Quick Update - Tory Little's New Site, Paradise Con and the return of Onomatopoeia!

I covered Canadian comic creator and animator Tory Little (Angora Napkin, Chiaroscuro) in a recent post. His long-promised new website and blog are up and running at last.

Go to MeanwhileStudios.com for new updates and Troy's blog, CaffeineAndSleepDeprivation V2.0 for personal updates, comics and behind the scenes artwork. It's just been put up but Little promises more posts soon.

Sequential, the essential Canadian Comix News and Culture blog run by Max Douglas (Salgood Sam) and Bryan Munn, has announced the return of self-proclaimed Comic Book Activist Robin Fisher's Onomatopoeia Show after a three year break and her move from Vancouver to Montreal. Years ago on one of my first visits to Vancouver, Fisher was the first comic person I met when I found out a comic shop was blocks from my hotel. She was engaging, helpful and absolutely a perfect ambassador for comics. I became a fan of the show. Glad to hear it's back on the airwaves.

It's every Sunday (today!) from 3 to 4 pm on 1690 AM in Montreal. But the rest of us can hear it at www.cjlo.com. The Onomatopoeia Show has us digitally surrounded with its home website located at Cartoongal.com, and a Twitter page is here. Fisher also has previous episodes up on Podcast Alley and a Facebook page for the show. Fisher isn't kidding when she says she's back.

This year's Paradise Comic Con has been cancelled due to difficulty arranging a suitable date and locale. Paradise goes out of way to make an artist and fan-friendly event despite the many financial, competitive and venue challanges they have faced over the years. I hope Peter Dixon and the rest of the guys are able to work it out for 2010. They were the first people to allow to become involved with a Con on a pro level and have always been true gentlemen to me.

Beavers Up!

Troy Little: Comics Renaissance Man follows up Chiaroscuro with Angora Napkin

There's a terrific interview with P.E.I. comic artist Troy Little running at Comic Book Resources here.

Way back in 2001, Ottawa animator Tory Little won a Xeric grant to help self-publish his absorbing, black and white, indie comic Chiaroscuro (Not to be confused with Chiaroscuro: The Private Lives of Leonardo da Vinci). I bought his early issues at a Comic Con but after seven issues I lost track of it. It turns out that was all he published. IDW solved that little dilemma when they published a hardcover Chiaroscuro collection a year and a half ago.

Little's expressive, cartoony figure work combined with delicate crosshatching and deep, black shadows created an intensity that helped sustain his slowly evolving narrative. Much was made of how his storytelling resembled that of Dave Sim so it's rather ironic that a positive review of his work by Sim on his personal blog brought Little to the attention of IDW.

Little has spent many years in the salt mines of animation that I know so well and his latest comic, Angora Napkin, also from IDW, is based on an animation idea by Little and friend Nick Cross.

I often find artists with extended experience in animation demonstrate a notable ability to adapt their style for different projects. It's probably all that training hitting the varying styles of different series. Little's advice to up and comers can be summed up as stick to the basics; design and professionalism take concentration, flow and drawing ability grow with time.

Angora Napkin benefits from Little's elegant design sense. It takes a lot of thought to make something feel this effortless. With it's partial colour interior and lovely cover, it's a gorgeous, fun package. Whereas Chiaroscuro needed lots of heavy inks and mystery to suggest what was hidden within its panel borders, here we find an organic freedom to the art. The characters are bursting with life.

I can't wait to see the actual animated shorts this is based on. But right now I'm glad we're getting a sneek peek!

There's plenty of Troy Little info out there.

You can get up to date info at Troy's blog here.

His website, Meanwhile Studios, can be found here.

And Nick Cross' blog is right here.

Beavers up!