Brain Power Studio sings for Sick Kids Hospital

YOU CAN HELP!

The Ottawa Comic Jam is co-sponsored by DragonHead Studio and Beth Stevenson's Newmarket-based Brain Power Studio. The latter has gathered to sing and cut snowflakes to make a video for the Holiday Season. Every click on the Frosty video will help generate the size of the donation Brain Power will be making to the Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto.

It only takes a few minutes to click, watch and share. Please distribute widely! Brain Power has been instrumental in helping to support the Jam over the years. It's awesome that we can give back to a great cause.

Thanks!

Suzanne.

October 30th jam TELEVISION

It was a pre-Hallowe'en gathering as we attempted to explore our Television theme, with fun results. We were fortunate to have some new people check out the jam because of the jam's swell write-up in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, which was fantastic!

Thanks to the Shanghai Restaurant and staff for always taking good care of us and helping to promote cooperative creativity in the Nation's Capital!

Special thanks to the artists and writers who joined us for the jam last month: Suzanne Marsden, Clayton Jacobs, James Rule, Liz Walsh, Scott MacLellan, Andrew Stutt, Gérard Bélec, Aya Fawzi, Emily Hann, Susan Shore, Tim Moerman, Sean MacIsaac and James Love-Vani.

Our last jam of the year is TONIGHT! Come out the Shanghai Restaurant, 651 Somerset St. W., Ottawa ON from 7pm - 9:30pm to participate in the Holiday themed drawing event and share some great company, tea, martinis and dumplings.

Cheers and tx to all,
Suzanne

September 26th 2012 BACKWARDS Jam

September 26th's Jam was a great event; lots of new folks, plenty of the old crew and Mark Brownlee from the Ottawa Citizen, as well as photographer Jean Levac! The article featuring the Ottawa Comic Jam can be found here. Thanks so much to Mark for his work getting the word out to the city about our gathering and helping to support cooperative art-making in the Nation's Capital!

Special thanks to Gérard Bélec and Liz Walsh for co-hosting the event and also to Amy VanTorre for her wonderful help during Nuit Blanche. I wish I could've attended ALL the amazing events in September and taken part in them, but until I master cloning, such was not to be.

Thank you to the Jammers who come out every month and make these events a success. Without you guys, we'd have a few scribbles on some napkins (maybe!) Thanks as well to the great staff at the Shanghai Restaurant who continue to support the Comic Jam and give us a lovely HQ from which to inflict our brand of creative humour on the world. You guys are ze best!

Enough blabbing. On to the Jam!
We were fortunate to have to following artists and writers participate in town last month: Liz Walsh, James Rule, Andrew Stutt, Amy VanTorre, Scott MacLellan, Gérard Bélec, Nick Latreille, Jesse Ward, Kaartik Agarwal, Trajena Healey, Tim Moerman and Marisol Eggleton. From the far reaches of Miramichi, NB, Clayton Jacobs, Suzanne Marsden and our youngest participant, Briar Anderson also provided artwork for the 'Backwards' Jam.

Remember the following artwork can be read either forward or backwards. The art itself was started from Panel 6 and artists had to figure out a fun way to tell the story of how the characters ended up there.

Cheers!
Suzanne.

Upcoming Ottawa Comic Jam event

It just seems like yesterday that the Backwards Jam occurred! Wait--well, it wasn't yesterday, but it was September 26th--not all that long ago! Unfortunately, I was out of town for the very anticipated jam, but was lucky to have two extremely capable Jammers take over for me! Gérard Bélec and Liz Walsh, Ottawa School of Art teacher and gifted web comic artist respectively. Thanks guys!

Apparently it was a great turnout, which included a contingent from the University of Ottawa Pride Centre. How cool is that? Also there was great interest from the Ottawa Citizen, who sent a reporter to check out the sweet art and story-telling that happened. As soon as Liz gets the art to me (ie: as soon as I get into town to pick it up!) I will scan and post what I can only imagine are some great stories.

I wasn't idle though! After catching the very cool and celebrated wedding in Covehead PEI of two of my favourite people (and guest Ottawa Comic Jammers to boot) Troy Little and Brenda Hickey, I returned to Miramichi NB. There, I shanghaied one of our youngest Jammers, Briar Anderson to join Clayton Jacobs and myself in a Backwards Jam of our own. It was a great time and so creative and silly! I will be posting the 'Miramichi NB Comic Jam' artwork alongside the Ottawa Comic Jam work so we can all share in the fun.

I would like to point out that our next comic jam will not be the last Wednesday of the month, which in October lands squarely on Hallowe'en. People wanted to give out candy, dress up, toilet paper their neighbours' places and all sorts of shenanigans. Even comic jamming can't get in the way of that! So, our next jam will happen Tuesday October 30th at the Shanghai, one day earlier than usual. Mark your calendars! Our theme is... Television! I think Amy suggested that. I can't remember exactly (I blame the wonderful, rare and delightful PumpHouse Blueberry Ale I've been quaffing lately).

So, hope to see everyone out for the jam; bring your creativity, pens, inks, paint, what-have-you. I'll supply our sacred 110 lbs. card stock. Who knows, maybe I will bring those horrendous hard-toffees from our youth (well, my youth anyway) to pop out your fillings and get us wired on sugar.

All of my best,
and keep drawing, drawing, drawing...
Suzanne.

PS!
October 20th 2012 is this year's 24 Hour Comics Day challenge!
Check out the site to see if there are any locales that are interested in hosting this. Sometimes comic shops do it, which is so cool. I have had the pleasure of hosting 24 Hour Comics Day parties at my place at DragonHead Studio (Kanata) for several years.

Unfortunately, due to kitchen renovations, which have dragged on since August, I'm not going to be able to host this year. Don't let that prevent you from trying this phenomenal creative marathon! I highly recommend giving it 'a go', especially if you haven't tried it before.

I will probably be participating on my own, unless we find a good place that is into doing it and would be into hosting for the Ottawa Comic Jam Group specifically n__n

August 29th Comic Jam, Going Ape

The August Ottawa Comic Jam had a great bunch of folks out at the Shanghai, this time enjoying the theme of 'Going Ape'! Everyone had a blast drawing monkeys, King Kong, apes, simians and of course gorillas in tutus. It was one of those evenings...

Thanks to Don at the Shanghai for making sure we were well taken care of and extending our 'Comic Jam' table until we hit the back wall. If people wanted to escape, we had to Tetris them out of there, which was a laugh n__n.

Also, thanks to everyone who took the time to attend the jam and share their creativity and humour:  comic and animation artists, writers, animation teachers, students and enthusiasts. There is nothing more fun than collaborative art-making, in my opinion, and every time the Ottawa Comic Jam group gets together it just reminds me of that even more.

Thanks to: Clayton Jacobs, David Pike, J.F.C., Liz Walsh, James Rule, Andrew Stutt, Scott McClellan, Susan Shore, Peter Adamakos, Dwight Williams, Amy VanTorre, Gérard Bélec, Marisol Eggleton, Tim Moerman and Westin Church!

Remember that THIS WEEKEND is the Nuit Blanche with the 'Nuit de le Jam' or Jam night at the Ottawa School of art with Gérard Bélec and Amy VanTorre, hosting from 7pm - 7am! Also, this weekend is Can-Con in Kanata. Get out and get your art and nerdly enjoyment cooking!

Cheers,
Suzanne.

Hope you enjoy the offerings...