Under the Beret

Process and Templates

December 9, 2014 BC Holmes Comics No comments

I’m starting the art chores on a new comics project, and I’m finding process to be an interesting thing to think about. First thing I did was spend a few hours putting together a template.

The page size for this project is different than the page size for the last project, so my template from that project doesn’t fit. Unlike the last project, this time, the book’s editors distributed a template, with page size, bleed and trim. And it’s just fine, but it has text and stuff on it, and I want something cleaner.

Duvalier Dead

October 5, 2014 BC Holmes Uncategorized No comments

Jean-Claude Duvalier, a former president of Haiti known as Baby Doc who ruled the country with a bloody brutality and then shocked it anew with a sudden return from a 25-year exile in 2011, died on Saturday.

— The New York Times

The Tuesday Thing

September 13, 2014 BC Holmes Uncategorized No comments

Did I mention that I joined an art studio? There’s a cool bunch of folks who have a studio called The Comic Book Embassy. It happens to share space with the Comic Book Bootcamp, which is where I did all the most-recent comic book courses I took. At the beginning of the month, I joined the studio to give me a space to focus on my comic-creation.

Early September wasn’t the best time to do that, mind you. I’ve been tied up with the film festival, so I’ve barely had time to do more than just drop in to the studio and take a coupl’a items there. On Tuesday, one of my few nights without a film, I planned to drop some things off at the studio, but I was turned away by the police. They’d blocked off an entire section of Spadina Ave., which is a pretty unusual occurrence. They weren’t letting cars through; they weren’t letting people on the sidewalk; they weren’t letting people at the studio/bootcamp leave the building. This ended up being the subject of Ty’s Bun Toon this week.

At the time of the lockdown, there were numerous news stories about a sighting of people with a sniper rifle on the roof of one of the Spadina buildings. The situation ended around 10pm-ish, with the discovery that some kids were playing parkour and had a toy rifle. Nonetheless, news outlets don’t seem interested in clarifying just how non-threatening the situation was.

What even are children?

August 20, 2014 BC Holmes Genealogy No comments

Dear friends who have children, or spend a lot of time in their presence (without cowering in fear, like I do): I’m looking for some help identifying the age of these kids. How old do you think the kids are in this picture?

I know who the three older kids are, but I’m trying to identify the baby. It’s either my father, or my father’s older sister, Elizabeth, who died as an infant. If it’s the latter, then this might be the only picture of her that I know of.

More Curious Findings from Genealogy

August 17, 2014 BC Holmes Genealogy No comments

I’m tackling more of the Holmes family. I left civilization, today, to visit my aunt in Mississauga (I kid! I kid! Mississauga’s not that bad, especially for someone who grew up in Sarnia). My aunt loaned me a metric buttload of old photos that I’m busily scanning, and we talked about family history.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

August 3, 2014 BC Holmes Genealogy No comments

I delivered the major deliverable of my big project on Thursday. Like many deliveries, the last few days were busybusybusy, and I’m happy to be taking this long weekend to decompress from that. I turned my attention to some of the genealogy stuff that I’ve neglected for a few months. I took a stab at writing up a blurb about my line of Houles for that Houle/Houde family association that I found out about several months ago. They have a quarterly newsletter, and they were interested in the Houles of south-western Ontario. Anyway, that got me looking at the migration of family members, and the towns and villages around Sarnia

My biological grandfather was Walter Dynes. He died a dozen years before I was born, and he was from Dresden, Ontario. He was one of two children of Russell Dynes, both of whom died young. The Dynes family were grocers, operating the Dynes and Dynes Grocery in Dresden. When Walter Dynes married my grandmother (who was from Wallaceburg), they moved to Petrolia. Walter Dynes died not long after that move, and a few years later my grandmother married Don, who was a Petrolia local.

Toronto Comix Anthology

August 1, 2014 BC Holmes Comics One comment

Back in, like, April I heard about a gang of folks in the Toronto comics scene who were gonna get together to make a comics anthology. Most of the people involved — maybe even all of them — had been through Ty’s comics classes, and folks wanted a nicely-printed collection to showcase our work. So we chipped in on printing costs and accepted a unifying theme (“Toronto!”) and then rolled up our sleeves.

Thought for the Day

February 20, 2014 BC Holmes Trans No comments

My adult understanding of my childhood with my father doesn’t erase the effects of his policing. I felt his gaze always following me, making me feel isolated as I quietly grappled with my identity. The loneliness and self-consciousness from these exchanges made me vulnerable in a way I wasn’t able to recognize until decades later.

— Janet Mock, Redefining Realness

Those Irish Holmes (Redux)

February 9, 2014 BC Holmes Uncategorized No comments

It’s like a blast from the past, man. I have a copy in my hot little… Documents folder.

No one needs the eggs that badly

February 8, 2014 BC Holmes Uncategorized No comments

I’m a film fanatic. I love film. I have broad taste in films: I like films that are very popular, and I like films that audiences stay away from in droves. There are film genres that I avoid — mostly torture porn and misbehaving man-child movies — and, increasingly, there are films that I refuse to see on principle.

Here’s the thing. For almost as long as I’ve watched films, I’ve adored Woody Allen’s movies. I’ve included Annie Hall in my list of top three favourite movies for years(although, to be honest, I’ve been reconsidering each of the top three in recent years). I quote from it constantly. (“Keeps out the alpha rays, Max. You don’t get old.”)

I think I need to re-evaluate my fondness for Woody’s work.

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