Towers of steel and glass are decimating Toronto’s neighbourhoods, replacing communities with condos. Can socially motivated revenge save the city from condo hell? We’ll see. Condo Heartbreak Disco, Eric’s new graphic novel, due to be published on May 16, 2017, explores the damage wrought by unchecked capitalism in a psychedelic romp through the near-future landscape of urban Toronto.
Published by Fantagraphics, Amadeo & Maladeo: A Musical Duet is a rags and riches tale of two Mozart-esque half brothers who face the trials and tribulations of fame as their different life stories intertwine and finally come full circle.
Deshi Deng was commissioned by Sandbox Advertising to create art for the agency’s client Nikon, for their social media campaign, ‘The Shot That Got Away.’ Deshi illustrated an animated video narrative by photographer Tony Beck titled ‘The Blue Whale.’
Steve Dunk is printing four letterpress images for James Turner’s submission to the exhibition:
Hyakki Yagyo: Night Parade of 100 Demons at Northern Contemporary Gallery opening October 20th, 2016 at 7pm. Also in the show are Reactor artists Clayton Hanmer and Deshi Deng.
Located at 1266 Queen St. West, the show runs until October 31, 2016
Hyakki Yagyo: Night Parade of 100 Demons
Northern Contemporary will exhibit Hyakki Yagyo: Night Parade of 100 Demons, opening October 20th, 2016 at 7pm and running until October 31, 2016.
Our illustrator Deshi Deng was recently commissioned by Vice to illustrate Ranbir Singh Sidhu’s article depicting the Jihadist war on bloggers in Bangladesh.
The Museum Of The Street: 50 Years of Toronto Illustration
Show Dates: January 12 to February 5, 2016
Opening reception: from 6:00 to 8:00 PM on Thursday, January 14, 2016
The exhibition will be open to the public, Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
The Museum Of The Street will be a exhibition of the 50 years of illustration featuring the work of 38 Toronto illustrators who began their careers in the years between the 1960’s and the mid 1980’s.
Here’s the list of artists in the show…
Jamie Bennett Huntley Brown Tak Bui David Chestnutt Julius Ciss Mike Constable Sylvie Daigneault Ken Dallison Will Davis Sandra Dionisi Blair Drawson Bob Fortier Gail Geltner James Hill Roger Hill Jeff Jackson Barbara Klunder Jerzy Kolacz Anita Kunz Ted Larson Ross MacDonald Doug Martin Tom McNeely Joe Morse Simon Ng Tomio Nitto Dennis Noble Doug Panton Maureen Paxton Joe Salina Gerry Sevier Peter Swan James Sweetland Mark Thurman Maurice Vellekoop Richard Whyte Muriel Wood Rene Zamic
(Painting by James Hill for the Canadian Opera Company’s 1979/1980 season poster)
These are a couple of old SX-70 Polaroids of the original Reactor second floor studio at 51 Camden Street. These were taken in 1983. That’s Jeff Jackson in the fourth picture.
51 Camden Street – home of Reactor Art + Design from 1982 to 2014. And for 19 years before that, home to Camden Cooper Garments, my dad Nathan’s schmatta business in the old garment district. Nathan and his partner Sam Warner bought the building in April 1963 for $53,500.
Throughout my teenage years, I spent summers and weekends working for my dad, hauling rolls of textiles up to the third floor, and helping to lay down hundreds of layers of cloth on the long cutting table, to be cut into the pattern pieces for the stretchy slacks and ski jackets that were the mainstay of the business.
In 1982, upon my dad’s retirement, I took over the second floor space where Bill Grigsby and I started Reactor Art + Design. I was Reactor’s creative director for 13 years until 1995 when I decided to pursue life as a freelance designer/art director/illustrator. Through up-sizing and down-sizing, Reactor was a tenant in the building for over 32 years until it was sold in 2014.
Originally released in 1953, R.O. Blechman’s picture book, The Juggler of Our Lady will be reprinted by Dover Graphic Novels this summer with an introduction by Maurice Sendak. The Juggler of Our Lady is one of the great examples of the graphic novel form. In the book, Blechman gives us a satirical, visual retelling of a classic medieval Christmas tale of the same name. The story is simple: An innocent juggler named Cantalbert sets out to save the world with his talent but is scorned and ignored by everyone he meets until an encounter with a statue of the Virgin Mary changes his life.
The first edition was published by Henry Holt in 1953.
