I’ve moved webhosts last night and all seems to be working fine. Except the contact form. For now I have i simply pointing to my gmail address.  Once that’s back to normal, I can get started on my new Improv Comics site which I plan on completing for next weekend.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

My 14th episode of SpudCast is up. It’s called, you guessed it, I Have A Dream. It’s all about how our subconscious lets us dream up scenarios and situations that our dull, logical minds would never let us. I read about this in Robert Mankoff’s book, The Naked Cartoonist. His book is about how to be a creative cartoonist but I think it applies to all disciplines.

I start off the show with a creative game and mention my latest improv comic and I also encourage you, dear listeners, to write in and tell me a bit about yourself.

You can listen to this show by clicking this wonderful link.

I recorded this show on the spur of the moment. I had a busier weekend than I had anticipated but suddenly found a bit of time that would provide some recording time. As scanned a good 30-50 photos! In other words, I wasn’t as prepared as I should have been. Plus, I had just come from a hard workout.

It’s hard having a podcast hobby among a million others! :)

Technorati Tags: creativity, Robert Mankoff, subsconscious

You do realize that animals are running out of places to hide from us “progressive-loving” humans forever clear cutting their homeland.

I drew and inked the above artwork in my Moleskine sketchbook last June and thought it would be a great contribution for Blog Action Day.

Which reminds me, it’s Blog Action Day today where a whopping 14 thousand blogs are participating. 14 THOUSAND! The topic is the enviroment and unless you’ve been living under a rock with you fingers in your ears and your eyes shut, you probably noticed that we’ve done quite a lot of damage.

Technorati Tags: blogactionday, blog, action, day, environment, moleskine

Improv Comic #2 is up and it’s called Willomina’s Home Project #2.

I’ve asked for a food item and a mode of transportation. I’ve chosen Nutella and unicorn.

It was a little unnerving drawing this comic because at the time, I was really, really tired from work. I’ve had a hard 2 weeks and I was so tired that my hand was shaking. I wasn’t able to co-ordinate between my hand and my eyes! So it took a while for me to complete it.

I sketched out the comic with a 2B pencil then drew over it with an 8B. I love the thick pencil strokes of an 8B pencil. It’s messy, of course, but it was love at first sight.

Once again, I delve into the topic of men vs. women in relationships. I hope I didn’t offend anybody with the contents but you have to admit, it is true in a way ;)

Technorati Tags: improv, comic, comics, improv comics

I sketched out a new page I drew in my Japanese sketchbook that I found in Paris back in May. I added it to my set for this comic book in progress on my Flickr account. Actual progress on the graphic novel I’m supposed to be working on, is another story…

Technorati Tags: Flickr, comics, illustration

Episode 13 of SpudCast is up! And fortunately for you, it’s a short one. It’s a bit of a soundseeing tour as I walk (and sprint) to the train station on my way to work in the darkness of the morning at 6:30am. At one point, I sprint for the train as it arrived too early (or did I arrive late?).

Anyhoo, on today’s show, I talk about how I hacked my Moleskine notebook to act as an idea-preserving device. Old skool but it works.

You see, at work, I can’t really send myself e-mails as ideas pop into my head throughout the day. Instead, it’s more effective when you have all your creative ideas in one place.

It makes it easier for you to go back to them.

To paraphrase what someone wrote on SlashDot today, “Russians launch US space program!”.

October 4, 1957 was the day the world (well, most of it) entered the space age. I’ve always been intrigued by the launch of Sputnik and the hysteria that followed. Well, ok, not exactly hysteria but imagine a time where there was no satellite television. A time when video from overseas was shown on television days after the event. The fastest was a filmstrip being flown right after the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, edited during the flight from London, some brouhaha about the Americans demanding that the plane lands in the US so they can broadcast it first, and very quickly being shown on Canadian tv screens on CBC.

At the time, world news was received by shortwave radio. So imagine hearing on the radio, or on tv— perhaps a paranoid news flash— that the Russians have launched an artificial satellite. The first of its kind.

Maybe you pick up your shortwave radio, tune to the 20-40MHz range, walk outside,look up into the night sky and perhaps crap your pants as you listen to the repeating “beep! beep! beep! beep! beep!“.

People thought the Russians were now capable of dropping bombs all over the US (did Canadians feel that way, too?). Others thought there was nothing to be afraid of. At the launch, there were Russian scientists in the US at a conference and everyone was happy about the achievement. American politicians were craping their pants because science and math weren’t being taught enough. Meanwhile, the US president knew beforehand that a satellite was being built and launched. He had to keep quiet as to not reveal that the Americans had been spying.

Interesting times!

In the meantime, the US was making little progress on their artificial satellite. Thus began the scramble to hurry up and finish it so it can get launched. Meanwhile, Sputnik wasn’t even a well-planned out project. It was an idea of 1 man!

Imagine you’re that man, Sergei Korolev. Your team has been working on building missiles to protect yourself from the Americans who are protecting themselves from you and one day you realize your rocket is capable of heading out into space.

Why not see if an artificial moon can be created? Honestly, how on Earth did Sergei think of that??Now that’s creative! Remember, this is a time with no space travel whatsoever. Nothing was ever launched into space. I’m going to read some books on Sputnik and its development.

So you build the satellite. How to track it? Would you even be able to see it with a telescope? A-ha! Make it transmit radio signals! So it launches (maybe the Soviets had a few failures that they didn’t advertise) and the experiment/research begins.

Remember, this is an era without instant communications like the Internet (aside from shortwave radio which for the most part, really only worked after sunset for international coverage). For 2 days, it seems you don’t really think any of it. Maybe a pat on the back for accomplishing quite the achievement.

The Russian media doesn’t say much.

Until 2 days later when you find out… now imagine this— the whole world, or maybe just the Americans (since the only historical accounts I’ve heard are American sources) is panicking, marvelling, in wonder, crapping themselves, kids are inspired to become astronauts.

Imagine that!

Now imagine the chain of events which followed. Including the building of the ARPANET (for defence reasons), the predecessor of the Internet. That’s right,we wouldn’t be addicted to Facebook and watching people do idiotic things on YouTube if it wasn’t for Sputnik! :)

I can’t help but think that the paranoia that followed is the same with terrorists getting their hands on nuclear devices today. I also can’t help think of the fact that education slipped big time in North America since the rush to engineering schools back in 1957. Good thing Google is pushing for students to think lunarly.

This blog post has gone on long enough. Just my thoughts on Sputnik and trying to imagine what it was like listening to it on the radio.

Don’t think I won’t be creating a Spud comic based on all this! By the way, the above drawing is a very quick sketch of Sputnik I did today during lunch at work.

Anyone know how Canadians felt about the launch of Sputnik? After all, we were physically caught in the middle!

And now for some fun: Click on “Surprise!” in the right navbar on this page.

Technorati Tags: Sputnik

Illustration Friday’s topic for this week is “The Blues” so the above illustration is my submission for that topic. Created in ink pen during lunch at work.

update: My favourites are submissions from Bolila, ninaseven, Mary Beth and Delaverobum.

Technorati Tags: illustration Friday, illustration, cartooning, animals