A GOOD STEP...

Well Friday night is Swing dance night with the Ottawa Swing Dance Society. My brother has been involved for many years with this group. For once I will be going. I am scare sh***less, but I think I not only have to go, but it would be a good step to meeting some ladies. It’s a saddle I’ve put off riding for too long, but I’m sure the rewards will be worth the anxiety.

I’ll let you know how it goes. Nothing like an entire day and a half to wait and stress over it.

GREEN CAMERAMAN...

I hope you all took my advice and went out to see Bon Cop, Bad Cop. I don’t know how long it’s going to be in the theatres. They never advertise Canadian films as well as the American ones, so I doubt most people know it’s out there. Or they look at the poster and assume it’s going to be crap, which it isn’t.

I had some fun on the weekend, where I helped someone film a documentary covering the selection of the new federal Green Party candidate. I’ve never been to a political rally before, and I was right in there with the CBC, CTV, and CPAC. Wearing my trusty press card I moved through the crowd and shot what I could. You may have seen me on TV. Apparently I popped up on the CBC and CTV footage here and there. My arm sure got a good workout, having to carry around a Sony PD-150 from 9 am to around 6. It’s amazing how heavy a light camera can get when you hold it up for hours at a time.

Now, having spent the day seeing the behavior of the Green Party I have some interesting insights that you might want to consider come election time. They aren’t the wishy washy granola crunching Greens that many believe they are. They aren’t the European style Greens in any way. There seems to be two groups that comprise the Green Party, and the most dominant seems to be the Eco Capitalists. The serious eco-leftists seem to have been pushed aside. Yes I’m sad to say that the Green Party is actually right wing when it comes to economics. They have a lot of support from people in agribusiness, you know people that make money off the environment and want to ensure that there is a sustainable environment for them to continue making money off of. The problem is, is that they are still essentially capitalists. They don’t like a strong government that is going to tell them how to run things through legislation. They don’t want rules per say, but they think they are going to save the world through tax incentives. Though tax incentives can be useful, nothing serious is going to get done about the environment without legislation. Things generally don’t get done unless something dramatic happens that galvanizes public support, or the government passes legislation. Remember seat belts, air bags, product safety standards? Nah, we should do away with all that and let the corporate sector police itself! Throw a few tax incentive bones to guide them in the right way. Pah! So if you want to protect the environment, you might want to reconsider the Green Party of Canada. Do a little research and you will be surprised by how many Green Party people are ex-Conservatives! Hell, the new leader they just elected is a former Brian Mulroney Tory! I have a hard time believing that so many people can change their beliefs so drastically. The Greens sure ain’t Leftists.

Well on a completely unrelated matter, I hit a milestone this week. I passed the 100 pages mark in my book. It’s been going fast and fierce which is good. I’m really proving that having a well laid outline helps. I feel like it’s already been written in my head, so I just sit down and type to get it out of my head. I need the space for all the rocks. I still don’t know how long the first book is going to be, but I figure it might be around 400 to 500 pages. I crossed the 100 pages point and it’s still generally around the beginning of the story where the plot really gets moving. It’s a lot of fun, and I’ve let a few people take a look at what I have so far, which has been favourable. I’m kind of excited because I didn’t realize that I might be writing a fantasy book that people who don’t read fantasy might enjoy. It’s going to be a busy week, so I don’t know how much time I will have to write, but I want to have at least another 30 pages written this week. Maybe more If I get the time.

Bon Cop, Bad Cop, Good Movie!

I saw this film Bon Cop, Bad Cop on Saturday. I remember seeing the trailer last month and was excited by the idea of seeing a Canadian movie that didn’t have something to do with wheat fields, tragedy and necrophilia. There seems to be this conspiracy to ensure films that could only interest a small demographic get made in Canada. When you think of all the extremely successful Canadian talent that has gone across the border, you wonder what Canadian film would look like if they had stayed and took the hard road of building something here.

Well Bon Cop, Bad Cop is that answer. I haven’t laughed this hard watching a movie in quite some time. Bon Cop, Bad Cop is living proof that Canadian movies don’t suck. It’s a buddy cop movie that reinvents itself by satirizing everything Canadian. A lot of Canadian movies tend to scream at you “hey we’re Canadian!” and end up losing sight of the fact that it’s more important that the movie be good. This film never forgets to be good.

People in English Canada have fallen into apathy in regards to film. Make no mistake. 99% of what you seen are FOREIGN films. Everything you see is not us, it’s either American or the rest of the world. See your own country for a change and I think you will be surprised that you will enjoy it.

Bon Cop, Bad Cop is easily the best-written movie I have seen this year, and anyone who knows me, knows that I am one of the pickiest filmgoers out there. So I recommend that you take as many people as you can to see this movie. See it before Hollywood tries to take it out of the theatres!



Captain Canuck says "your country needs you." So go see a Canadian film today! This time they rolled out a good one for us!

Two Days of Wood..

Well I have been MIA from my blog for a while so I thought I’d let you all in on what I’ve been up to.
The cycling has taken a back seat. Wasn’t as much fun cycling on my own, since my brother had to go off to Montreal to train people to be WWI soldiers for a film. Very cool stuff. I got to take care of his cat, and I was lucky she didn’t jump all over the shelves knocking stuff down. Her nickname is Monkey for a reason.
Since I finished my book outlines, I started writing. It has been fast and furious, and I am now on page 79. I think the book is going to be a long one, because the story is just getting started. I better be able to find a publisher. That of course will be the really hard part.


The past week I spent at a friend’s cottage. They are perhaps the most generous people I have ever met.



I like camping so, weather permitting; I always bring my own accommodation as you can see above. There is this little patch of clear flat ground on the otherwise bumpy landscape that fits my tent nicely.



The cottage is lived in all year round, and heated with wood stoves. So I make a habit of helping to chop wood to be stored for winter. This weekend turned into a major blitz though. We started chopping, hauling, chain sawing at about 9:30 or 10:00 on Saturday and didn’t stop until it was time for dinner. Imagine lifting weights for 8 hours straight and you get the idea. Then on Sunday we started the day with lifting all the bits of wood we chopped up and moved them to the shed where they are stored. We did this until about 4. So we had two days of heavy lifting in a row.



My soft city skin got pretty scratched up, but you have to expect that.
So I’m back in the city, and last night I was writing under candlelight on my deck, and for the first time since I have been downtown (almost 4 years), I heard the squawking and screaming of raccoons! On top of that I started to get eaten alive by mosquitoes! I have never seen mosquitoes downtown! I had to deal with both critters while at the cottage on an almost daily basis. Did I perhaps bring them back with me?!
Well that’s it for now. Not much more to report. Back to the boring city. I’m hoping to make it back to the cottage again in September to help out with the wood chopping. I do take a great deal of satisfaction in that every time I show up, we chop as much wood as they get around to in a month (they have like, 14 jobs, and two kids, makes it difficult to waltz off into the woods to chainsaw). I plan to document the whole thing next time, and set up a time-lapse camera in the shed to show just how much wood gets moved. It might be funny, as we get more tired throughout the day, we might slow down so much that even in the time-lapse photography we end up looking like we are at normal speed!

The Longest Ride...

Well I went out biking again with my brother, and he ended up taking me for a ride that was longer than planned, again. I'm not complaining, but I sure was tired afterwards. I better start to see some results soon, or I will be pissed off. If I can cycle this far I want to look it.



And here is the overall trip distance...



And this is how long I was sitting on that tiny little racing seat...

How To Walk Like A Penguin

I went cycling today with my brother and we ended up taking a much longer ride than originally planned. I went along the Ottawa River bike path to meet him half way (we live at opposite ends of the city). Well I got all the way to Lincoln Heights before I ran into him, then I turned around and went back to downtown, past Sussex, and onto the Rockcliffe Parkway. When we got to the end of the Rockcliffe Parkway we turned around and came back.

It was a long trip, at 60.29 km. It was funny because when I got back to my place, the odometer was at 58.4 Km, so I rode around the block a couple of times so that I could get the full 60 Km.



The ride took just over 2 and a half hours.



And my average speed was 23.08 km.



With a max speed of 41.81.



In all not a bad ride. I haven’t done much cycling this year yet, so I’m really feeling it this time. At least I got my funny cycling tan, and now I'll walk like a penguin for a few hours.

IT'S A MADHOUSE!!!!

Well it was fun while it lasted. Sometime last night God came by and stomped on my deck canopy. The old one lasted for years at this place, and I had to replace it for sun damage. This was to be the new one. Not sure why this one lasted months, while the old one lasted years, and could have kept going...

This is a day that will be long remembered....

I will just keep in mind the last time it was used. I had a good friend Peter and my brothers over for dinner. Peter had given me one of those metal frames for making a beer chicken. It was really good. Here is what the beer looked like after it came out of the cooked chicken.



That thing coming out of the can is a sprig of rosemary. It added a lot of flavour.

Damn weather...

Brawn and Beauty...

Here are more of my latest characters that I have drawn.

It's funny that every comic book universe makes a Hercules character, but that would make it the Roman version. No one has ever, to my knowledge made the Greek original of Heracles. So here he is.




It's been a really long time since I drew a really big Hulk sized character. I used to draw them all the time, so I figured it was due.




This character I still haven't quite figured out yet, other than she can control and shape the shadow webbing she is covered in to grab stuff, and swing. Whatever I come up with, it will be fun.




Here is my latest. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. He's a very cantankerous old martial artist as is evident.

DARK WATCH

I'm back with more news. Here is the reason for my absence from updating my blogg. I have just finished the first draft of my outline for a book series that I am planning to write. I can't say anything about it yet, other than the title: DARK WATCH. There are three books to the series and they are all interconnected so I had to get the outlines done for all three before I can think of writing. Last night I celebrated the completion of my first step to writing these books. I still have a lot of work to do, but at least my ideas are down now. Now comes the really important part where I make sense of it all, and bring everything into focus.
I hate to taunt you, but here is the outlines I printed off. This is as close as you are going to get, until I can get these things published. That's going to be a whole different kind of work.

I'm back with more heroes. This guy is something I have come up with in the past week. He is some kind of Earth God that is there to protect the earth. Please ignore any connotations of Captain Planet, because they do not apply in this case.

Free At Last...

Well I've been gone a long time. The forces of darkness kept me away, so I'm finally getting around to updating this blogg for the first time in a long while. I will have more stuff to talk about this week, but in the meantime, here are a few pictures I've been working on. Hope you like them.

This guy is obviously called Codename: Thunder. No one knows if that is his real name or not, it's just what was written on some dog tags he had on him. He can't help clarify things any more becasue he has amnesia. Those head cases can be so much fun.




Okay, the next guy is a picture that I did a while back but realized that I had not put this one up yet. He unfortunately came out looking more like Wolverine than I intended, in fact I never had Wolverine in mind at all, but what can you do, except redraw it. He is a Samurai that gets special powers from a potion that he takes, but it has also terminally addicted him to the stuff. It also extends his life, so he is almost 200 years old. Sucks to be him.




This lady can spontaniously explode, without hurting herself that is. She can also throw energy grenades. Must be fun at parties.

Summertime!

Hey there all. Sorry it's been so long since I had a recent posting on my blogg. I was working on the animated opening titles of a Scottish cooking show called "The Woman Who Ate Scotland." This show ended up being more work than planned, so I had little time, and then when that was sone, I had to figure out what to post. I haven't drawn any new super heroes in a while. So here is the latest.

Yesterday I enlisted the help of my kind brother to meet me at Canadian Tire and pick up a foldable table and deck chairs, along with a new deck cover in exchange for a free meal. He helped me put this thing together and we were able to eat outside. I just love the new deck and I just know we are going to have some fun times this summer out on it.











My brother is an awesome guy. Kind, caring, and considerate of others, he's always there when you need him, no hesitation. That's a rare thing. All hail Colin.

Now let the summer festivities begin!

BARBECUE!!!!!

After all that warm weather we had the past week allowed me to clear off my deck and set up the barbecue. Yep yesterday I had the first barbecue of the year. I baked a whole chicken, and although it was not rubber like this....



.....But it did have that warm, brown colour. So in light of yeaterday's event, I thought I'd impart a little culinary expertise. I am no chef, but I do consider myself a good cook. With this place being the Savageland, what better place to learn how to cook meat...

Fist off if you plan to bake or barbecue a chicken, this is one of the easiest, cheapest, and quickest things you can cook. Some of you may be thinking "fast! easy?!" Well allow me to explain. If you shop for groceries planning the next few days meals like I do, grabbing a small whole chicken is great. They are usually very cheap compared to the boneless breast meat, so you are getting a big bang for the buck. So when you get this home, plan to bake the chicken the next day. After you've put away your groceries, put the chicken in one of those monster zip lock bags, along with whatever marinade you want, and this can be as simple as a little salt, sugar, and pepper (I also recommend that whatever you put in also add a tablespoon or two of vegetable oil. This acts like the butter you normally use to baste a chicken and turns the thing a nice brown colour). Throwing all this in a bag takes no time at all, it's practical for even the most time stretched worker. One suggestion, if you use the double lined zip lock bags, they will be harder to clean and reuse. Plastic lasts a 1000 years, re-use it.

Now all you have to do is throw the bag (put the bag in a bowl just in case the bag leaks) in the fridge and forget about it. Next day when you get home from work just turn on the oven on to 350, and when it gets hot chuck that chicken in for an hour or an hour and a half, depending on how big the chicken is. It does take a long time to cook, but the great thing about baking is that you can do something else while it is cooking. So the actual work required is very minimal. It just depends on whether you have an hour to kill before dinner is ready.

If you can barbecue the chicken, you get the best results by cooking it with indirect heat. This means you put the coals on one side, or only turn on one side of the gas grill, and put the chicken on the other. With the barbecue lid closed, the heat will cook the chicken, and it will not burn because it's not sitting on the fire.

For best results, make sure that when you take out the chicken, cover it with aluminum foil and let it rest for about 15 minutes. You see whenever you cook meat and remove it, there is still enough heat permeating the meat to cook it, and it will keep cooking for some time. So if you immediately start cutting into it, the juices and all that flavour will leak out. It's much better to let it sit, and cool down so that all those juices cool down. When you cut it, the flavour will be retained in the meat because the juices are no longer liquified. This is why you don't want to cook meat until it is completely cooked, you want it to be just a little bit rare, because it will finish cooking during the resting process, and you will end up keeping some of that flavour without draining it away by overcooking it.

Here is the marinade that I used. It's basically the recipe for those chinese barbecue chickens you see hanging in store windows. It's very easy.

2 tablespoons of soy sauce, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and 1 tablespoon of canola oil (if you are cooking a small chicken, only use half this amount of marinate), 1 or 2 chopped garlic cloves, 1 teaspoon of chopped ginger, some pepper.

Enjoy the feast...

Bring On The Ladies....

Well my last post was a couple of beasts, so I thought I'd post some beauty. Some of them are a little raunchy, so turn away if you are faint of heart... or a kid.


This character was drawn a couple of years ago, but I still like it.


Played the video game God of War and had to make up a character with those cool blades.



Boy, could Russia use a Commie super soldier right now. I always love the campy stuff...



Again, this is an old drawing, but still one of my favourites. As you can see, she can telelport. A useful tool come tax season...




This is one of my latest. Who doesn't like the idea of a sexy Genie. You know because the lamp is so useful when it is dark out.




Well this is one of the raunchiest. Dabbled in a little photo reference for this one. I thought it turned out well.

TIME TO GO APE!!!!

I have always been a big fan of movies like King Kong and Planet of the Apes, though they both degenerated into some pretty awful sequels (with the exception of Mighty Joe Young <1949>, and Escape From The Planet Of The Apes <1971>). It is worth looking at the original films because they still stand up, especially Planet of the Apes. Great film. Having said that, I would naturally I would have drawn some ape characters over the years.

Here they are.

This dude is something I did a couple years back. It's not supposed to be Planet of the Apes, but I am honest about the influence.




And this guy is my 16 foot tall ape hero. He again isn't supposed to be Kong, but hey let's face it. Every ape movie since 1933 IS a version of King Kong...

Super Hero Pictures

Hi there. I'm an Ottawa based artist that primarily works in Animation, though I have dabbled in directing, producing and writing as an independant filmaker. My last name is Savage, so this Blog name is accurate. I just have to work on getting that doctorate so that I really can be called Doc Savage!

Been doing a lot of drawing this past week. I haven't used a brush to ink my drawings for a while, and I forgot how much better it is to use than the brush pens I have been using for the past year. Real brushes are a bit of a pain. They dry out, you keep having to dip for more ink, but the results are so much better than anything I have ever done with a marker.

Let me know what you think...


This guy is a were-lion dude. One of my favourite pics...



Had to come up with a two fisted Mountie hero. It's the patriot in me...



This is a new picture of an old idea. He can duplicate himself, so I always imagine this super fast nut flying around like a


I know this guy looks like Spider Man, but I don't really care. Sure he's athletic, shoots swing lines, and has the same eyes on the mask, but that's about the only similarity. Thunderbolt gets his name becasue he can run at supersonic speeds...




One of my latest and favourites. She's a kind of old school kind of super hero. I'm beginning to think she ought to have an emblem on her chest...


Well that's it for now, I'll have more up later...

Doc Savage.