A series of author photos #2: rob mclennan by Brown, whist + Fowler,

I’ve been digging further around my archive, and have continued to discover artwork of me produced by various artists from across Canada over the past decade or two. Idid a previous post on such here.

I don’t remember when or how exactly I met Tim Brown, proprietor of brown comix and at least two dozen issues of obliviositer, which later on became the graphic novel Pulpspotter. I suspect it was around 1998, when I was doing a tour that went through Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, given that I know I met the guy and his catalogue has him in Bradwell, Saskatchewan. Perhaps we even met up (also) at a Canzine in Toronto? I know I have a t-shirt of his I purchased, a couple of issues of various things, and a copy of Pulpspotter, as well as this drawing I used on the back cover of at least one chapbook down the line. The same image also graced a broadsheet poster that Tom Snyders and I printed at his home studio in Vancouver, in May 1999. Whatever happened to Tim Brown?

Here’s another incredible sketch of me by the enormously talented emily whist (Rob Nelms), who I wrote about in my previous post. I never actually used this one for anything. I’m not sure why.

He once showed me a scrapbook of a series of comic strips he drew about the life of a cup of coffee which was absolute genius. I can honestly say that this guy had far more talent than he knew what to do with. He didn’t lack ambition, but no one was entirely sure where that ambition was directed, exactly.

Ottawa artist Tom Fowler [who did our “engagement photo” last year] has produced more than a few images of me over the years, including a wrap-around cover for my poetry collection bagne,or Criteria for Heaven (Broken Jaw Press, 2000), as well as a series of images used for posters to promote the semi-annual ottawa small press book fair. Usually Fowler would come visit me at the donut shop for a coffee, and sketch me as we were talking, to either leave me with the finished image, or bring a copy of such later on for me to put on a poster. This is the image he drew for the spring 2002 edition of the fair.

His blog will give you the best sense of what he’s been working on lately, but some of his other work includes an issue of Batman (in which he included a character wearing a t-shirt with the Broken Jaw Press logo), the Jango Fett one-shot for Dark Horse Comics, and some stellar work on Green Arrow and Venom. You should also check out his Mysterius.