Doodles

I doodle all the time and always tell kids this is the best way to practise drawing. It's also where weird ideas happen with no pre-planning... so for some reason I drew Stephen Fry as a punk Jeeves and Hugh Laurie as a drug-addict (House?) Wooster.

Neil #2 has arrived!

Just got my box... wow.

Whodunit?

One of the great fundraisers for OCAD invited alumni (such as myself) and celebrities (maybe some day?) to donate works of anonymous art. Patrons pay 75 bucks and choose a piece they like and then find out whodunit. I've done 2 a year for about the past 5. I just finished this year's. The fronts have to remain secret, but here are the backs.

Splinters review #1!

Kirkus reviews has given Splinters a nice review! You need to subscribe to read the whole thing... but here's a sample.

"Sylvester's puckish (sorry) take on the Cinderella story is reflected in squiggly, exaggerated watercolor-and-ink pictures. Most of them float on the page as if on the ice, and this works wonderfully."

podcasts for Game Day

In an earlier post I mentioned that Annick had me in for a photoshoot and interview for Game Day (due out in the fall)

The podcasts are now up!

This one is a video!

The power of NPR

I was interviewed by the wonderful Liane Hansen on NPR's Weekend Edition this past Sunday. My book immediately jumped from 1,800,000 on amazon.com to the top 100!

This struck me as cool for a number of reasons. As a broadcaster (CBC Radio) it's interesting to see how much people connect with public radio. The book was immediately all over twitter, getting bought and sold on ebay... amazing. It helped that Liane liked the book as well.

It's also amazing as an author to realize that there are millions of titles out there every day that scream for attention. There's a huge amount of good luck and good timing that helps a book jump off the shelf. The book has stayed in the top 1000 for the week which is a good indication of steady sales and the people at Key Porter say series need a good stretch of time to take off. That was part of the rationale for getting #2 out there asap (look for it in September)

Now me and the Neil team have set our eyes on Rachael Ray. We think the book would be a good fit for her show. Stay tuned....

More good comments on Neil #1!

Another nice review!