Phil McAndrew Illustrations & Comics

Picture stolen from Britt Wilson!

Canzine was awesome this year! Thanks to everyone that came and said hello, traded comics, or bought comics. It was really cool to meet/see you all. I sold more mini comics than I expected to. I do still have some leftovers and will update my store accordingly sometime this week. I have loads of the new shirts left too, I hope some of you will buy them! I can’t wear all these shirts myself.

As much as I enjoyed Canzine, the real highlight of the trip (a highlight of the year, really) was just getting to spend a ton of time hanging out with my two hosts, Britt Wilson and Vicki Nerino. They are easily two of the best Canadians in Canada and two of the best illustrators/cartoonists I know. I’ve been extra bummed out the last two days just because I’m not still in Toronto having fun with them. I took lots of pictures on my phone but I can’t find the little card I use to get them off the phone. It’s okay though! Britt posted loads of her pictures here, along with all of the extremely gross drawings we did while lazing around their apartment (they’re seriously really really gross, please don’t look at them). We had some wild and crazy party times on Halloween. I visited The Beguiling for the first time ever but totally chickened out of giving them any of my own mini comics. I got to do a lot of walking around Toronto. Britt and Vicki fed me so well all weekend, I actually wondered at one point if they were just trying to fatten me up so that I could be cooked and devoured, maybe with some sort of maple sauce. Did you know they have MAPLE BACON in Canada? They do! I had no idea! Anyways, I’m feeling anxious and desperate for an excuse to go back up to Toronto. Here’s a picture I drew of Vicki and Britt while we were laying around their living room on Monday…

I’d previously put a call out for a couch or floor to sleep on in Montreal for Expozine. Thanks so much to the handful of people that offered me a place to sleep! I’m really super grateful. Unfortunately, at this point I’m pretty certain I’m going to wuss out on Expozine. I’d really like to visit Montreal and see more of my Canadian comics pals, but my bank account is in sad shape right now and I can’t seem to find an easy or affordable way to get myself up to Montreal. I’d also probably have to print up some more mini comics and I really don’t want to do that again right now. Which brings me to my next thing!

I’m planning on taking a break from mini comics for a little while. I’m going to have a big sale soon, hopefully selling off what I’ve got left from Canzine, but once those are gone I’m not going to reprint anything for a while or put out any new minis. I’ve been gradually doing more and more conventions every year it seems and it’s getting to the point where I feel I need to have something more substantial than mini comics to sell. So I’m going to put some serious time and effort into making that happen. Long time readers might know that I’ve been writing and sketching and (very) slowly preparing to draw what I hope will be a big fat book for… over two years now. Don’t worry, I’m not going to drop off the face of the earth. At this point the plan is to share it all online as I work on it. I’ve talked about hunkering down and drawing this book a million times over the past two years, but I’m glad I’ve waited. Even after I thought I’d finished scripting the story out, it’s continued to grow and flesh out a lot in my mind and in my sketchbooks, especially over the last few months. I feel like I’m in a good place personally right now to finally sit down and draw this thing. I bought myself a new sketchbook in a little art supply store that we wandered into in Chinatown in Toronto. I think it’ll be just right for thumbnailing this thing out.