Part 2: Strip 8 - The Roots of Mental Illness...

Here's the title page for the new chapter - I know I said no more for 2011, but then I got started on this one and couldn't stop!

-Saraƒin

Part 2: Strip 7 - The drop-off...

Took me a while to get this one done and up, but here it is!

(This is likely going to be the last strip of 2011.)

-Saraƒin

Part 2: Strip 6 - Floor plan...

Floor plans are surprisingly tricky for me to draw... hmmm...

-Saraƒin

Awesome night!

I had a really sweet evening.  First, I attended a Mad Pride Toronto 2012 meeting, which was both informative and highly creative, and I found out at the end that I had won the logo contest!  :D

Here is my entry, post vote-in.  (There were some details I wanted to change.)  If approved, this could be all over Mad Pride Toronto 2012 documents, sites, and merch:

I went with a simple design (black and white) that could easily be printed, without going fuzzy.  I drew part of it on paper, drafted part in Photoshop, and when I was done, I vectorized everything in Illustrator.  That way, it can be blown up, and will still look crisp.  (I must admit, I barely know my way around even basic Illustrator tools... mainly, I use that software to vectorize images, and that's it.  I am, however, quite proficient with Photoshop.)

Later that night, some Mad Students and I went to the 'Supermarket' in Kensington Market to see the 'Laughing Out Loud' comedy show.  It was a fun night out, and one of the two hosts had even made a hybrid shirt out of one of my Asylum Squad tops & one of the Mad Students Society "Mad Identified" shirts, and wore it onstage.  Tres cool!

We have lots of new ideas for what we want to do with Mad Pride Toronto 2012, and this year we even have a bit of money to throw around!  I think we're going to have another Mad Market fundraiser sometime in the new year... am looking forward to that.  There's even talk of potential for a documentary on the festivities.  I will keep readers posted on Mad Pride information as it crystallizes.  ;-)

-Saraƒin

Part 2: Strip 5 - St. Dymphna's Psychiatric Hospital...

Whew... so much drawing, yet I'm hungry for more!

-Saraƒin

Edit: Changed some awkward wording... I always catch the flaws post post!

Part 2: Strip 3 - Committed...

Heh - when I designed Dr. Marsh (Liz's shrink) years back, I was thinking of Tony Soprano's shrink, Dr. Jennifer Melfi.  Is there a similarity?  I loved that series...

-Saraƒin

Part 2: Strip 3 - The Rescue...

Yay - I've been in a real drawing mode these past few days.  Not much else to say except that I'm enjoying the new format immensely.  It's too bad I need to make shrunken photocopies of all the pages to be able to scan 'em, though... kind of a pain.

-Saraƒin

Part 2: Strip 2 - Found...

I'm fairly satisfied with the art in this one.  (You may have noticed, I have started making the text more stylish in this chapter.)  Working on bigger paper allows me far more space to explore.

-Saraƒin

Part 2: Strip 1 - Intro...

That was one short hiatus!

I did some reading on writing fiction while I was away, and got to a point where I felt I had a worthwhile story to tell. So here we go! Welcome to Part 2!

-Saraƒin

Silkscreening success! & The latest 'Ars Medica' journal...

Hooray!  I finally got the silkscreening process to work for me!  Turns out that the problem was due to the crap squeegee that the Speedball (great name, eh?) silkscreening kit came with:

This piece of plastic is utter crap, and I can't imagine it ever producing a good print - don't use this!  Instead...

For about $8.00, I bought this rubber-edged squeegee, and it worked like a charm.  Shame on Speedball for not including one like this with the kit!

I will be selling Asylum Squad t-shirts now, if anyone wants to buy one.  Going to try setting up a PayPal account or something.  (I may do other types of merch later on as well - like hoodies, bags, or, if I can swing it, hospital gowns/scrubs.)  Contact me at: splitminds(at)gmail(dot)com and tell me what colour shirt & ink you'd like used, and what your size is  - again, this may take a little time at first, cuz I have to look into the PayPal thing.  I think I'll be charging $15 + shipping per shirt.  (Hoodies and gowns/scrubs would cost more.)

In other news, today I went to the 'Ars Medica' anthology book launch, and while I was there I picked up a copy of the latest bi-annual journal, which featured some of my comics:

This cover is by artist/Dr. Ian Williams, AKA Thom Ferrier, one of my online contacts, and host of "Graphic Medicine"

First two strips I submitted for publishing: The first one I drew while at CAMH, and the first one I drew after I left CAMH

Next two: One of my more autobiographic comics, followed by one of the last of the first compilation

 It was quite the honour to be invited to contribute to "Ars Medica", which is a respected publication printed by the University of Toronto Press.  I think this is the link to the page that allows you to order a subscription: http://www.utpjournals.com/Ars-Medica.html

Tomorrow (tomorrow being December 10th, 2011) is the Mad Market, happening at "The Raging Spoon" from 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM.  If you're in Toronto and you get this message in time, why not stop by and support Mad Pride Toronto by purchasing some Mad goods?  I'll be selling shirts, art prints, and more.  Sorry about the late notice!  I'll try and take some pics and write a blog entry about it later.  :-)

-Saraƒin

Mad Pride Toronto 2012 logo...

So here, I think, is my final design for the Toronto Mad Pride 2012 logo contest.  I might tweak it a bit more, but maybe not.  I have been taking this really cool (free!) course at York University called "Radical Design School" - it's been really helpful for this kind of thing.

First prize is $100.00, and their logo all over Mad Pride 2012 stuff.  I should go to the next Mad Pride meeting and talk about the flag design campaign.

-Saraƒin