I was so incredibly honoured to be asked by Chris and Peter from The Beguiling to create a poster for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival’s 10th anniversary year! (I lobbied pretty hard too, I should add.) I certainly festered and obsessed myself into a tizzy over this baby. This, the final version, was scanned and assembled by the ever-patient Landon Whittaker of Reactor from three separate pieces of art. I wanted it crammed with detail and our scanner can only fit one 11 x 17 piece of art at a time.
This earlier version was done in a bit of a hurry for a booklet produced for The Beguiling’s trip to Japan last November. Because of the time constraint I couldn’t quite get it as stylized as what I saw in my head. This one’s made up of six different pieces and I think the joins ended up being a little too obvious. Eventually I decided I wanted to try a slightly less literal iteration in a more limited palette and started over in January of this year.
Here is the original sketch,
and here is a selection of the dozens of sketches and colour trials I went through to put all this together, laid out on my living room floor.
I’ll have a table at TCAF this year, as in the past. Also, I’ll be signing posters and doing a presentation with the marvelous Chip Kidd on Saturday afternoon. Â Also, I’m part of a show with the amazing Gengoroh Tagame that evening and on Sunday I’ll be part of a panel looking at fashion in comics. For more information and schedule, go to:
So excited for the Festival this year, hope to see you there!!!