German born artist Walter Trier who lived in Toronto for awhile. The AGO gallery here has some nice originals.

Dr. Sketchy's life drawing last night. As usual not entirely pleased with my drawings but it was fun. Here is some...

Dan Clowes excellent talk at the Toronto Reference Library at TCAF last night.

Patricia Highsmith is a writer I really like and have always found her life story interesting. I read Beautiful Shadow, a previous big bio book on her I liked but was a little bummed that not even a page was devoted to researching her golden age comic work. The writer must have been as dismissive of that period of her working life as Highsmith was but I thought it was a major weakness of a otherwise great book.

This new bio corrects that giving as thorough a reading of that period of her life (as well as all others) as possible within the boundaries of this book. She never discussed and pretty much buried her comic book script work even tho she worked in the industry for 7 years. There is even a photo of her rough outline for a Golden Arrow story, the only fragment of comic work she accidentally saved tho her diaries mention some of the other writers and editors she worked with. The writer argues that those seven years of writing duality/alter ego stories had a bigger effect on
Highsmith's themes then she would care to admit. A great bio so far, I'm about halfway through.
Now I want to watch Strangers on a Train and the American Friend again.

Sketches for Julia Gillian and the Dream of the Dog out in late June early July.

Garage sale purchase on the weekend. Mr. Baxter did a bunch of soundtracks for the Roger Corman
Edgar Allan Poe movies along with discs like this.

Morning guffaws courtesy of the great Basil Wolverton and this collection of all his Culture Corner strips from the forties from Fantagraphics.

The cover for the third Julia Gillian book coming out this spring.
I'll post more about it when it is released but
Dream of the Dog is my favourite of the three.
A beautifully written book!

San Francisco!
Had a great week there visiting Alison's brother.
This is the killer view from his house.



Beside Cliff House, this looks towards what I believe was the Sutro baths and skating rink in the old days. You get a great look inside at was there at the end of the film noir The Lineup






Aquarium..at the California Academy of Sciences.


Musee Mechanique




Last Gasp 4oth anniversary art show.




My pal DIrty Donny's sweet ride that he rebuilt.


Alcatraz!


Charles Schulz Museum Santa Rosa beside Snoopy's skating rink. Loved visiting here, a beautiful museum.
Wonderful to see his drawing table and studio set up.
The wall is made of individual comic strips.






The Castro. Lovely old theatre. We went and saw Cool Hand Luke.



And no trip is complete without increasing the weight of my luggage with books so
heres most of my goodies.



My plane reading was Jules Feiffers autobiography which was quite good.

Rooting around the sketchbooks at my mom's house.
These are from a group of superhero drawings I did as a kid..the earliest I have.

All around great guy Matt Jones surprised me with this note from the master in the post who turned 90 this year. Thanks Matt!






some sketches



And a original Art Seiden I own that I'm very fond of.

Excited about heading off to San Francisco for a week to see friends, family and do some sketching in April.

Went to the Cameron for some life drawing with friends. Good fun and the model was fantastic. Can't say my drawings do her justice but heres a handful. Didn't get a chance to get the watercolors out but now that I know the set up maybe next time.




The mighty J. Bone.
She blocked out this sketch of his mug when she was taking pics of a bunch of the drawings of her piled on the stage. I can't understand why!