…was born in Winnipeg in 1960 but moved to West Vancouver at the age of four. Other than a summer in London and a year outside Boston as a child I’ve lived in the Vancouver area ever since, I can’t think of a better place. My father was a professor of Canadian history, our home was full of books about history and art but problems with dyslexia made reading challenging. I began drawing as a treatment for dyslexia and at an early age I discovered my inspiration to become a cartoonist in the work of Europeans Herge (Tintin) and Goscinny/ Uderzo (Asrterix the Gaul). Constant doodling did not prevent me from being a A class student in elementary school, even though it nearly broke me. High School succeeded in breaking me and my marks plummeted, history, art and English were my best subjects. Later I discovered underground comics, Punk rock, Monty Python, and the autobiographical comics of Harvey Pekar. I briefly smoked pot in high school but otherwise I am a life long teatotaler. Never having officially graduated from High School in 1978 I went to the Emily Carr College of Art and Design (they weren’t fussy) taking courses in design and life drawing, completely missing the computer revolution in design by a year. I dropped out in my 3rd year when my father died and my world collapsed. I became active in comics fandom, discovered new exciting worlds of comics in alternative, European, Japanese and small press comics. Raw and Wierdo, the Comics Journal and Heavy Metal.
After some lost years and therapy I found myself jobless and bored on welfare. In 1985 I printed my first small press mini-comics, Socialist Turtle and Granville Street Gallery on a hand cranked printer. Switching to offset printing I published over 75 mini-comic titles in the period 1985-1990, co-founded the small press zine New Reality and I was briefly vice-president of the Vancouver Cartoonists Society. Otherwise I was a volunteer at the Pitt Gallery, a co-host on CO-OP radio’s noise show Newsounds Gallery, performing with the audio art band The Haters and the garage band Puke Theatre.
In 1990 my first full size comic book, Big Thing was published by local patron of the arts Ed Varney. Big Thing was then published for four issues by Fantagraphics Books, one issue by Starhead and one by Aeon, all of Seattle. The Big Things were a mixture of autobiography, humour, satire, fantasy and fiction. In 1992 I attended a comics convention in Angouleme, France and the next year I was a guest at a convention in Porto, Portugal. At this time I was made regular appearances at The San Diego Comiccon and APE Small press Festival. I illustrated stories for the comics writer Dennis Eichhorn and put out two issues of an erotic comic, Incubus (the first issue sold more copies than anything I done before combined)!
Aeon Press published a 6 issue series of Buddha on the Road, a religious satire adventure story about a man who gets caught between the warring angels and demons. In 1997 I went on a five city signing tour of the US east coast with comic book artists Roberta Gregory (Naughty Bits) and Donna Barr (Desert Peach) that ended at the SPX Small Press Expo in Silver Hills, Maryland.
A combination of two of my publishers folding, a long death in the family, a long term relationship ending and a universal disinterest in my work by the comics industry led to more lost years. In that time I taught myself to paint in acrylics. Although I have been involved in art gallery shows from the early days with my comics, in the last few years I have also been active as a painter. At one point my comics and paintings were in three local galleries simultaneously, including the prestigious Presentation House in North Vancouver. Besides drawing strips, reviews and stories for various Vancouver comics and zines I have contributed too two graphic novel collections, fund raisers to support Little Sisters Books in their court battle to fight Canada Customs confiscation of comics material. I collaborated on a story with noise artist Gerald X. Jupitter-Larsen, “The Totimorpous” and with comics writer Dennis Eichhorn, “Wobblie Reveire“. I have also created illustration work for wargaming pubishers, three Cinema Sewer calendars as well as award winning advertisements for Book Warehouse, amongst others. I also became an occasional co-host at CITR radio’s Onomataphia Show, the radio show about comics (now Inkstuds) interviewing comic creators such as David Boswel, Harvey Pekar, Seth, Spain, Rick Geary and Canadian comics scholar John Bell. During the 1990 Gulf War I posted a comics web blog, each day producing a full page comic commenting on the events of the day, on my web site for the duration Iraq invasion. This went on for over 50 strips. In 2003 I began to create new mini-comics, self-publishing over a dozen so far…
I am working on a new graphic novel.
I currently live in Mount Pleasant with my cat, Lomu, enjoying long urban hikes and hanging out with my art and comic buddies and trying new tea‘s. I have become a balcony gardener.
I am: A blue eyed, Anglo-Swedish American pale penis person of the hetero persuasion, fat and ugly with allergic skin. I like free speech, atheism , black clothes, Doc Martens, cats, books (mostly history), wargaming, “arty” pop music, Samurai movies, comedy. I hate guns, racism and religious intolerance, militant vegans and economists. I am literally a teatotaller. I don’t know how to drive. I am doing currently doing yoga and Tia Chi (badly) to try to achieve Nirvana… or lose weight… or something…
I have a blog…
http://colinupton.blogspot.com/
Colin Upton
#223 440 East 5th Ave.
Vancouver, B.C.
Canada V5T-1N5
Cupton@planeteer.com
