These go back to about 1999. It's hard for me to look at anything before that. There are doodles and illustrations and watercolor and marker drawings and miscellaneous sketches and junk.

New stuff lately tends to go on my flickr. Also, I don't draw these kinds of things so much anymore, since all my energy goes in to drawing these stupid long-form graphic novels I'm in the middle of.

2000 & earlier: In these days I was occasionally in university, mostly a dropout, and always a big nerd.

1. cyber team in toronto: this was probably done at an anime convention. I was briefly obsessed with an anime movie called Cyber Team In Akihabara, which i think was never translated to English.

2. clearest of blue skies: a self portrait with my "buddy" from the SNES game Tetris Attack.

3-5. carla, clearing (black and white), clearing (coloured by locke): old stuff from an RPG concept i was working on with a friend. the "clearing" one is some early brush ink work.

6-7. clawylde, leigh: old characters from fantasy comic ideas that have kind of disappeared into the ether. clawylde was kind of my hardened-badass archetype, and leigh was the, uh, spunky sidekick. yeah...

8. style cosplay: Lauren and Lisa from STYLE (and SCOTT PILGRIM) dressed up as final fantasy 8 characters. evidently i was playing final fantasy 8 at the time.

9-12. couscous (coloured by jennifer chan), first olive (original), first olive (revised), comeback (coloured by brian wood): miscellaneous stuff from when I was briefly working on Brian Wood's COUSCOUS EXPRESS (i got fired, or quit, or something, but it's all ancient history).

13-14. drake (older), drake (newer): another old fantasy character who in some ways is carried on by Ramona from SCOTT PILGRIM.

15. terra: fan-art of the main character from final fantasy 6, which i guess i was playing then also. the character designs from that game were so insane, every time i play it i want to draw them.

16. jigsaw: i had a band with my sister for like 2 seconds, and this was our promotional artwork.

17. kim (coloured by nied): old design of Kim Pine, who later became a SCOTT PILGRIM character.

18-19. harle, leah: Chrono Cross fan-art, probably done when the game was actually new.

20-25. self portrait october 1999, maldrox the multiple mal, self portrait june 2000, self portrait november 2000, mal sprite, disturbing mal dressup: various self-portraits of varying degrees of realism and just being totally whacked-out.

26. misa (coloured by jennifer chan): winged misa, who got her name changed to Lisa and is sort of a character in SCOTT PILGRIM now.

27. sock hat girl: random sharpie sketch that i liked.

28. style title: from the old STYLE webcomic.

29. style girls (coloured by locke): another incarnation of the STYLE girls.

30. sue sze: brian wood fanart.

2001: I spent half of this year in California, and the other half back home doing work for Udon and Oni Press, which eventually led to work on HOPELESS SAVAGES and pitching LOST AT SEA.

1. baby trouble: a cover for a mix CD that i made in california.

2. kids playing bomberman: featuring lisa and the unnused boy from STYLE, in a scene that i have recycled into SCOTT PILGRIM multiple times.

3-4. bus ride, i know what i'm doing: panels culled from VIVID, a comic i was briefly working on (many of its sentiments got ported over to LOST AT SEA).

4. cat hood: character sketch from LOCKED IN THE TRUNK OF A CAR.

5. jump star seventy: characters from a concept that never really got off the ground.

6-7. self portrait october 2001, self portrait while being eaten

8-9. road stop (black and white), road stop (colour by christopher butcher): this drawing was included with the LOST AT SEA pitch for Oni Press; Chris coloured it for fun, i think.

10-15. she's aware, ian and dave sketches, raleigh sketches, more better raleigh sketches, stephanie sketches, stephanie: early LOST AT SEA work (the pencil sketches were part of the pitch package).

16. x-men evolution: little-known fact: i worked on X-MEN EVOLUTION cd-comics for a Burger King promotion in summer 2001. they are probably very rare and not all that collectible. I think I still have the one i worked on lying around somewhere. it was Quicksilver.

2002: My first full year in Toronto, spent mostly working on HOPELESS SAVAGES and thinking about LOST AT SEA.

1. big breakfast: my one serious CG-coloured drawing from 2002. inspired by a photo i had taken earlier that year.

2-3. duffel raleigh, grey steph: miscellaneous LOST AT SEA sketches.

4-7. charlie & alex sketches 1, charlie & alex sketches 2, charlie & alex inked, their principal inked: i was bidding to do a comic for OWL magazine, but didn't get the job.

8. kim pine: the version from the Oni Press STYLE comics. marker drawing.

9. lost songs volume 1, lost songs volume 2: two mix CDs that i did for my siblings for christmas or something.

10. ragged robin: a quick sketch of the character from the Invisibles.

11-15. david weldon ian taylor, raleigh swanson, stephanie ferguson, winter dave: miscellaneous LOST AT SEA character sketches.

16-19. raleigh can't stand it, raleigh (for nathan), steph with cat ears, breaking the worry habit: various LOST AT SEA characters in marker, inkwash, crayon, etc.

20-21. sandra mctavish in crayon, zero in crayon: yeah, i had a crayon phase in 2002.

22-23. self portrait april 2002, self portrait for queen & country trade: self-portraits from 2002.

24. thatcherism down the toilet: i don't want to explain this one, but i still kind of like it.

25. a winter girl: i think this was actually the first thing i drew in 2002, soon after moving to Toronto. just a random comic-style drawing.

2003: For the first few months of 2003, I kept a little sketchbook, drawing in it regularly. I also briefly had a drawing-blog with Corey Lewis, called "Dumplings", where I aired many of those little sketchbook drawings. Someone had given me a whole bag of Prismacolor markers in 2002, so I was using those all the time, drawing LOST AT SEA and traveling a lot between Chicago and Toronto.

1-9. p29, i'd rather be blue than see red, a proposed new look, marvin rouge, spotted at lee's, the chinese takeout guy, ethan intaglio design, lydia design, pencil no 2: random sketchbook pieces, some of which were then worked up in Photoshop.

10. very cold lips: the culmination of my marker phase. drawn straight to pen, too (from a quick thumbnail sketch).

11-12. click click click, omg this sucks: commissioned illustrations for Computer Source magazine.

13-16. p14, p30, soft raleigh, these hands: LOST AT SEA drawings from the sketchbook.

17-19. so sick of everyone, underwear ramona, magenta knives: very early SCOTT PILGRIM drawings.

20. this comic book: done as an advertisement for comic store the Beguiling. features an early Ramona drawing.

21. two of us: this is where i started to figure out how the drawings in SCOTT would differ from those in LOST AT SEA.

22-26. girlfriend, the el~ summertime, cutest girlfriend, still feeling blue, new girlfriend: sketchbook drawings of then-girlfriend Hope Larson.

27. self portrait: for HOPELESS SAVAGES: GROUND ZERO collection.

28. photo of my desktop (february 2003).

2004: I got married to Hope Larson in March 2004. Work-wise, with LOST AT SEA out at the end of '03, this was the year of SCOTT PILGRIM. After finishing the first book that summer, I had to get a job at a restaurant to pay the bills, which ended up giving me a lot of sketchbook time (I was a food-runner, and I worked a lot of slow weeknights). In another disastrous effort to help pay the bills, I took up watercolors.

1. scott pilgrim sketches frieze: a bunch of sketches done in the winter before i started drawing Scott Pilgrim Vol 1.

2. the ramona controversy: semi-early character design for Ramona. sparked idiotic arguments on message boards. marker drawing.

3. ramona in the pits: opening spread from Volume 1, turned into a desktop and coloured by Eddie Perkins.

4. if winter ends: another spread from Volume 1, turned into a desktop and coloured by Fenris from customize.org.

5-6. september's sketches, october's sketches: these were all done in the kitchen of the restaurant where i briefly worked. early Volume 2 stuff and some Monica Beetle ideas. done with markers and brush pens.

7. kim reclining 82: my first watercolor. sparked an interest in watercolors which led to the horribly late series that follows.

8-26. watercolor #1 (raleigh), watercolor #2 (kim), watercolor #3 (alternate zero), watercolor #4 (fragile), watercolor #5 (fall steph), watercolor #6 (fall raleigh), watercolor #7 (martinis), watercolor #8 (fall zero), watercolor #9 (fall ginger), watercolor #10 (wallace in a suit), watercolor #11 (zero), watercolor #12 (diner raleigh), watercolor #13 (fall ramona), watercolor #14 (fall knives), watercolor #15 (kim on the subway), watercolor #16 (forest raleigh), watercolor #17 (cat hat raleigh), watercolor #18 (stacey pilgrim w/cat), watercolor #19 (cat night stephanie): series of paid watercolors (before I got horribly late).

27-28. the parkas & the secret ottawa poster, the secret canada tour handbill: posters i did for friends' bands in fall 2004.

29. morning after raleigh (for nathan): for my friend nathan, who manages a frame shop.

30. oni holiday card 2004: sent out by Oni Press for the holidays in 2004. (stages of comparison)

31-32. watercolor #21 ("brittany" scott pilgrim), watercolor #22 (ramona-ish raleigh): more watercolors.

2005: We moved out East, and I continued doing watercolors. At this point paying the bills was a horrible nightmare that even job-hunting couldn't fix, but by the end of the year things had started to stabilize. I spent a lot of the year putting art on eBay and stuff, let me tell you.

1. azkaban (color by dean trippe): i think i drew this when we rented the DVD of the 3rd Harry Potter film. Dean gave it a moody-yet-fluorescent colour job, which is awesome.

2. heroic self portrait: drawn to commemorate how terrible i looked while drawing the 2nd Scott Pilgrim. I looked like a Lord of the Rings guy so i gave myself that type of portrait.

3. dusted bunnies cover (inked by Christine Norrie): cover for the 2005 Hopeless Savages one-shot. Christine inked it and I coloured it.

4-9. scott pilgrim special watercolor #1, scott pilgrim special watercolor #2, scott pilgrim special watercolor #3, scott pilgrim special watercolor #4, scott pilgrim special watercolor #5, scott pilgrim special watercolor #6: done as gifts for various people instrumental in the Scott Pilgrim movie deal.

10. street angel & th' gang (for Street Angel tpb)

11. scott's plum deal (for the Coast): was originally going to be a cover, but got bumped back due to tragedy. I penciled it in the basement of the Beguiling in Toronto while en route, and Hope inked it.

12-20. watercolor #20 (scott action pose), watercolor #23 (kim lrb), watercolor #24 (stacey pilgrim on the floor) watercolor #25 (raleigh & steph sharing music), watercolor #26 (penpals ii), watercolor #27 (sad steph), watercolor #28 (cowboy shopping steph), watercolor #29 (ian and his sister), watercolor #30 (toast rocks): all watercolors in the 2004 series which I've been painfully late in delivering.

21. random kim color sketch: was going to be part of a website design, but i gave up on it.

22. three kids: kid designs for something that will never happen.

23. chrestomanci: done as a commission for steven gettis.

24. scott & ramona print: hope screenprinted a run of these for SPX.

25. pink envy: done while on vacation, traded to Vera for a drawing of Kim Pine.

26. sheriff pony and topato potato: done at SPX, a gift for Jeffrey Rowland of wigu.

27. pinup girls: done for computer source magazine in Seattle.

28. the coast's comics cover: for the Coast, Halifax's alt-weekly. it was Kate the art director's idea.

2006 & on: New stuff lately tends to go on my flickr. Also, I don't draw these kinds of things so much anymore, since all my energy goes in to drawing these stupid long-form graphic novels I'm in the middle of.

radiomaru.com