The Nestor Wynrush Ensemble poster

August 6th, y'all! Should be a fun night.
Poster design and photo by lil' ol' me. I'll get to posting the original photo on Flickr someday soon.

R.I.P. Ryan August

I just found out that Ryan August of I Want Your Skull passed away on July 11th. I'm stunned. I really wished I had met him in person. He encouraged me to contribute to the first issue of IWYS, and the result is above. Anytime I saw a new issue or a blog post with amazing skull-themed artwork, I felt bad that I didn't draw skulls regularly, and I still do. I'm just thankful that I was able to be involved in a project that got better with each issue. He pushed the quality every time, as did the people that provided the content.
Wherever you're at right now, Ryan, I know you're kicking ass in some fashion. R.I.P.

My Jazz Fest 2010 Photos

The Slew – July 1st, 2010

Some of the best shows I've ever seen were part of this year's TD Jazz Winnipeg Festival. I plan on telling my son or daughter about The Roots show someday. The photos can be found here.

Adventures In Album Cover Design

This thread is comedy gold. Don't take your album design too lightly. Noyz's post pretty much sums up where Infinite P went very wrong:

Original: http://layoutsparks.com/1/232393/moonlight-tropics-night-view.html
✓ Google "moonlight" and steal one of the first images that come up
✓ Fuck up the aspect ration by squishing instead of cropping
✓ Add a second moon/lens-flare because the other fake one wasn't big enough
✓ Add Smoke without basic photoshop skills
✓ Add Parental Advisory logo for spiritual reasons
The even sadder thing is, I bet this cover took you at least a month to make.

Classic.

Johnny Wander – you should read it.

I tend to get a feeling about certain webcomics when I'm introduced to them. If I get that feeling, I'll read it from the very beginning in one shot, no matter how many installments there are.
That's happened three times:

• In 2002, a friend introduced me to Sinfest. I ended up reading two years of strips in one night, and I've been a fan ever since.
• Almost two years ago, I discovered Girls With Slingshots and read four years of strips in one night! Needless to say, it was compelling.
• Tonight, via a GWS guest spot, I found out about Johnny Wander, by Ananth Panagariya and Yuko Ota. It's very slice-of-life and hilarious. Did I mention that Yuko can draw her ass off? I'm already in love with this comic.

BNL-fueled Nostalgia

I'll admit it...I own The Yellow Tape. A lot of folks I knew back then did, too.
I just came in from work and heard a CBC concert featuring The Barenaked Ladies performing their very popular cover of Bruce Cockburn's "Lovers In A Dangerous Time" with Bruce himself. I suddenly remembered how I loved to watch the above video every chance I got (Much had it in heavy rotation back in the day).

For those of you unaware or too young to know, the record store in the video was part of the defunct A&A Records chain. I can't remember where any of the Winnipeg locations were.

I was going to say more stuff, but my sinuses are killing my ass, so my thoughts have evaporated. I'll leave you with this: to me, Steven Page will always be that guy that was in Barenaked Ladies, and the Barenaked Ladies will always be that band that Steven Page was in.