Utopia Moment sketches and writing by Jack Ruttan and friends

The Skinny Nameless Punk is a great cartoon character I created with collaborator Rick Gagnon, and now he has his own site. http://mruttan.ca/punk

The strips were printed in Mensuhell, the Quebec monthly fanzine that shut down last year. One of the few features in that mag that ran in English, by the way.

A few of the strips were also up on Geocities. Now that that’s gone down, there’s no place to read them. So, I decided to build a Wordpress site, and upload all of the strips gradually, maybe two a week. That’s so I can get some experience producing a webcomic.

It’s really fine work I think, thanks in large part to Rick’s meticulous inks. He took way more care on them than I see in most strips, making each one a work of art. Anyways, I hope you stick around, and check in on the Punk regularly.

…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.

Off to the Monthly Montreal Comic Jam the other night. But first there was a big event happening across the street. I took some video with my little camera:

Got one of the volunteers in the information booth to explain what was going on. Nice siren in the background, which fits with the name of the festival.
Unfortunately, I held the camera sideways, thinking, I guess, that this was like a still photo you could “rotate” right side up. No such luck, so you’re going to have to turn your monitor on its side, or have a very flexible neck:

Off then to the jam, which was upstairs at a bar called L’Utopik. Nice crowd at the table.

That’s Éric Theriault, centre, Richard Gagnon, right, and I’ll get the name of the guy on the left, I promise.

Sirkowski, far left, Nicolas Plamondon, centre, and that guy again.

Marr, and Jeff Leblanc.

Éric had found, under the bed, or something, a pile of finished cartoons no one had seen for years. I’m hoping that these get published in a book soon, with the rest of the cartoons we do at the jam. Maybe someone can scan them, and put them up for all to enjoy.

I drew a bunch of little things. Wish I’d made a record of them, somehow. Well, still fun to hobnob with one’s fellow cartoonists.

Needed a day to recover, but I’m finally doing a post with images from our street session on Tuesday for the Metropolitan Transport Agency (AMT) to honour Car Free Day. Slide show of pictures is below. Click on one for information, or visit the flickr site to see the names of people, credits, etc. Remember, the artwork is copyright by the people who produced it!

This is our gang of four:

Bruno Rouyere, Siris, Eric Theriault, and me, Jack Ruttan

It rained most of the morning, dampening our paper, but not our spirits:

Here’s Bruno’s finished page (click for my English translation):

Siris’ page (ditto on the translation):

Eric’s page (he didn’t get so far in his story, but had the right idea: this was more of a demonstration than a race to produce finished art. He actually attracted some interest and business cards from lovers of vintage cars):

And finally mine. I did two pages, and ended up racing to the finish, as the street was being packed up around me. Think 2/3 of the second page was done in about 20 minutes, with my Chinese brush and ink. I also kind of jumped between English and French words, at times.

Page 1

Page 2

Then, if all that drawing wasn’t enough, Siris and I, plus artist Kurt Beaulieu (who showed up at the end), retired to the pub for a beer. Siris drew me the portrait below of one of the bar’s rough denizens.

All in all, it was a tough (we were all drawing standing up), but rewarding day.

Here’s a nifty article on the event, by Denis Giguere (sorry for leaving out everyone’s accents) from a French-language comics website: [link]

Wild people. Drawing by me, inks by Rick.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my blog. I can express stuff here and gas on about things, and look at my funny sketches. Who cares that only about 30 people a day visit the thing.

But busy computer-related work (websites and writing) takes its toll of how long I want to stay in front of this glowing screen. And twitter has taken a bite, too. Oh blog, don’t get upset!

So, I’ve got some funny drawings, and a couple of posts to write. I’m going to try and spread them out a little, just to enhance the bloggy goodness. Or, put them out all at once. These usually just happen. I’m not big on planning.

Right now, these are drawings from my most recent Friday afternoon bar session with Rick Gagnon. Not too many, because I had only brought one book for the both of us to draw in. I was looking on forlornly as he was inking the pic that goes up on the head of this piece. Then I got my book back, and drew various cats (one suffering from the heat, as my guys are at the moment), plus a polar bear from a beer ad (a few of those on the walls, no surprise).

Then a loud bachelors party moved in next to us. They were taking whacks at the groom to be with a paddle, and offering the paddle to pretty girls passing by. Surprisingly, there were few takers. But what these passers-by probably saw was a bunch of guys waving their arms, yelling incoherently. Of course, that was just Rick and I having a political discussion. The wedding party was loud, too!

I’m hoping that Rick sends me a couple of the shots he took of this. Good, if somewhat loutish times!

It’s been too long, but last night I was drinking with my friend Richard Gagnon, and doing silly drawings. He usually inks things that I’ve drawn. Gives me new ideas about where to place black and whites, etc.

I’m feeling a little burnt at the moment, so am just going to post these, to get them out there.

This is a turnabout — Rick’s drawing, which I did inks on:

These guys above were tourists, who were too loud, and we were complaining loudly about them. But as they were leaving, we chatted with them and shook hands. Who would figure it? I think in Montreal, people are always nice to tourists, no matter what. I wonder if that’s really true?

Below, Rick liked the hint of messiness in the stripes of an otherwise (relatively) crisp drawing.

Shots from last night’s Monthly Montreal Comic Jam. This time at a new location: the L’Escalier bar (actually, former site of l’Utopik, where there had been a few jams before).

R. Gagnon (in saffron here, like the walls) did a great job of setting it up. Thanks, Rick!

I didn’t get everyone’s name, so I’m not going to bother identifying.

Also, there was another table, but I mainly took pictures of this one:

Even though I didn’t stay that long, it was a very pleasant evening, with a lot of comics done by interesting and fun people. Sorry, none of those to post. Maybe they’ll make a book of them someday.

UPDATE: More photos here, from Rockin’ Rick Gagnon (on facebook)! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2537498&id=662345842&ref=nf

Even though it’s a Monday (lots happening on the weekend, so this post got pushed back), I’m very happy that R. Gagnon and I had a chance last Friday afternoon to meet at a bar again, for drinks and drawing. He did very serious, illustrator-y treatments of my drawings, as with the above.

The drawing below is a little deceptive. First of all, we weren’t at the Cock and Bull pub, but rather a new place, east of downtown. Whether it becomes a regular place will be seen, but it has a good stock of strange characters. Secondly, no one really yells “Hey, Tony!” at the Cock N’ Bull pub. He just appears behind you, when you’re not expecting him, to take away your empty glass.

Another picture by me, vividly inked by Rick:

After hiatus of a couple of weeks, met with my friend Rick Gagnon, but at a different bar this time. Different vibe, too. Above are his inks over an old man I drew. Below is a whiffle jet of mine, which I drew in pencil on the back of a printed sheet of paper (because Rick had the sketchbook), and then fooled around with in photoshop.

Sadly, my weekly meet with R. Gagnon was not to be. So I was flying solo. Still, Rick had his effect, because he’s been lending me these great Criterion DVDs of films such as this one, the 1954 French gangster film Touchez pas au grisbi (“Hands off the loot”), from which I drew this very serious pic of star Jean Gabin.

Fear of a pandemic grips the planet. Economic collapse has put millions out of work. Outside the window of the Cock and Bull Bar, an angry throng marches down the street for May Day, carrying red and black flags, shouting for justice and revolution. I feel suddenly like I’m in Paris, 1968.

I tried to nod at what my friend Rick was saying, and look sympathetic, but it wasn’t working.

So, he inked for me my pencil drawing of the lovely Illeana Douglas. This helped:

Next he did a couple of cowboys, slightly mirroring the mood at the table:

I think that’s Warren Oates and Jake Busey.

Things were better. Then another friend Marr showed up (yay!), and we finished our beers, and headed to a much more expensive bar. There, an artist friend of ours who has shown up in these pages, Jeff Leblanc, was having a birthday celebration:

That’s him with the always sympathetic Eric Theriault, who is nodding and trying to look interested.

Because this is a sketch blog, and this is how I roll, I drew a sketch of Jeff:

He would do the same for me. Only it would take about 2 hours, and be much better.

Beers here cost about as much as a whole pitcher at the other place. But I bought a pint in honour of Jeff, blowing my weekend savings. Rick meanwhile had onion rings, which he photographed lovingly:

Later that night as I was heading home on my bike via rue Rene Levesque, I happened upon the protesters. They had camped in front of the government building, and were apparently having a tam-tam party.

I, meanwhile, remain optimistic about things, despite bouts of panic. For no reason at all, here’s a picture of my cat, Mr. Boggedy, looking silly:

It’s good to see Rick Gagnon again, at our traditional Friday afternoon meet at the Cock N’ Bull for drawing and chat. We missed last week, and then I put this post off until today, because of all the class action excitement. But here we are again, with another batch of fun drawings.

Below, can you tell who did what? Rick drew the two girls, and added shading lines to my cocky guy. Rick’s lines are usually more parallel than mine. He also aggressively darkened my Nora the Cat.

Pretty girl (sometimes hard to find at this bar!) drawn by me, inked by Rick:

Rick on a profile I drew:

Now, this is me on a drawing of Rick’s of a couple of ne’er-do-wells by the video gaming terminals:

Rick did a great job on my hat guy in a car:

And I also love the job he did on my “Count:”

I’ve been busy with “stuff” and have neglected the blog a little bit. By that, I mean I didn’t post something yesterday. Scandal!

Well, as I said, my friend and collaborator Rick Gagnon was away in New York, hobnobbing with the Hoi Polloi. Meanwhile I was toiling here in my dungeon in South Central Montreal. But I finished up a sketch above that we started last week (mostly mine, but there are Gagnon-like traces in the face and hair). So, today is in effect Gagnon Friday-by-proxy. That’s despite the fact that Gagnon isn’t here, and it’s not Friday.

I’m going to post more next week on the Montreal freelancers’ victory in the lawsuit vs the Gazette, Southam, CanWest, et al. So, look for that, all you six people who visit this site.

In the meantime, maybe you haven’t seen this, but here’s a link to “Gagnon Friday” posts on my previous blog site: http://mruttan.ca/mruttan.ca/blog/labels/Gagnon%20Friday.html

More faces, this time drawn with fellow artist and bon vivant Rick Gagnon, during our weekly soirée at the Cock N’ Bull bar. Above it’s my worst enemy, the phony film director guy who wants me to work for him for no money. He’s not at all like the real directors I know, who actually make films.

Rick had brought a book of War Comics with him, so business guy below got a prison camp background. Slave labour is good business sense!

This cool profile below I asked Rick to ink as quickly as he could. It turned out pretty good:

Two bar characters. The guy in front looked different when I drew him. Now he looks like Tom Hanks. But that’s the kind of thing that happens when you’ve got another hand interpreting your scribbles:

I love the impression of “Tony” the colourful busboy guy, in behind. Rick skipped his pen early on, making that stroke across Tony’s forehead. He wanted to make it into a sombrero, but I think that would have been tragic. Great blacks spotted in this pic as well. I’m still learned how to add the blacks.

Sadly, Rick will be in New York next week, slumming and having drinks with Dirty Danny Hellman, while I starve away back here in Montreal. So, no Gagnon Fridays next week. I’ll have to work my own drawings for a while.