Labels: links

Labels: links

Having originally set his sights on becoming a classical watercolourist, the Welsh-born Jones left the UK for Canada with his wife in 1957. Upon arriving in Edmonton, he found work as a house painter, but, having done a bit of freelance cartooning back home, he soon found himself peddling cartoons to local publications, delivering sketches to the publisher of the Edmonton Journal almost daily.

"He would chuckle pleasantly, but say no," remembers Jones, surveying the collection of originals and prints crowding the tiny gallery. Undeterred, he continued to sketch, and one afternoon in January of 1962, while watching workers scale the treacherous heights of a building being demolished on the corner of Jasper Avenue and 101 Street as the Western world was transfixed by American astronaut John Glenn's heroics as the first non-Soviet in space, he had an epiphany, drawing a simple cartoon on an envelope and delivering it to the Journal publisher, who this time relented, hiring Jones as the paper's full-time editorial cartoonist.

Jones went on to work for the Toronto Telelgram and then the Montreal Star in the '60s and '70s before coming back to Edmonton to work for the Sun in the '80s and finally retiring in the early '90s after returning to the Journal.

Dave Kostis at Now & Then Books phoned and left a message with Gerhard at the office on Tuesday while I was running around getting as many
last-minute things done as possible before the trip that Now & Then
Books is closing its doors. I wasn't able to get him on the phone
that evening, there was just the store's answering machine so I hope
it isn't true but I have an awful feeling that this really might be
it. He along with a lot of downtown Kitchener merchants have been
struggling in recent years and this summer was particularly bad.
It's particularly sad because this month marks the thirty-fifth
anniversary of the store's opening in 1971. So far as we know, the
longest run of any comic book store (pre-dating the Direct Market itself
by several years) still in continuous operation. Ger and I had given
Dave several loans to help float the store over the last couple of years
and I know John Balge with whom I worked on Comic Art News & Reviews
kicked in as well. There's not much I can do from two time zones
away (which is why I had been really hoping someone might have come out
to Pearson Airport with a laptop so that I could have at least started
circulating the word yesterday). At this point all I can do is encourage
anyone who thinks they can help in whatever way -- either by
donations or buying some store stock or maybe offering to buy a part
ownership or full ownership or even just phoning to offer some words of
encouragement and to let Dave know that his prodigious efforts to keep
Harry Kremer's legacy alive for these last four and a half years are
not unappreciated -- to give a call and leave a message at 519-744-5571. Just a couple of weeks ago, I had asked Dave's permission to use his office to be interviewed by Matthew Ingram of Cameron Heights Collegiate for their high school newspaper and it was very gratifying to sit for the first time in Harry's old command central chair surrounded by all of the store's photographic and illustration
memories including the framed full front page of the entertainment
section of the K-W Record of Harry and then-partner Bill Johnson back in
1971. If worst comes to worst we'll certainly be working closely
with Dave to preserve as much of the material as he thinks appropriate
as part of the Cerebus Archive. There are a lot of folks out there with
memories of the store that go way back, so please get in touch with Dave
if you've got a spare minute or two over the next couple of days.
Thanks.

Labels: comics retailers, comicshoptalk, shop profiles

Released a week or so back, Chip Zdarsky's Monster Cops . It serves as a perfect Halloween comic for the young and the young-at-heart. Collecting four short stories previously published in various anthologies, the book stars the classic monsters Frankenstein, the Wolfman and Dracula.

Unlike some heroes, this intrepid trio avoids the all-too-worn vigilante route and become fully vested officers of the law. Frankenstein, the stoic but sensitive one. Wolfman, the resident investigative cop due in so small part to his heightened sense. And Dracula, the bad cop.

Newsarama caught up with the cartoonist and creator, Chip Zdarsky, to talk about the book:

"It is also one of the most fully human sex-comics I've ever read, because it explodes the lies ignorant people tell: gay sex is disposable and impersonal; pleasure and caring are opposites; hotness is dangerous; humor is unerotic. Even if Lazarov and MacIsaac did not set out to make a political statement, Sticky is political because it refuses to deny that joyous sex is good for people, and that it's people--whole people, not throbbing, engorged body parts--that have sex. In an increasingly repressive society, acknowledging the truth that people fuck may just be one of the most radical political statements anyone can make."

The most notable collected Canadian offering is This Will All End in Tears (Insomniac, 168 pages, $21.95), the third book of collected stories by Montreal-based cartoonist Joe Ollman. Ollman's narratives aren't happy tales; in Big Boned, Charlene lives with her bossy mother, eats in secret, obsesses about her weight and nurses an unrequited crush on her pimply office-mate Donny. Other characters are burdened with sadness, alcoholism and unwanted responsibility as Ollman's characteristic cartooning captures the everyday grotesque. Ollman's increasingly complex storytelling also grows more assured with each book and it's an aptly titled collection.

Labels: links

Labels: comics retailers, comicshoptalk, links, shop profiles

Don't despair, we've got another Industry Night... Thursday, October 26th!

Industry Night @ the Vic was created for YOU, the fan, artist and creator. It’s our intent to help foster the local comic arts, illustration and animation community by providing a monthly forum to socialize and showcase your talents in and around the various conventions taking place throughout the GTA. Have a project you want to hype? Looking for collaborators? This is your destination for all that and more.Join us Thursday, October 26 for another night of conversation and fun. The evening starts at 7:00 pm at the Victory Cafe, 581 Markham Street (Markham and Bloor).

Writers, artists, creators: let’s see what you got.We encourage you to bring your latest ideas and projects along. Contact us at industry_night@yahoo.ca if you’d like a table to sell your comics, t-shirts, graphic novels... what have you. SEE YOU ON THE 26TH!

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Labels: obituaries

Scholastic Canada Signs Rabbit and Bear Paws (non-exclusive)

8,000 copies of the graphic novel, Adventures of Rabbit and Bear Paws: The Sugar Bush are already in circulation and now this all ages North American Indian graphic novel has been signed by Scholastic Canada (non exclusive). Rabbit and Bear Paws have signed a non-exclusive deal with Scholastic Canada and will be featured in the Canadian school book club and book fair markets in Spring 2007. The book can also be purchased through the Scholastic educational catalogue as of January 2007.

Adventures of Rabbit and Bear Paws is available from select retailers and online at http://www.rabbitandbearpaws.com/gnovel.php. The graphic novel has been submitted to Diamond Comics for inclusion in their catalogue.

Entertaining while using traditional Aboriginal values and humour is the goal in creating the characters of Rabbit and Bear Paws . The graphic novel, Adventures of Rabbit and Bear Paws - The Sugar Bush, is a compilation of the first 64 comic strips jam packed onto 32 pages in perfect bound European album format. Adventures of Rabbit and Bear Paws is based upon the Seven Grandfathers, the wisdom of the Anishinabek community.

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"First is the Colin Upton's Mini-comic Classic Collection the mini-comics I published in the 1980's as a struggling cartoonist before my first comic book series, Big Thing, in 1990. Including Socialist Turtle, Happy Ned the homicidal Christian, Self-Indulgent Comics and many, many others! 67 mini-comics and digests only $25!

The second is Colin Upton's Nova New Nuevo Mini-comics Collection which are the mini-comics I began publishing around 2000 after my other comic book series Buddha On The Road, was cancelled and I returned to small press publishing. The package will be updated over time as new mini's come out, presently it has 23 mini-comics including Shitman, Samurai Clown, the 9-11 series and Motherfuckers.

"Of the 225 syndicated newspaper cartoonists in North America, only about a tenth are women, says Jay Kennedy, editor-in-chief of King Features Syndicate, distributor of Between Friends. However, that number has risen in the last decade and will likely snowball as women see more role models, predicts Kennedy.
But regardless of gender, the odds against breaking in are no laughing matter. King Features, for instance, receives about 6,000 unsolicited cartoon submissions a year. It chooses three.
Industry-wide, only one in three comic strips survive the first year in syndication, says Kennedy. 'To survive five years is an absolute success.' Between Friends is in its 12th year of syndication.
The secret of Bell-Lundy's success?
'She connects with readers,' says Kennedy. 'She's a very good observer of her own life and others' lives and reflects it back in a humourous way.'"

Labels: comics retailers, comicshoptalk

Labels: comics retailers, comicshoptalk