Ryan Reid Illustration + Design

I draw stories.

I make comics, draw illustrations, and write about a miscellany of things.

Elevator of mystery

April 7, 2025 | Miscellany

Yesterday on the 13th floor the door to elevator A was open all morning.

I walked past it several times while traveling from desk to meeting, meeting to meeting, desk to Oasis, and each time I felt the urge to step inside. It yawned like a tired lion in a wild nature video, curiously agape, beckoning me to enter so we could embark on what would no doubt be an exciting adventure together.

Space and time would be involved. Space and time is always involved in mysterious elevator adventures.

I didn’t go in.

This morning the door to elevator A is closed. A short strip of red tape has been unceremoniously draped across it, torn recklessly from it’s roll as if scissors don’t exist or are too difficult to operate. In black letters it reads quite seriously:

ER DANGER DANGER DANGER DANG

So now I want to get on the elevator even more than yesterday.

I don’t go in.

Tomorrow will they tack up planks of dusty wood across the door frame blocking the entrance like an abandoned cartoon coal mine? Perhaps they’ll affix a large sign to the weathered boards that reads:

DO NOT ENTER CERTAIN DEATH AWAITS THIS MEANS YOU RYAN REID

How could I possible ignore that? Am I so dense that great adventure must call me by name to join? Does my curiosity require a physical barrier to break down in order to transform me from casual observer to active participant?

Well, yeah, obviously.

I’ll rip off those cruddy boards with my bare hands, slivers be damned! I’ll pry open the elevator doors with the crow bar kept under my desk for just this type of occasion! Finally, I’ll rush inside! And then –

Probably fall to my death, I don’t know. People put signs on things for reasons, you should likely pay attention to them.

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Previously

Plan for stops

Plan for stops

March 30, 2025 | Miscellany

As a mid-century man it has become obvious that knowing where the public washrooms are on any given route I am required to take through the city is a necessity.

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Street art critic

Street art critic

March 23, 2025 | Miscellany

I was walking to work from Pimisi Station the other morning when I noticed someone wrote on the metal guardrail in thick black marker: TRUST THE CHAOS.

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Three art posters on the studio wall.

Love it love it hang it on the wall

February 16, 2025 | Miscellany

After dragging my heals for years I finally hung new art posters on the wall, plus a short trip down resampling algorithm lane.

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