Comic Drawing Experiments

Comics and graphic stories are endlessly fascinating to me. Periodically I’ll produce a body of work, generally for my own enjoyment and occasionally for others. As you’ll see below, I like to work both analogue (with pen and ink) and digitally (generally with Procreate on iPad).

Throughout 2026, I participated in a series of Friday Night Comics sessions through the Sequential Artists Workshop (S.A.W.), a comics-focussed school out of Florida, USA. Their Friday night comics sessions are free, facilitated by different comic artists/authors and Tom Hart, the founder of S.A.W. and author of Rosalie Lightning: a graphic memoir.

The weekly commitment is wonderful for remaining playful with the medium, and the different prompts are invaluable for keeping the creative juices flowing. One of the presenters was Jon Claytor, Canadian author and artist of Take the Long Way Home and Nowhere. His workshop was very enjoyable, pushing me to think about characterization in a new way. I did a silly little comic that evening, and followed his Instagram.

In February, he published a prompt to his Instagram page, a guide to creating an 8-page memoir. I gave it a go over the following months, finishing it in August (Click on the side arrows to advance through the pages):

January – May of 2023 – I participated in an introduction to Comics and Graphic Novels course (ENGL209) through Selkirk College. It helped add some scholarship to my thinking and expanded the way that I look at my own and others’ comics. I’ve included a couple of the comics produced during that time here, along with some one-pagers completed during 2023.

Cartoon image of Lisa looking worried, with a speech bubble containing squiggly lines and a question mark. Behind her are many cars and trucks in a haze. Bottom part of image is Bill Murray in silhouette on an orange background, the colour of Lisa's car.
Ferry – sometime in 2021
This is a comic that I started before drawing my homework assignment, then finished after! Every couple years I take a course - or two - and often end up with a stack of unfinished drawings as a result. This time was no different! The best part of this one is that there were actually many FINISHED drawings, too. This image is drawn with fountain pen on multi-purpose paper and best reflects what my process often looks like. There's a bit of underdrawing in non-phototransfer blue, then straight in with the ink on top. I use the blue to divide up the page and create the frame, but really most of the work is done in the flow of thinking/drawing. Larger works start messier, with many thumbnails, but as things come into focus for me thumbnails are not as necessary a step.
Unintended Consequences Draft
This is a quick re-draw of the previous comic in digital form. It's a common misconception, but the computer (or in this case, iPad) doesn't redraw the whole works for me - I literally sit and redraw the whole thing, line by line. You can see that I took the opportunity to shift and reorganize some elements, made a few pieces clearer, got rid of some of the spelling errors, etc. This comic style is closest to my graphic recording style, just slightly more elaborate.
Unintended Consequences final digital image
A little about myself during 2 months of 2021. I completed my Masters Degree, received a life affirming diagnosis, watched a dear friend and colleague retire, and got married. All against the backdrop of COVID 19 and the raging forest fires in the province. While my partner and I built our garden and our togetherness.
A little about myself during 2 months of 2021. I completed my Masters Degree, received a life affirming diagnosis, watched a dear friend and colleague retire, and got married. All against the backdrop of COVID 19 and the raging forest fires in the province. While my partner and I built our garden and our togetherness.
The original drawing for this was done in France in 2017 with Nomadways during Stories We Tell. We were asked to think of an anecdote from our lives and to create a short comic about it - I have a hunch that there is another inked version somewhere else, I just don't know where. It's a 4 panel page. The text reads: When we were young, my sister and I would chase and catch our old barn cat. We would dress her in doll clothes, tuck her tightly in the doll carriage, and push her around the yard. Neither one of us could understand why she would hide so high in the barn. Panel 1: close up of surprised and upset cat being grabbed by two people's hands. Panel 2: Angry cat face centred, with big floppy bonnet and bow. Blankets tucking the cat in are across the base of the image. Panel 3: Drawing of a side view of a doll carriage, with many eminata around the carriage. No features of the cat are showing, only a blanket tightly tucked in. Panel 4: Barn with a silhouette of a cat in the high window. Two silhouette figures of children are in the foreground, standing on the ground. The smaller one has pigtails, the larger one is shrugging.
Sasha the cat

In October of 2016 I participated in a comic book writing course through Kadenze, from the California College of Art and Design. It was an interesting exercise in the basics of comic book writing. Below are a few of my efforts from the coursework.

I’ve done other comic book work over the years; one of my favourite projects was done in 2015. It’s the story of finding a functioning shower at a music festival (one that I used to work at each summer). Doing this set of drawing was, for me, about creating mood, opening up space and time in the comic, and exploring the idea of autobiography in comic storytelling. These pages were drawn old-school style with pencils, then scratch/dip pen for the inking before scanning individually. Click on the side arrows on the image to advance through the slideshow.

  • My light table set up has been a bit idiosyncratic at times - pictured here as a piece of Plexiglas balanced between a chair and trunk, with a table lamp underneath as light source.
  • This shows the full drawing in rough (pencil) as well as the final inked version. Things are very, very messy before they start to look good.
  • This is the only incomplete image here - there is more to do with texture, adding water and soapsuds, but I thought you might enjoy seeing what the images look like as they progress through stages toward completion. There is an 11th page that I've not loaded, as well.