I know for sure that my comic book contains no misinformation about any popular comic book figures so the Golden Age employee couldn't have been offended by the subject matter. The only way he could have been offended at all would be because... >GASP<... he's not a real comic book fan. He must be one of those "normals" who gets offended too easily. It wouldn't be the first time a "normal" infiltrated a comic store. I was in Truro, Nova Scotia trying to sell my comic to a store there. The guy I met working there objected to how I portrayed Jesus as a "fictional character". (Although, anyone with a bizarre/paranoid opinion like that is not someone I would consider normal). Needless to say, I made no sale that day.

Of course, it may not be too late for Golden Age. If you live in the Vancouver area and you get

most or all of your comic book merchandise from Golden Age, it couldn't hurt to go there and ask for a copy of Jesus Needs Help. If enough people ask about it, they'll have no choice but to stock it. It would be nice if the 500th (or so) person, the one who manages to turn the tide and get my comic on their shelves, would bring in a nice, well cooked dish of crow for that one grumpy employee.

I can dream.

Vancouverites Rejoice...

....or .........something. However you're feeling, you should definitely get naked and run around the block a few times. Then, throw a blanket around yourself and come into one of these two comic book shops*:

Golden Age

852 Granville St.

Vancouver, B.C.

or

Lucky's Comics

3972 Main St.

Vancouver, B.C.

The main reason you should do that is because I have it on good authority that they are now places where you can purchase a copy of my comic book Jesus Needs Help. I have no idea what the price of them are. That'll be up to the owner of either of those stores, I guess. All I know is that it can still be puchased online here and here both for $9.15.

Have fun kids!

*No, I do not recommend entering a store naked for two big reasons: 1. You don't have your wallet with you (unless you keep it in a "super secret" place) and 2. There's a sexual predator roaming the streets of Vancouver right now. So, maybe replace "get naked" at the top with "bring a can of mace".

A youtube ad for my comic

Tell me what you think.