An art piece based on the comedy sketches from Chris & Jack.
This work comes off the heels of doing the thumbnail for my most recent video The Chris and Jack Cinematic Universe: Part 1. Also urged on by the fact that I’ll be seeing Jack De Sena in person at a convention next week and I was toiling over what to get signed.
This piece is an homage to the poster for their first short film Movies in Space. Nearly every sketch of theirs is referenced somewhere in this piece (except two that feature reoccurring characters who are already on the piece). There doesn’t exist an art piece or poster that represents the entire Chris & Jack channel, but I wanted one so I could get it signed and framed, so I tried making one. It’s not perfect but at least it now exists.
This week I saw Aunty Donna’s new live comedy show DREM. This was my second time seeing Aunty Donna live, or third, if we count Broden Kelly’s solo live show that I also saw this year. Aunty Donna is one of my biggest loves. I first discovered them around 2018 and I wasn’t able to see them live on stage until 2022 for a number of reasons. Each time I see them live, it feels like the finale to an era in my life.
Me and friend at Aunty Donna’s Magical Dead Cat Tour (2022)Me and different friend at Aunty Donna’s DREM (2025)
Before I went to the show, I thought about what merch I would buy. In 2021, I hadn’t yet bought any merch from Aunty Donna. There was a bundle for a hat, a CD, and some iron-on patches for around $40, but at that time I didn’t have a job, so I couldn’t afford it. I regret that immensely. In the time since, I’ve really wanted an Aunty Donna hat; While I’m not really a hat person as I don’t think I look good in hats, I feel like I’d put aside that insecurity if it represents something I love. Eventually they sold out of hats before I could make up my mind. In 2022, when I went to the last live show, I bought a shirt for $40 and I thought that was expensive, but at this live show, shirt prices went up by 50%. They also did the annoying thing where the cool design is on the back of the shirt and there’s only a little design on the front. I thought to myself, if I don’t 100% love something, I shouldn’t spend $60 on it. So I decided to only get the one item that I really wanted.
Me in an Aunty Donna shirt (2022)Me in an Aunty Donna hat (2025)
DREM was completely new stuff. The last live show, The Magical Dead Cat Tour, was their first show after the Netflix series, and featured a couple of returning characters and reprises of past sketches. This time, it was completely brand new stuff, and I really enjoyed a lot of it.
They had a sketch that centred around Doctor Who, and as a big Aunty Donna and Doctor Who fan, to see that crossover live on stage all of the sudden was so wild. They’ve mentioned Doctor Who a couple of times before, but this time, we literally watched a scene from Doctor Who, and they asked the audience what show it was from. Some people, including me, shouted out, “Doctor Who!” I thought about shouting out the episode title as well, cause I’m a dumb nerd who knows it, but I thought that’d be too specific and might disrupt the show. The sketch then went into even more detail about the specific scene playing, the characters and actors on screen, and the comments on the video. I ascended.
For audience participation, they brought up onto the stage a woman from a few rows behind me. This audience participation bit went on for a while and she was heavily involved for the rest of the sketches in the show. As I sat there, I thought about how I would act if I was up there. At Broden’s solo live show, he interacted with the guy sat directly left of me, who I had spoken to for at least half an hour before the show. I have no idea how I’d act on the spot. Usually, comedians like for you to not try to be funny, because they’ll bring the funny. She did a great job, and as she stayed up there for a good 10 minutes, I thought to myself, I’m glad I’m just watching.
I really enjoyed the show. It’s their last live show for a while, and I can’t wait to see them again.
A photo taken by Aunty Donna on stage. I’m in the audience.
This week I released a new Retrospective Rambles video where I talk about my Doctor Who fan art.
I recorded for over 2 and a half hours. Most of it was stumbling over words and repeating sentences. There’s nothing more humbling than talking by yourself to a camera.
This week I released a new short film: Magic of the holiday. It’s my third homage video to Julysixth Park—the global cultural phenomenon celebrating Jurassic Park, established by sketch filmmaker duo Chris and Jack.
Filling in the missing instalment in the list of arbitrarily-divided volumes of my series of live-action shorts: an art piece representing these videos.
For each volume’s respective art piece, I wanted to try a different art style. This piece represents each video with a selected item or piece of iconography from the video. Obviously, it’s much simpler than the other art pieces. I only spent an hour on this one, but I’d been thinking of using this style for a while. It’s a challenge coming up with different ways of making a poster that represents a bunch of videos without using floating heads, especially of the same few people playing all the characters.
(June 19 update) I changed my mind and made another poster but using images from the videos.
Making the thumbnail/poster art for the 2024 bloopers got me in the Photoshopping mood, so I made an overdue collage piece to represent my 2022-2023 videos. Specifically, the videos in this list.
These are panels from an improvised comic a friend and I made throughout May. We took turns drawing each panel, building off the previous one, with no plan for a story.
This week, I launched a new 8-episode podcast series of improvised comedy adventures.
This is my third attempt at a podcast after the Time Podcast hosted by the TimePop Cast (2017) and SHADA’P (2023); Both incredibly short-lived, each only having a one episode run.
All episodes of the podcast were recorded as part of a 3-hour recording session. Nothing was written down beforehand, and it’s one of my favourite things I’ve ever made. I love making improvised videos, though I don’t get many opportunities to make them with other people, and doing improv alone is really difficult and never as funny. The audio medium allowed us to run free without the limitations of live action and the huge work required of animation. There are also jokes that only work in an audio medium that I was so pleased to find.
