Clayton Hanmer

(Original comic: here)

Chimp Up!™, © 2010 Trio Magnus.

For more info on kei cars in Toronto check out Right Drive Inc., where I bought mine. -cton

For more info on kei trucks in Toronto check out Right Drive Inc., where I bought mine. -cton

Welcome to Rodeo Magic, my new webcomic for Open Book Toronto. It will be running once a week, usually posted on fridays, and will follow the adventures & observations of a comic-loving hick who has relocated to the Big Smoke to pursue his dream of working as a professional creative person. Enjoy!

Two years ago at TCAF, I met a comic artist from the UK named Tom Humberstone. Somehow he was invited to Pen Club (more on this later) where he quickly became a welcomed guest during his short visit. Over the past couple years, he kept in touch with some of the other Pen Club members including Anne Koyama of Koyama Press, and also produced an entire library of comics (a few obtaining critical success in the UK...winning an Eagle Award in '08 for best B&W UK comic). During this time, he also produced a blog inspired comic book about a road trip he took across the States during their Democratic Primaries, called My Fellow Americans. You may wonder, what does a Brit comic dude have anything to do with Canadian comics? Well two things: a very small Canadian publisher, Koyama Press helped Tom out on some of these projects, AND he is thinking about moving to Toronto soon (which would make him a 'Landed Canadian Comic Artist'). Anyways, besides all of this, Tom is a total dude and deserves some press over here in Canada (a place he might be calling home soon).

Here's a little ditty showing my ritual for creating a comic for Owl Magazine, a great Canadian children's magazine. I do a regular column called 'CTON's Corner' whith this little orange dude and a green blob, named 'Blob'. Its a ton of fun, and allows me a lot of freedom to create. (This comic first appeared in Craig Battle's blog - he is the editor of Owl Magazine).

One of the biggest questions I get asked by people is 'how do you think of a comic'? Well thats a good question.

Way back at the beginning of May I visited a great local Toronto comic book launch of some young, new Canadian creators here in the city. I was so impressed with their work, along with the massive amount of their work, that I thought it would be interesting to hear a bit about them, what drives them, and how they got into Canadian comics.

Generally I'm under the opinion that one shouldn't be interviewed until they're well into their career with much experience under their belt. It is theoretically only at that more senior point in one's creative life that their words & ideas might hold the most value to readers, younger creatives, and humanity in general. In the case of the Wowee Zonk crew, they are all very young and very new, but I felt it was an excellent opportunity to find out what makes new artists like themselves tick, as well as showcase an extremely talented group of (relative) newbies to comics. Hopefully their words, and already massive piles of work, will inspire other Canadian comic makers to get off their collective asses and do some work! I know they've lit a bit of a fire under my butt.

I'm an unlikely comic-book nerd. I've played rugby. I've driven tractors. I've renovated houses. I've worked on cars. I love beer and eating steak. Plus, I've stopped a run-away team of horses. You might wonder, why am I writing a comic blog for Open Book Toronto then? What the hell does this hick know about comics? Well good question.

This past weekend was the comic event of the year in Toronto in terms of the type of comics I prefer. The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (also known as TCAF to comic nerds) happens every two years and is put on by the Beguiling (mentioned before). For 2009, the venue was at the Toronto Reference Library which is huge and sprawling with all sorts of nooks'n' crannies to get lost and hide comics in & around. I had the opportunity to share a table with my artist collective, Trio Magnus, and my first publisher, Koyama Press. We had all sorts of goodies for sale, including a whole wack of great books.

For those of you who don't know me or are too lazy to read my bio, I'm an illustrator by trade which is a great job, but (sometimes) it can be daunting when I'm asked to draw very mundane or structured images. So when I see younger illustrators & comic creators drawing whatever the hell they want, it really gets me excited... especially when they're based here in Toronto!

This past wednesday night, I had the absolute pleasure to see such a group of illustrators at Keep 6 Contemporary Gallery here in the city (of Tdot). This group of seven (cheezy Canadian Art joke here) are producing some really wacky'n'weird comics and artwork which, in my opinion, might be some of the most exciting and creative stuff to be seen around these parts recently.

Last weekend on Saturday it was Free Comic Book Day around the world (as described in my previous post). I had the honour of sitting my butt down & signing comics in front of the Beguiling with a whole wack of amazing Canadian comic creators including Brian McLachlan, Chip Zdarsky, Kate Beaton, Willow Dawson, Ryan North, and Ramon Perez to name a few. Not that I'm a big name dropper, but I was pretty excited to be amongst such talent!

Free Comic Book Day is this saturday! Yep, free. Just head to your local participating comic book shop, and they'll have a bunch of free comics available from awesome publishers like Drawn & Quarterly, Fantagraphics, Marvel, and DC. These are specially produced editions or collections of comics specifically for the Free Comic Book Day event held around the world. It's a great way of promoting comics and getting folks (including kids) out and into the wonderful world of comics!