My #ArtVsArtist2023: It was a turbulent year on the employment front, so I wasn’t able to do as much drawing and comics as I would have liked, but things stabilized as the year went on and I ended up with some momentum, including appearing on my first podcast/interview to discuss my work (the photo of me is just before going live!). A special thanks to Planet Joey Patreon supporters as well!
See ya later 2023, bring on 2024! 🥂
— Dave
Art vs. Artist Is a hashtag challenge which started as a test to see if the artwork reflects the identity of its creator, as many assume. Artists began posting using the hashtag along with a selfie surrounded by eight of their selected art pieces. I look at it as a cool way to take stock of a year’s worth of art.
Planet Joey creator David Brown was a guest on Get in Toon! with Michael Grassia
Last night I was on Michael Grassia’s livestream/podcast Get in Toon! talking all things Planet Joey and more! I was thankful for the opportunity to come on the show, meet Michael — who is incredibly passionate about comics — and talk shop.
Planet Joey creator David Brown will be appearing on Michael Grassia’s GET IN TOON livestream podcast this Wednesday night (November 29, 2023) at 9pm Eastern to talk about Planet Joey! Why don’t you tune/toon in!
Below are links to the livestream on Facebook and YouTube and we will update this post later with a link to watch the archive recording.
There are many ways you can support Planet Joey. Whether you are simply sharing Planet Joey content or ‘liking’ it on social media or joining our community on Patreon, your support is appreciated and makes you an official and valued patron of the comic arts. As a collective, you are directly funding the comic strip, allowing for more time to be reserved to make comics.
I was honoured to be asked again to create a Bubble Fox guest strip for San Diego-based cartoonist Jon Esparza, who runs guest comics by selected artists every September while he takes a well-deserved break. This one is more of a Planet Joey comic with a guest appearance by Bubble Fox to be honest, but the important thing to remember is: always make sure you’re in the right state of mind before reading comics, kids!
It’s short and sweet, but the idea started with wanting to do the strip in black and white as an homage to how Bubble Fox appears online. From there, I had to incorporate helium somehow to turn someone or something into a balloon in the surreal world of Bubble Fox. And lattes aren’t on the beverage menu high above the ground…
This special comic is dedicated to Jennifer Cuthbert’s The Adventures of Lollipop, celebrating it’s 20th anniversary this month! Lollipop and her gang have visited almost every corner of the globe, so I took a moment to imagine Lollipop’s gang visiting Cold Springs… with Joey and Herb standing by to deliver the hard truth. Congratulations on twenty years of adventures, Lollipop – here’s to twenty more!
We’re pleased to announce that as of this morning, Planet Joey is now being published from the beginning on the popular app Webtoon Canvas™ among thousands of other diverse comics by independent creators from all over the world! You’re invited to visit us on the website or download the app and subscribe!
We’re pleased to announce that as of this morning, Planet Joey is now being published from the beginning on the brand new comic website WebcomicsFeed™ among thousands of other diverse comics by independent creators from all over the world! You’re invited to visit us on the website and subscribe!
Bullwinkle and the writing and art of Jay Ward and Al Kilgore was obviously a huge influence on the Planet Joey comic strip… In honour of #nationalrockyandbullwinkleday, here’s a collection of some of our swag: a nifty stationery set, oversized magnets, box set DVDs and comics new and old!
It’s that time of the year again – Halloween night, when The Great Pumpkin rises from the pumpkin patch on Halloween evening, and flies around bringing toys to sincere and believing children.
Consistent with how things seem to be in 2020, Halloween also occurs on the same night as a full moon, a blue moon and on the night we roll back the clocks an hour to standard time (where I live). Bring it on, I say!
What is your favourite thing about Charles Schulz’ animated fall classic? Is it Charlie Brown’s classic line “I got a rock?” Maybe it’s Snoopy’s showdown with the Red Baron and his journey through the French countryside? Is it Linus and Sally waiting in the pumpkin patch for The Great Pumpkin to arrive? Personally, mine is the touching moment where Linus’ big sister Lucy carries her shivering, sleeping brother from the disappointment and cold of the pumpkin patch, back to his warm bed. Honourable mention goes to the painted backgrounds in this animated production – check out those dark, autumn night time watercolour skies!
Happy Halloween, y’all! Have fun, be safe and here’s hoping you find what you’re looking for in your pumpkin patch!
Wishing a happy and safe Thanksgiving weekend to my fellow Canadians! Today is the official day but we sat down to our feast on Sunday as a family without seeing my parents, sister or nephews during these strange Covid-19 times… Unlike Snoopy, we won’t be making…. toast and popcorn?
Now that Planet Joey has gone live, you might be wondering when you can look forward to the next exciting instalment going forward. Here’s what we’re starting with in terms of a schedule:
New Planet Joey comic strips will be posted twice weekly on Monday and Thursday mornings. Every third Sunday morning (ie. every seventh strip), a larger format comic – in the vein of the weekend colour comics – will be posted.
New comic strips will also appear at the same time on the various social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Ko-fi and always one day earlier for Patreon subscribers.
To kick things off, we’re running a series of six ‘promotional’ strips featuring our heroes and villains already locked in conflict and afterwards, we’ll go back to the beginning and catch up to Joey and his family en route to Cold Springs, Manitoba.
Today – after almost two decades of sketching, designing, writing, drawing, re-drawing and dreaming about creating my very own comic strip – I’m thrilled and proud to announce that Planet Joey is being officially released out into the public domain.
As a child growing up in a small town in southwestern Ontario in the 1970s and 1980s, I couldn’t wait for Saturday mornings. I’d hop out of bed and fly down the stairs into our living room where my parents would be consuming their morning coffee/tea and reading the London Free Press. I would hurriedly dig through the remaining sections lying on the floor, searching for the colour comics and proceed to stain my fingers with newsprint ink diving into the classic strips like Peanuts, Shoe, BC, Broom Hilda, Calvin & Hobbes, Garfield, Hägar the Horrible, Robotman, Dennis the Menace, For Better or for Worse and yes, there was even a serialized Star Wars comic during some of those years! At the time, I was also influenced by comic books like Pink Panther and Bullwinkle and Rocky, not to mention my growing collection of Tintin books. As an artistic kid, I dreamed of one day creating a comic strip that might appear in a printed collection or a newspaper. It would take many years to see that dream come to fruition, but here we are – even if newsprint isn’t involved (yet).
Planet Joey started as an idea in my head sometime in the late 1990s while I was working as a graphic designer and also teaching at Sheridan College in the Art Fundamentals & Illustration programs. Some character designs and ideas for storylines and gags made it into sketchbooks and the basic comic strip emerged in 2003 shortly after my son was born. Since then, I’ve worked on it in fits and starts, filling sketchbooks with drawings and notes, but never having the sustained focus to see it through. Until now.
Charles Schulz said “The only way a comic strip distinguishes itself from all other media is to intrinsically combine words and pictures into a wholly new and elevated sum. Without the intertwining pictures, it’s just radio. Without the words, it’s just pantomime.” Schulz redefined the comic strip in the 1950s and 1960s. Many since have imitated it, some have emulated it. In a way, we’re all drawing Peanuts. Michael Jantze – creator of The Norm – said “The modern comic strip is like a poem: short, repetitive and, yeah, no one reads it.” He wasn’t wrong, but in some ways, comic strips have a certain new relevance in the year 2020. In a time when there is so much content out there for consumption and attention spans are short, a comic strip has the ability to connect – to tell a story, make you smile or just to make you stop and think – for a few seconds. My hope for Planet Joey is that it settles into its own comfort zone somewhere between the classic gag-a-day strips and a graphic novel. Something like… an ‘epic’ poem, perhaps?
What I’m getting at here is that being finally able to share this comic strip with you is a pretty special thing for me. I hope you enjoy the characters and the stories they have to tell. I hope you appreciate the art. I hope the comics put a smile on your face or at the very least, transport you away from your busy world, to Joey’s home of Cold Springs at least for a minute or two every day and back again.
