comics
Since my teens I've been interested in alternative comics and graphic novels. Going back to the late 80s,
I was influenced by Raw, Weirdo, Drawn and Quarterly, Julie Doucet, Love and Rockets, Robert Crumb, Seth, Chester Brown, Joe Matt, Lynda Barry, Fiona Smyth, among others. I made a comic with a friend and we printed it by photocopier. Then I started university in Visual Art. I found my profs were not sympathetic to comics, but I did contribute to a compilation at Concordia University in Montreal organized by another student.
In the late 90s I became a member of an artist-run gallery in Toronto called Propeller. My first show there was called True Love -- based on a photo romance that I created. (Comic in photo format). My friends kindly agreed to act out the dramas of love and betrayal. The stories were corny and a bit cliché but that was the point. I painted some portraits based on the comics.
I continue to be fascinated with the comics medium and its potential as a form of creative expression.