Live Journal Feed
My first ever ebay auction
A drawing of Ryan North, for charity! Kind of!
Check it out!
Love,
Chip!
Back Inaction
HELLO OLD FRIENDS.
I have been away, but not really. Just before TCAF I had been told by my doctor that I had a nasty case of tendonitis and carpal tunnel and that I need to stop drawing like a motherfucker. I punched her as hard as I could in the face, but it didn't even faze her since my arm wasn't working too shit-hot.
So, I took a month off from work and drawing. I travelled the land looking to help others with my unique brand of legs-only kung-fu and an ability to tie sexy knots. It was fulfilling in the sense that I came a lot, but home is where the heart is, so I am back.
While "off work" I still managed to do a lot of work, aided by photographs in place of my finely-tuned boring illustrations! Here's a brief list!
BAD ADVICE: POPULAR BY PROXY
BAD ADVICE: NO LETTERING
BAD ADVICE: THE POWER OF POSITIVE WHATEVER
And now I'm back to illustrating!
BAD ADVICE: SUPERIORITY PROJECTS
As always, please send me your problems/questions/fantasies. I love helping others.
Also, Tear Jerk! My ongoing quest to acquaint myself with movies that make me cry! It's going well and I've been crying a lot! Here's the ones I've tackled so far!
TEAR JERK: MILK
TEAR JERK: ONCE
TEAR JERK: THE NOTEBOOK
TEAR JERK: THE IRON GIANT
ALSO! This was my fault.
I noticed the terrible photoshop job and tracked down the original stock photo. It has since spiralled out of control at work and is being linked all over the place, in both good places and BAD PLACES. I am the Woodward and Bernstein of photoshop now. Hooray! My favourite part that most people haven't noticed is the headline, "Learn to Swim ... It's worth a try." VERY INSPIRING, CITY OF TORONTO.
I am tired now. Time for nappy-nap.
Love,
Chip!
TCAF TODAY!
Come on out!
Love,
Chip!
Oh, Katie. PLUS: PARTY NEWS.
It was hard for me to look at her as she was so very, very short with eyes bulging out of her ovoid face. Her fingers were like weird sausages that left grease stains everywhere and her breath was like three kinds of fish, though I lacked the resources to determine which fish exactly.
Nice woman though.
-----------
Also! THE PARTY THIS SATURDAY just got HOTTER! I am now providing a home for the DOUG WRIGHT AWARDS AFTER-PARTY! Spread the word to fellow TCAF attendees please! Also, here's some non-Doug Wright approved flyers I did to promote it!
Love,
Chip!
p.s: If you haven't yet, check out my SCOTT PILGRIM FEATURE! The paper was chock full of comic goodness this past weekend!
FREE COMIC BOOK DAY & SCOTT PILGRIM!
Today I will be signing/sketching at The Beguiling for Free Comic Book Day! I helped them put together a book for the kids (and there's a new Monster Cops one-pager in it!), so bring them out! I promise to not swear much! I'm there with a bunch of creators, including the adorable RYAN NORTH and the handsome KATE BEATON! They're killing comics by putting them online, but The Beguiling invited them anyway! Weird!
Also, today, in your NATIONAL POST, there are a couple of pages of Scott Pilgrim goodness! I wrote a story, which I don't normally do because it's hard, and if you already know Scott Pilgrim you can skip it because it's, um, dumbed down for the NORMS out there, the CIVILIANS. Anyhoo, I had to cut out so much I may put up the fuller interviews with BRYAN LEE O'MALLEY, CHRIS BUTCHER and JAMES LUCAS JONES sometime in the near future. I truly appreciate their understanding with my bumbling questions and lack of professionalism and I'm truly sorry to Mal for crudely attempting to draw his characters AND drawing Cera as Scott. If only the studios would have allowed me on set. If only.
Anyhoo, click here for the Scott Pilgrim package! There are some nice little tidbits in the map that have been expanded on from Mal's previous annotations!
HAPPY FREE COMIC BOOK DAY EVERYONE.
Love,
Chip!
So, if there's a new issue ...
You should come! It'll be ever so much fun!
Love,
Chip!
Prison Funnies Issue Three!
It's done!
Phew!
TODD DIAMOND PRESENTS: "Twitter, in Three Acts."
Shout out to my fashion consultant, Diesel Sweeties!
TODD DIAMOND. Also, dreams.
Go on a journey of sexual rediscovery with Todd. Todd Diamond.
And check out the ol' back catalogue here!
Also, I made a nice new desktop image for you.
(From today's Extremely Bad Advice. Please send me your questions/cake)
Love,
Chip!
Alan Moore Knows the Score
WHO'S GOT WATCHMEN FEVER?
hello?
Watchmen?
Anyhoo, myself and National Post stalwart Barry Hertz made a guide to how a bill becomes a law Watchmen became a movie!
Click on Mr. Moore to see!
Love,
Chip!
Big Tony
Headshot Day!
I'm pretty sure I'm the only person working at the National Post that looks forward to Journalist Headshot Day.
YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR. I'M WITH THE PRESS, MA'AM.
THE. PRESS.
The Roundup For Newbies
I SEE A LOT OF NEW FACES HERE.
A lot of new people are watching me after I romanced the shit out of them with my COMICS ESSAY. So I just want to show you WHAT I'M ALL ABOUT ONLINE.
I post COMICS AND FUNNIES as "Chip" at my site, prisonfunnies.com
I post ILLUSTRATIONS as "Steve" at stevetastic.com
I post VIDEOS as "Todd" on youtube.
I have an ADVICE COLUMN on nationalpost.com
You can ask me questions! I like getting questions.
I post on twitter.
I post on flickr.
I love you.
Love,
Chip
BEEN DUGG
I BEEN DUGGED.
Thanks, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
mojocat !
It really is a day-after-Valentine's-Day miracle.
I (HEART COMICS)
So, I was asked by the fine folks at the Comic Book Resources / Robot 6 blog to participate in their I (HEART) COMICS series, where creators and pundits deliver thoughtful essays on things they love about the medium, fond memories, etc. Unfortunately, my entry was deemed a wee unsuitable for the readership so it went, sadly, unpublished. I do not blame the Robot 6 folks as it is most definitely unsuitable and I must say that since they started up, the Robot 6 blog is now one of my favourites! So please visit them for all your comic needs!
Anyhoo, below the cut is my entry. If you offend easily or, for that matter, UNeasily, don't bother reading this cherished, cherished memory.
I (HEART) COMICS
BY CHIP ZDARSKY
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love comics, but that’s mostly due to the fact that I can’t remember anything that happened to me before the age of eleven. There are flashes of events and feelings, of course, like seeing Uncle Alan and Crazy Carl wildly swinging knives at each other on our front lawn, or the sense memory of my mother’s wine & corn dog breath as she would lick my face to wake me for school in the afternoons.
But those aren’t strong like real memories (or like real boys as my mother reminded me). My first full, vivid memory was the summer when mom was on tour and I was left at my Uncle Melvin’s place, out Minnesing way, around the corner from Barrie, Ontario, on his fertilizer farm. Uncle Melvin was divorced from his wife but strongly attached to crying most days, so his son, Big Chip, would take me to the fields to work every day, putting the proverbial shit-dollars on the table.
Big Chip was, as his name implied, big. He was tall and slender, my head just barely coming to his hip bone, and his hair had gone completely white at the age of seventeen, like a young Magneto, sans the overwrought Claremont dialogue and Malcolm X comparisons. During those hot, summer days, he would always have two comic books sticking out of his tight acid wash jeans, one for him and one for me. We would take long comic book breaks under the haunted tree and lose ourselves in the Marvel Universe. The haunted tree was called that because even the slightest wind would create an ungodly low-pitched whistle as it made its way through its tangled, hollow trunk. The noise was distracting, for sure, but it was the only spot downwind from the mountains of shit that eventually spawned several by-laws named in our honour.
Ever day was a new adventure, as I lost myself in the “Secret War” series where Marvel heroes fought valiantly on Battleworld, and Magneto boned the Wasp. I eagerly awaited the climactic issue twelve while I caught up on the rest of Big Chip’s collection, his run of Roger Stern Spider-Mans, the John Byrne She-Hulk-fetishized Fantastic Fours, and the forever maligned X-Men. A lot of people criticize superhero books as escapist literature, but is there anything wrong with that, really? If, for a second, I could imagine myself as the stoic, mentally challenged X-Men leader, Cyclops, and not as an anemic, rash-covered boy sitting in a field of shit, was that really a problem?
One fateful day, late in July, Big Chip and I made our daily trek to the haunted tree, that day’s comics gingerly poking out of his pocket, invariably placing them at a CGC 1.5 rating. When we finally reached our favourite spot, Big Chip pulled out exactly what I had been desiring all month long: The final issue of Secret War. I squealed with delight and devoured it, paying little attention to the shoddy, sparse artwork that would always accompany a double-sized issue. Big Chip just stared and smiled, watching my cherubic face as I gasped and moaned at the climactic events within. When I was done, he quizzed me, as if we were in our own two-man book club.
“What did you think of the heroes’ wishes at the end?” he asked, referencing the Beyonder’s gift to the victors. I told him that I thought they were pretty good and I was glad to see Captain America’s shield back in one piece, because it was a good shield, a fine shield. Big Chip smiled at my answer and asked me what my greatest wish would be if I had beaten Dr. Doom on Battleworld.
“I don’t know,” I lisped. “I guess it would be to never go home to mom again and just stay here reading comics upwind from all of the shit.”
Big Chip laughed. Then he stopped and stared at me, smiling, for what felt like 30 seconds.
“I’ve got another comic for us to read, together,” he said as he pulled out another rolled up Marvel masterpiece. It was a special one-off issue featuring Spider-man and Power Pack. I was intrigued! He opened the comic up and slid over to me as he started narrating it. Funnily enough, there was a character named Chip in it, who babysat Peter Parker! I never noticed it before but I looked an awful lot like a young Peter. And, coincidentally (fatefully), the “Chip” in the comic looked just like Big Chip!
Halfway through the main story, Peter and Chip were in Chip’s basement, which looked pretty awesome. Then Chip started showing Peter dirty magazines and asking him if he’d like to do the things that were in the magazine. I never got to see what happened next, or Peter’s response, because Big Chip began the long process of raping me under the haunted tree. There wasn’t a lot I could do, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do anything without knowing how my favourite character, Peter Parker, would handle the situation. Maybe this was how he got his spider-powers (I hadn’t read Amazing Fantasy #15 yet, true believer!). Instead, I imagined I was the Invisible Woman, able to hide myself and repel the world with my awesome force fields. The next day when it happened again under that bellowing tree I imagined myself as the Hulk, so very strong and able to withstand almost anything the military forced down his throat.
Eventually I went to Uncle Melvin and told him that Big Chip and I had been having these relations and that I didn’t know how the comic ended. He stopped crying for a moment and began laughing, telling me that I’d been working the shit-fields for too long and it was practically falling out of my mouth. I imagined myself as Ant-Man just then, shrinking so tiny that no one could see me cry. I ran out and down the street until I came across a house that had a “Block Parent” sign, where I would be safe to tell my story. The woman inside heard me out and gave me cookies to calm my trembling lip. She asked me where Big Chip had touched me, so I told her.
“Here?” she asked, as her hands slowly made their way up my thigh. I shut down like the Vision in Avenger #233 as she had me reenact the previous two weeks of Chip-on-Chip action. I had nowhere to turn to so I walked back to the haunted tree and gave myself over to Big Chip, my only friend, imagining myself as Wolverine, able to regenerate my innocence when that summer was over.
Eventually I went home to mother, back from her tour, and tried to tell her all about my experiences. She called me all sorts of names I can’t repeat here, and three drinks later she hallucinated that I was her ex-husband, “father,” and tried to tongue-kiss me.
After that summer, it was rare that I didn’t pretend I was a superhero, repelling advances and having a secret strength that only I knew of. The next year when the school principal spanked me without paddle or hand, I was Quicksilver, running from my problems/pain. When that police officer arrested me and searched my mouth for hours, planting evidence, I was Hawkeye, ineffective and unpopular. And when, as an adult, my john pushed me out of his moving vehicle, leaving me paralyzed and crawling off the highway, I was Professor X, unable to climb stairs, but still a powerful asshole.
This is why I love comics. No matter how hard life or Big Chip was, comics took me away to a safe place where I had power, where I could soar high like that DC Comics version of Sentry. Comics took away the pain, even if for just a second, and I can’t thank them enough. I’ll cherish those memories until the day I finally commit suicide, like Colossus did in that shitty, shitty Scott Lobdell comic from Uncanny X-Men #390.
Love,
Chip
THE PREZ
Please Don't Leave Me.
Doing some much needed catching up! I just posted some new Extremely Bad Advices at the Post's site! Last week's was about how missing my column affects the minds and well-being of others. The one this week is about a man who no longer wishes to pay taxes.
GOOD TIMES.
ALSO! Many new POSTIES strips up!
Click here to go see a list of the ones to date!
(The strip above is the first one!)
I have more to talk about, but I need to rework it all into an inspirational Obama-style speech. BECAUSE THAT IS HOW WE SHOULD TALK FROM NOW ON, AND THAT IS HOW WE. SHOULD. LIVE.
As always, please send your advice questions to meeeee.
Love,
Chip!
Killbot
Officer Jones
McCluskey
"Sweeps"
2009 SO FAR
Man! What a year so far! I'm so happy I could eat a whole stack of blueberry pancakes, puke them up on my Wii and STILL be happy! WHY SO HAPPY? Well, there's a couple of reasons that I can now finally share with you!
First, I'M HAVING A BABY! Not a traditional baby, per se, but a comic book baby, which I've had in my brain-womb for a long while and now am giving birth to through brush and paper! So exciting!
Also, I JUST PROPOSED MARRIAGE! Not a traditional marriage, per se, but a marriage of myself and a stronger work ethic! It's a marriage made in heaven (my studio + rising debts)!
On an even grander note, I HAVE AIDS. Not some sort of acquired immune deficiency syndrome, which wouldn't be good, come to think of it, but "aids" in the form of good friends and a woman that sleeps with me sometimes!
----
Part of my love for the New Year stems from my absolute lack of shopping for Christmas this year! I just told the newspaper I wanted to "review" some "products" for a "gift guide," and then I just gave everything to my shitty family! Enjoy those unravelling ipod gloves, dad! SUCKER!
I also want to take this moment to share a QUICK CHIP FACT with you. I have a strange hearing disability in which I can't hear people at parties or in crowds because I can't pick out the specific sounds! So sometimes I will just nod and smile at you when we're out having a good time because I have no idea what you're saying, but you seem to enjoy saying it! Anyhoo, this problem also applies to music! I simply cannot make out most lyrics in songs! I can honestly say that, besides a few Christmas carols and Happy Birthday, I do not know the lyrics to any one song! Crazy!
Why am I telling you this? Because I just lied to you and there is actually one song that I know the entire lyrics to, because it is my favourite song of all time. And I'm going to share it with you now. It wasn't even available on CD until just last year, save for a crazy Japanese export that would have cost me $80! There is no video for it, but there's a clearly lip-synced version from Solid Gold in 1985.
ENJOY!
I shoud also note that I based my own personal style for over ten years on Jack Wagner and may do so again in the near future.
Happy New Year!
Love,
Chip!
2009, YOU SO FINE.
So, yeah. I've been away.
Spent the holidays in Abu Dhabi. Met some camels, made some friends (camels), and totally missed the massive snowfall back home (sorry).
I put some pix up! Go check them out if that pleases you! And remember...
DO NOT SQUAT OVER THE WESTERN TOILETS WHEN SHITTING. Man, I learned that the hard way.
----
Also, Happy 2009! Star Wars is dead. Long live Star Trek!
Also, don't forget to catch up on Extremely Bad Advice! And don't forget to email me your questions that need answerin'!
Love,
Chip!
I WILL BREAK YOUR LAYOUT
Because it needs to be big so you feel it properly.
Yanked from this week's Extremely Bad Advice!
Love,
Chip!
New Comic! THE POSTIES
As most of you know, I work for a fun, little, right-wing newspaper. Sometimes, more often than not, they have good, fun ideas. One of which was to start a comics page that didn't rely on the Garfields and For Better or Worses of the world. So, they asked me if I would do one for them (they also asked the incomparable Kate Beaton and Ben Shannon). Now, I'm a bit busy these days, but I DO enjoy the clip-art stylings of David Rees and Mr. Ryan North and enjoy the time-saving method of not "drawing!" So...
So, what's a guy to do? What kind of clip-art could I use at a national newspaper?
I KNOW! The columnists' illustrated headshots!
So, yeah, the first three installments of The Posties is up at the website!
Love,
Chip!
p.s: The website is terribly slow!
