The art wizardry of David Buist...

David Buist "hoped" I would like the caricature he did of
my son, David. Uhhh, no. I didn't like it. I loved it. Besides
being an incredibly thoughtful gesture about a young fella
who is my pride and joy, he also totally nailed the picture.

I'll be honest. It doesn't take much to throw me. While my physical body is firmly rooted on terra firma due to gravity reasons (until Premier Rob's Brother tries to repeal the Law of Gravity using the "Not Withstanding" clause), my mind is usually drifting up there in the clouds. It's very pretty. You all look like ants from up here. Puny, puny ants.

When I looked through a bunch of old public school report cards - now decades old - that my Mom had saved (because that's what Moms do), there was a recurring theme in many of the teachers' comments. It was "Donald can be a daydreamer." These days, that's called ADD - attention deficit disorder - and I think some parents put their kids on medication for it. That's like that make me glad that I was born when I was. It seems to me if you're on medication, you are more unlikely to gaze out the window and imagine the Hulk and Thor smashing it out on the very ground where recess is held. I used to. Thor usually won. It's the hammer. You can't beat the hammer, man.

But again, I suppose I can be caught offguard because it happened recently. One day I was on Twitter and I saw the little private mail alert.

Every artist has to have a self-caricature and thus, David
Buist created his. Having never met him, I'm not sure if
he captured himself perfectly but there can be no fault in
his choice of attire. Especially with the season coming up.

I clicked on it and saw it was from Hamilton cartoonist-artist David Buist and he had done a new caricature. Not of me. He'd already done that. It was of my son, also named David. His message was simply: "Was trying some more caricatures and gave a shot at your son. Hope he likes it. I couldn't find a perfect picture to use so I used a few and hoped it worked out."

I was stunned. As you can see above, he nailed it. That picture was David... and then some. Like the Grinch, my heart swelled to be three times larger that night. So now, it's like up to a walnut. Also my eyes got leaky. I hate that. I don't know what that's called but it makes it all hard to read stuff. (Offstage Whisper: "It's called crying, you moron!" Me: "Shut up!!! I was not!!")

Now it's one thing to do a caricature of me. I was flattered that someone thought I warranted the attention.

When I was in Las Vegas during the Stanley
Cup run back in June, some radio station
went on Twitter and said, "Send us your best
cartoon and we'll publish it on social media."
So I instantly went to David, sending him a
picture of Lady Liberty outside the New York
New York Resort and Casino, wearing the Las
Vegas jersey and said, "Gimme your best."
They never used it but with a good reason.

But it's quite another to do one of my son. You see, that's a huge step up from flattery, landing on a much-higher separate plateau called Honoured and Thrilled. I felt honoured. Hugely so. That's my son, folks. So of course, I thanked him profusely. So that's the story behind that story. But I'm a day-dreamer, remember, so here's another story about artist David Buist that few (or none) of you may know.

Way back in June, I flew to Las Vegas because the Golden Knights were in the Stanley Cup final against beer writer Adam Kemp's much-beloved Washington Capitals. A Vegas radio station on Twitter said, "Give us your best cartoon of your Las Vegas Golden Knights and we'll declare the winner on our social media." So I instantly messaging David, told him of the contest, sent him a picture of the Statue of Liberty (outside New York New York Casino and Resort) wearing a Vegas Golden Knights' jersey and basically said, "Send me a cartoon." Well, within the hour, my phone was chirping. David had done it. So I fired it off to the radio station and said, "Here's your winner," explaining who the artist was, where he was from and all the stuff you tell them.

They frikkin' loved it!!! But there was a hitch. You see, the Stanley Cup was only three games in. Washington was up two games to one and at my urging, David had Lady Liberty hoisting the Cup. The station told me privately that it was one of their favourites but they couldn't jinx the Golden Knights by posting a Won-The-Cup picture. Sports is hugely superstitious. In retrospect, I get that. Bad Karma, voodoo and stuff.

The Drunk Polkaroo-Donny Vegas Inception shirt
was a hit, as I wear a T-Shirt of Drunk Polkaroo
wearing a T-Shirt of me, wearing a T-Shirt of the
actual Polkaroo from TV show Polka Dot Door.

But if they had won the Cup, oh man, Vegas would have seen that cartoon all over social media!! As you can see, I kept the cartoon. Maybe some day. Given their off-season acquisitions, maybe soon? (But not before my Toronto Maple Leafs.) But David's art has been seen in the Vegas strip before so here's another story from the daydreamer.

You see, I was headed down to Sin City for one of my what must seem to be endless trips there during this calendar year and I decided on Twitter to get some suggestions of new Ontario craft brewery T-Shirts to wear along the Vegas strip. I think it was my April trip. So, like I said, I threw it out there on Twitter and, of course, got dozens of suggestions. At 272 and counting, Ontario has no shortage of great craft brewers and when I travel, I like to show 'em off.

Eventually, someone on Twitter said words of the effect of "You should get a shirt of Drunk Polkaroo wearing a shirt of you wearing a shirt of Polkaroo from the TV show." Little light-bulbs went off over heads and Polk tweeted, "David Buist, can you help us out?"

And thus, as it was written in the Ancient Scriptures, the Drunk Polkaroo-Donny Vegas Inception T-Shirt was born, using the design that David sent us not even 20 minutes later. No one on the strip had a clue what the shirt was or what it meant. One college bro asked me if it was a band logo. Of course I smiled and said, "Yeah, brother, killer trash metal band in Toronto, Canada called the Drunk Donny Polkaroos. Check 'em out. They're f**ken dope." With a promise to You Tube it, off he happily went. (I am such an ass-hat. Why does anyone ever listen to me about anything? But he was also pretty hammered so no way he remembered that name.) So yeah, no one knew what the shirt meant or was. But we knew. And I had to give our craft brewers one day off. Also, when David Buist draws you a shirt design, you get that sucker printed on fabric and wear it.

When our man, Drunk Polkaroo, who loves filling social
media with his poems, had a recent Dr Seuss streak in his
odes, David, on his own, decided to put some of them to
art. This is as good or better than anything I've ever seen
in a children's book. And believe me, as a parent, you
become pretty familiar with those. Just a classic style.

So who is the man behind these wonderful and whimsical cartoons? The man who took the time to draw and send me one of my son? That's a good question. So I decided to privately ask him a few of those very questions myself.

Turns out David does programming and database works for a school, a full-time job he smilingly refers to as "nerd stuff." But "I've always been a doodler and loved drawing since I was a kid. Most of my notebooks in school had the margins full of little sketches and characters. A lot of my meeting notes (as an adult) still do today."

But as a married father of three daughters, it's children's book art that he gravitates towards "because it totally fits my style and it allows a lot of freedom. You can really have fun with it. I did my first one, based off a children's song my brother made and we had fun creating it together. I've done a few since and have a few in the works." (More on his most recent release at the end.)

Barrie Beer Brother Hago Vanayan loved David's art for Nickel
Brook's Wicked Awesome IPA so much that he made it into the
background for his phone and sent me this screenshot. When my
man Hago was sent his caricature from the Hamilton artist, he
marveled, "I thought I was looking into the mirror! He totally
surprised me with it. I think I'll be using it as a profile pic for a
while to come." Like I said, you feel honoured when he does it.

David told me he didn't have "a specific person that I look up to in terms of my style but I love going through and looking at all styles of art. I follow a lot of artists on Twitter and it's amazing how much talent is out there. As far as kids' books go, I did love Where The Sidewalk Ends and was a huge fan of Dr Seuss, as well as Robert Munsch. I was also a fan of some of the comic strips like Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side."

Being married with kids means "things are always so busy around my place (so) I've really learned how to cram in my art time when I can. I think my dream job (would be having) no job, though retirement is a ways off. I just have so many (artist) things that could fill my time if I had more to 'waste'."

Now David and Drunk Polkaroo can correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure the first beer writer caricature the artist did was for his fellow Hamiltonian, the Polk himself. So I asked Polk what he thought when he saw it.

"The first time I saw it, I was stunned. I couldn't believe anyone would bother being that creative about a fat guy who talked about beer all the time. I got a little choked up when Dave first did those drawings. It's an honour to be immortalized, more than once. He really captures the joy in our hearts, I believe."

And when Polk had a long go of putting a Dr Seuss spin on his many poems, artist David jumped right in and started illustrating it. That thrilled Polk.

One of my all-time favourite David Buist Ontario
Craft Brewery cartoons is the one he created for
Collective Arts' Ransack The Universe IPA that
also featured himself. The colour, the style, wicked.

"The Dr Seuss ones were a point of pride as I was seeing my words come to life in a most unexpected way. Not many people know but I'm a huge Seuss fan. Yertle The Turtle is my fave. (Sidebar: Also mine. It was the first book I could recite as a pre-schooler from beginning to end.) We have had conversations about a possible collab of my words and his art into book form (so) you may see something sometime in 2019." 

And, of course, his thoughts on the classic Drunk Polkaroo-Donny Vegas Inception shirt? "The Inception (shirt) was one of the highlights of Dave's work for me. He is a treasure more people should and will know about in Ontario craft beer and beyond. Dave is a kind-hearted fellow who I got to spend an afternoon drinking beers with a three of Hamilton's finest craft breweries. He's a passionate and creative guy who is just fun to hang out with." 

Okay, as I said, David has just released a children's book with author Travis M Blair called Mythical Creatures Legendary Histories: Haiku A To Z. Here's a Twitter link to a video on it, featuring Travis and David with the separate link to Amazon. Check it out at: David's Cool Chrildren's Book  Looks like a lot of fun. But Scooby Doo Gang, that's it, that's all and I am out of here. Off with the Polkaroos for the Ontario Brewing Awards tonight, which should be a blast but until next time, I remain, as always...