Utopia Moment sketches and writing by Jack Ruttan and friends

Was pretty down today, but doing this cheered me up. Just left blank bubbles and squares, then filled them in with whatever. Mainly according to songs I was listening to on the shuffle.

You don’t want me for your childrens’ face painter.

There’s a community thing happening in a week or two at Parc Mederic Martin, a neglected little park a block or two east of here. It’s based on a sort of Parisian model of the park with the long centre walk, but left to seed. The trees on either side have overgrown; their shade has not allowed the grass to flourish, and the whole thing has the feeling of a dark tunnel. The kind of thing you see in horror films. Also a tiled fountain which must not have been turned on since the 1970s.

Anyhow, I might be there. And I’m hoping one of my talented pals, who are good face painters, show up. Caro Caron has a website with her group les feés des artifices, which is very charming, and good promotion. For you clunky anglos out there, that’s a play on “feu d’artifice” or “fireworks,” with the word “fairies.”

Didn’t want to go on so long to set up this old cartoon of mine about face painting, but there it is at top, courtesy of Richard Gagnon’s little comic mag, What the F***? Nowadays, you’d suspect the asterisks are standing in for a dirty word, but that’s the actual title of the mag.

I did one of my now-rare political cartoons, about this story.

I was mad at the time, and wondering if the drawing would be too harsh, but now it seems kind of mild. Ink seems to soak up a lot of the anger.

I’m not even that big a pot person, but think the laws against it are stupid.

…Was better attended than you would think, considering the icy weather.

Still, stacks of comics have been drawn, but people (yours truly included) haven’t gotten it together to scan them, or try to print them in a zine.

I bet that that zine would have some sort of currency, since we’re a fixture at L’Escalier bar, once every month.

Here’s a shot of the gang. Our numbers only got greater as the night drew on:

I drew a surreptitious picture of one of the jamsters, and she seemed pretty happy with it.

Made it to Expozine Saturday. Pretty overwhelming. Didn’t do my usual thing of snapping and talking to a lot of the people there, but the place was packed with artists and writers. Did a little video you can see below of turning in a circle with my camera:

Took some shots of comic artists I hadn’t snapped before:

Julie Doucet

Marc Bell

Kate Beaton, who also appears fleetingly in the video above:

Think I’ll come back tomorrow, this time with my sketchbook, to draw some of the people. [Monday note: So sorry, was so busy videotaping people, I got too tired to do this!]

Here’s my idea of what it would look like if Cirque du Soleil made it into outer space.