Last August, Justin Young of Profis Communications, a close friend of George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg, founders of the very chic international interior design firm Yabu Pushelberg, wanted to know if I’d be interested in creating some sort of unique gift for Glenn on his approaching significant birthday. I’d been aware of and fans of the team’s work since the late 80s, when I was a regular at Stilife, a club on Adelaide Street in Toronto they designed. ‘Til now, I had no idea the guys are romantic as well as business partners. After a round of discussion over drinks at the brand new Four Seasons Hotel (another YP project), we decided an affectionately satiric ABC book on Glenn’s personality would be just right. Here are a few pictures of the final product.

The amazing Don Taylor, a Toronto book binder, created a plate using my hand drawn typography for the embossed cover.

I came up with sketches based on text that George supplied. An unusually relaxed, easy approval stage followed with a few minor changes. As I moved on to final art, I left an inch of extra paper on the left hand side of each page so Don could sew and bind the original watercolour-on-paper pieces into this one-of-a-kind book.

After all these years, I’m still a wee bit uncomfortable with caricature, especially if I don’t know the person – and this book contained 26 of them! So it was with some mild trepidation I dropped off the art at Don Taylor’s studio (a day before deadline, thank you very much!). Anyhow, George presented the book to Glenn at a small party in Shanghai in late October (those boys get around) and  Glenn was reportedly very pleased and touched by the result. Hooray!

Thanks again to Justin Young and George Yabu for thinking of me for this delightful project. A very happy, belated birthday to the funny, exasperating, tender-hearted, multi-talented Glenn P., whom I now feel as though I know rather intimately, having worked on this extended love letter. You have a wonderfully sly, smart, adoring partner in George. Continued success and happiness to you both!

Well I nearly fell off my chair when I received an email from art director Eric Skillman from The Criterion Collection, asking if I’d be interested in creating artwork for their release of  Edouard Molinaro’s 1978 film, “La Cage Aux Folles”!

I’d never actually seen the film. As a young, queer, rep cinema-obsessed film snob, I was suspicious on 2 counts – first, that the film was surely a straight person’s idea of ‘gayness’, second, that anything so popular must be bad or wrong in some fundamental way.

Upon viewing the film in preparation for the job, I was delighted to be proven so wrong! “La Cage” is a very funny, sweet-natured, old-fashioned farce, whose lovably limp-wristed  leads remind me of many characters I’ve known in real life.

When I first started exploring the world of The Criterion Collection, I must admit I was a little unconvinced about the idea of getting present day illustrators to illuminate these venerable classics. After all, there is so much great, great artwork from the past that’s already out there. The more I looked at what Eric was doing though, I began to get it. These are beautiful packages for DVD and Blu-ray, dusted off and re-thought specifically for a modern audience.

Having said that, I still felt I wanted to allude to the iconic 1978 poster art. So I mimicked the lightbulb typeface from the original along with the white background of Lou Myers’ cartoon.

This was such great fun to work on! Thanks so much to Eric and all the folks at Criterion for thinking of me for this delicious project!

I had a great time at TCAF this year! When it was all over at 5:00 Sunday afternoon, a big round of applause went up on our floor. This is the first time I can remember that this happened, and for some reason I got a little verklempt. I guess the magnitude of the event really hit me. Scores of people have spent months of mostly donated time organizing this incredibly massive celebration of art and writing. Many more flew in from all over the world to attend an increasingly beloved Festival. Hooray for comics! And warmest thanks to Peter and Chris, all the folks from The Beguiling, and the dozens of crazed and obsessed volunteers who make everything run so smoothly.

One of the highlights of the Festival for me was the presentation I did with the smart-as-a-pin, very funny designer-writer-editor Chip Kidd. We had the pleasure of announcing a book we’ll be working on  together:

The deal with Pantheon is pretty exciting, thanks in part to my faboo new agent Sam Hiyate of The Rights Factory. I also got the fantastic news last March that the grant I applied for from The Creative Writing program of the Canada Council was successful. I’m really and truly grateful to the Council for this; being an illustrator is not easy these days. Times have been pretty upsy downsy the last few years – part of the reason I’ve had the time to think about and develop this project.

Anyhow, I’ve certainly got my work cut out for me – better get to it!

Last week me and my fella celebrated 11 years of martial, I mean marital bliss! (“Martial bliss” was a joke of my old friend Paul’s father George Baker. Oh, and we’re not married) So-so dinner at Gabardine on Bay Street mitigated by great martinis and plenty of wine.

Here are the reference pictures I used. Gordon says this must be junior high for him, I am in Grade 12 by this time. Late bloomer – in grade 8 I looked like I was around 9 years old. For years I tried to in vain get my hair to go into that casually tossed center part every other guy in high school achieved so effortlessly.

Thanks, honey, for amazing ride, let’s grow young together!

Last autumn, the Toronto Pride Committee asked me to come up with costume designs for some mascots they were considering creating for the World Pride festivities coming to town in 2014.

There were to be 4 designs for typically Canuck animals representing various types in the LGBT community. I offered variations on a couple of them.

The Committee eventually decided to use another artist’s designs. Thanks anyhow to Pride Toronto for a very fun, challenging assignment!