Toren Atkinson’s Absolute Blog

I’ll be at Word Under the Street in the basement of the Vancouver Public Library on Sunday September 28.

Marketplace of Exhibitors

More than 150 local, regional and national book and magazine publishers, booksellers, literacy and educational organizations, libraries, and writers’ associations exhibit an exceptional array of current and back listed books and magazines to browse through or buy. Many exhibitors offer special promotions, sales and giveaways available one-day-only at The Word On The Street! And that includes The Word Under the Street, where you’ll discover a wealth of locally-produced micro-published “underground” comics and ‘zines and our annual on-the-spot comics contest. And back by popular demand: Magazine Mews. Browse the best of Canadian and British Columbian magazine publishing and meet some of the talents behind award-winning work. Check out panel discussions, demos, performances and more.

Authors Confirmed for 2008

Peter Bagge
Linda Bailey
Jean Barman
Dianna Bonder
Daphne Bramham
Michael Byers
Nicola Campbell
Norma Charles
Lisa Cinar
Elizabeth Denny
Darcy Dobell
Ian Ferguson
Steven Galloway
James Glave
Garry Gottfriedson
Heather Haley
Chris Hamilton
Robert Heidbreder
Lee Henderson
Deborah Hodge
Stephen Hume
Mel Hurtig
Roy Innes
Katarina Jovanovic
Susan Juby
Pummy Kaur
Robert Kull
Zoe Landale
Hadrien Laroche
Duane Lawrence
Mark Lieren-Young
Moberly Luger
Adrienne Mason
Dr. Gabor Mate
Bruce McBay
George McWhirter
Eric Miller
John Murphy
William New
Susin Nielsen
Matt Radar
Linda L. Richards
Kathryn Shoemaker
The Smart Cookies
George Stanley
Shannon Stewart
Meg Tilly
Laura Trunkey
Karen X. Tulchinsky
Chieri Uegaki
Richard Wagamese
Naomi Beth Walken
Howard White
John Wilson
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas

Today I added a bunch of lights to my costume. I still have to add the spine protrusions but thanks to Kelly & Paul I had a working drill to get that started.

Here’s my tiny light saga:

Knowing I wanted some tiny lights on my costume, but keeping in mind that I don’t know how to solder properly or safely, and not having time to fiddle around with that much detail, I polled my friends for suggestions. Main Street Electronics was a bust not only because they didn’t have self-contained, ready-to-go lights in the store, but the old white men were not interested in helping me, talking to me, acknowledging me, or even hearing me. Luckily a few doors down was Lee’s Electronics. I knew describing what I was looking for was going to be challenging, but I think these guys finally got it when I saw those little keychain lights that you squeeze to turn on ($2.50 each). Luckily they had a wide variety and these things have a “stay on” switch so I won’t have to squeeze eight key chain lights while I’m trying to sing on stage. They also had a flashing red bike light for $5. Deal.

I biked down to Mountain Equipment Co-op and found amongst their many bike lights only one item that was under $9 – a small Coleman light in the shape of a lantern. It was $7 and I hemmed and hawed about whether or not to get it because, apart from being $2 over my loosely self-imposed $5-per-light limit, I didn’t like the “vibe” of MEC. I finally decided I might as well take it but when I got to the register I noted that apparently you have to pay a membership fee to purchase there. The light went back on the shelf and I hit the road.

An unsuccessful stop at London Drugs and Home Depot had me at Canadian Tire, where they had these great little push-on/off stick-em lights in various colours. I grabbed two packs of 4 ($10 each) and at the checkout stand I saw a little laser pointer/flexi-necked reading light that was perfect. With all that totalling about $50, plus the free Ikea lights that Jeremy generously supplied, I felt I had enough!

Here are the photos of the work in progress:

I attached a red light to the end of my head hose-claw.

All of the keychain lights are attached to the chains – or attached to the things attached to the chains. They point at the ground creating a cool effect.

The red flashing bike light is affixed to the chest piece.


You can see one of the green stick-on lights which I hot-glue-gunned to the Darth Vaderesque chest panel. The flexi-necked light points up at my face to create a spooooooky ambiance! I can also handily point it down towards the set list on the ground when the stage lights fail me!


Here’s one of Jeremy’s Ikea wire-lights on. Not totally sold on my application of it but I figure I can keep it off until I really need that extra festive oomph.
I’ve added lights to the tips of my spine-spools (thanks EmbroidMe!) and I’ll be zap-strapping them to the back of my flight suit in short order! Move over, Circue de Soleil!

from Cartoon Brew:

I saw an unexpectedly great live-action film last night—Tarsem’s The Fall. The film’s production design is insanely gorgeous, with nearly every shot a lush and breathtaking tableau of color and composition. The landscapes in the movie are so exotic and magical that I automatically assumed they were all computer-generated like every other Hollywood film. Amazingly, though, it was all shot on-location. Tarsem’s background—directing commercials like the classic Levi’s “Swimmer” and music videos like R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion”—means that he knows how to create stylish and imaginative imagery, but in The Fall he backs it up with a sweet and engaging story about a 5-year-old immigrant girl and a Hollywood stuntman who befriend one another while recovering from injuries in a 1910s LA hospital.
The film premiered at festivals in 2006 but didn’t receive a theatrical release in the US until May of this year. The distribution difficulties of the film are reflected in the film’s production history: Tarsem financed the film almost entirely out of his own pocket using the millions of dollars he made as a commercial director. Its production was as unconventional as the final film. For example, Tarsem scouted locations for the fantasy sequences for seventeen years, he shot the film in over twenty countries, and a good deal of the film’s story structure was ad-libbed by the little girl protagonist.

On Saturday night Deanna and I went to the Vancouver Art Gallery to watch “Inkstuds Presents: A Night With Kim Deitch: An Evening of Rare, Obscure and Blacklisted Cartoons.” Robin McConnell, bless his soul, organized this to – I’m paraphrasing – get people away from youtube and into a social setting. I appreciated the sentiment, and the difference in size between a big screen and a youtube window, but not having to tolerate the smelly drunk guys in front of us and the guy behind me blowing bubbles and kicking my chair has its merits too.

Anyway, the cartoons were generally good – I’d actually already seen the 1930’s cartoon porn but it was still hilarious. They played various racy cartoons including Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs, a Bob Clampett toon that I’ve wanted to see for some time which, though overtly racist, was well animated, had a good score and was voiced by real African Americans. Compare this to Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips, which artistically was nothing special and certainly had no other merits; I’m sure it was shown only for the rarity factor.

Afterwards we cycled to the Chinatown Night Market, which I had never before experienced and was a lot of fun. I enjoyed constantly saying things like “anything can happen…in…the Night Market” using my best scary movie trailer voice.

Dog Sitter (and cat feeder) wanted for weekend of 30th-31st, for me & Deanna.

The person would have to check on the dogs throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday and would have to sleep at the house. Obviously, they would have the feed the beasts as well.

Willing to pay $50 as we know that it is an inconvenience – but it is an easy $50 as you wouldn’t have to walk the dogs, just let them out in the yard.

The new project for this week now I’ve got a short comic book reprieve is to wire up my costume for PAX. You all know the costume of course:

…but for PAX I want to incorporate some judiciously placed flashy lights! Woo! I’ve been consulting with Paul the toy train expert and he’s recommended some cheapass lights from Mountain Equipment Co-op since there’s no way I will be up to the task of soldering LEDs.

I’m open to other ideas, and if you’ve got any battery-powered Christmas lights you want to throw at a stage show for 10,000 people I’d be interested in hearing from you.

Today I went to my very first comic convention as an artist rather than a browser/buyer.

But I’ll back up.

The guy who organizes the bi-monthly comic cons that normally happen at Heritage Hall on Main street finagled the annual “Comix & Stories” to happen at the Vancouver Art Gallery in concert with the comic exhibit “Krazy!” I, as you know, have been working on various comic book projects, so I thought I would sieze this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be at a comic convention in the VAG, even though I don’t actually have any complete comic books to sell (that is, comics with my artwork in them). I’m working on the Rhinosferatu story for the Cloudscape Comics Collective anthology and of course The Underbelly with Kolja for his website, but neither would be ready for the con.

When the organizer said that he would be publishing an anthology for the Comix & Stories convention and that all artists who would be at the con could submit, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to have something with a semblance of completeness to show/sell at the con. So I worked my ass of but ultimately my project (a tangential origin story of one of The Underbelly’s background characters) was rejected. Nevertheless, I finished a somewhat rushed page of Rhinosferatu (I’ll put it up shortly) so that I could have a sample for a brochure I put together with a little bio and mini-portfolio of comic stuff. That worked out decently but I quite literally finished it at Kinko’s on the way to the convention (it’s been a busy week folks).

Unlike the regular comicon’s at Heritage Hall which all happen in one big room, this con was split up not just between three rooms but three floors, each more warm than the last. I was on the middle floor (actually the 3rd floor, there was nothing on floor 2) and although turnout was decent I think it would have been way better for the floor 3 and 4 people if finding these rooms wasn’t confusing and winding.

I shared my table with a nice woman named Dex Thompson who Deanna got to know and I brought some buttons, stickers and CDs with me. The buttons sold reasonably well AND I got paid for my back cover of Outnumbered #2 (which was published and released at the con – my first paid comic book work!) AND I got a new sketch of Rhinosferatu by Steve “Much the Miller’s Son” Lecoulliard (stand by for that) AND Mike “Space Jet” Myhre promised to do one for me at the September con (he’s just getting into Lovecraft so we chatted briefly about that).

So it was quite fun all in all and I’m glad I did it, but man was I worn out from all the running around and lack of sleep. Super awesome thanks to Deanna and Kolja for moral support and watching my table so I could pee and chat with other artists at their tables, and thanks to Kelly, Paul, Geoff, and Jason for coming down to visit. Yay!

Plus now I can say I’ve had my artwork in the VAG.

I bought a creator table for this comic con and it’s free so cancel your weddings and come see me. Ironically I have no comics.

Sunday August 24, 2008 from 11:00am – 5:00pm
Vancouver Art Gallery
750 Hornby
Vancouver, British Columbia
Website: http://mypages.uniserve.com/~lswong/Comicon.html
If you’ve already seen the KRAZY! exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery, you know it’s an action packed visual feast of comix entertainment. Well, it’s going to get even better on August 24, when local comic artists roll in with their finely crafted comics for sale as the Art Gallery hosts the Vancouver Comic Con for the first time ever! One day only! Don’t miss this chance to support your local comics scene!

Comix & Stories
Sunday, August 24th, 2008
11am to 5pm
Vancouver Art Gallery

Special Guests:
Kim Deitch http://www.randomhouse.com/pantheon/graphicnovels/deitch.html
Derek Kirk Kim http://www.lowbright.com/
Jesse Hamm http://www.jessehamm.com/

Admission to the public will be FREE!

At the request of a friend, here are the reasons I boycott Chapters/Indigo:

1. Chapters’ business strategy when they open a new outlet is to reduce prices on everything at that store to ridiculously low prices. They can do this because they are a huge chain. People think “why would I pay more at the independent place across the street?” and thus begin spending their money at Chapters. When the independent place across the street goes out of business 3-6 months later, the ridiculously low prices conveniently go back up. They have a similar strategy with staff. They overstaff during the opening months so that there is always someone to help you. Good luck a year later.

2. Because Chapters has immense buying power, they can bully publishers and distributors. They make demands – returns policies, etc – that no other bookseller would dare to do, and the distributors vying for the Chapters contract buckle. The simplest example of this is exerting pressure to lower prices, making it harder for smaller publishers to stay in business.

2b. I worked in the Raincoast Distribution warehouse for a year or two, and we had a basic stickering policy (for example – if the book has a US price tag on it but doesn’t specify that the book is in US, we put a sticker with the correct Canadian price on it). The stickering policy for Chapters is too boring to go into (and my memory is a little dull) but it was way more involved and Draconian and everyone at the warehouse hated it.

2c. They would also order 50,000 books one week and then return 30,000 of them the next – with the distributor paying the expense.

3. Straight from wikipedia: After the Indigo takeover, Chapters has on several occasions refused to stock certain books and magazines for their controversial content. These include Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf [2], several titles by David Icke, as well as Firearm magazines [3] and an issue of Harper’s Magazine[4]

4. Heather Reisman, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Indigo, supports the Conservative Party and Stephen Harper – who as we know opposes abortion, same-sex marriage and the Kyoto Accord, and is a member of an evangelical Church that promotes missionary work.

5. In a general sense, I believe that it is in one’s best interest to buy locally. If I buy an art book from RX Comics or Oscar’s Books or Pulp Fiction, the people who own the store and work there will get the money. Now maybe – just maybe – one of those people will come to a show by The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets and buy a CD from me. Or maybe if I have an art show or publish a comic book they will be more likely to display it there, because they know me as a regular customer or maybe they have a similar ethic of supporting the local community. If my book-buying money is going to Toronto, that expenditure has a much smaller chance of being useful to me in any reciprocal way.

Just thought you kids might be interested in knowing a bit about what’s
going on with the Thickets and PAX (apart from the fact that we’ll be
playing on Saturday night around 11pm, right before MC Frontalot).:

Our Musical Guests Panel will be taking place in Serpent Theatre from
5:00pm until 6:00pm on Friday,August 29th.

The program description:
Join a mix of our musical guests as they tell stories about their
experiences as geek rock icons, what it’s like to have an internet
fanbase, the games and other influences they’ve had along the way, and
what you should and shouldn’t do if you’re interested in starting up a
band in this niche genre.