An avid reader and collector since his youth, when regular comics cost 12 cents (compared with $2.99 U.S. today), Jett was never in it for the money. He loved the artwork, and as a teen would draw his own strips and illustrations.

His favourites early on were European series like Spirou et Fantasio, Tintin and the medieval-themed Johan & Pirlouit (whose creator, Peyo, would go on to greater fame with the Smurfs, first introduced in a Johan & Pirlouit comic).

"As a kid, my allowance went for comic books," Jett said. "That's all I spent it on."

In 1996, he heard about, applied for and landed a job hosting a weekly radio show on comic books and their history. That was spun off into a book on comic-shop censorship in North America, which in turn helped him land a $10,000 Canada Council grant to prepare biographies of Quebec cartoonists working in the United States.

Many Quebecers active in the field were guests on the radio show in the year Jett hosted it, including Picard, who ran a local school of comic art. He recruited Jett to teach, which he did for four years around shifts at a comic-book store called La Librairie des Super Hros.

Jett might still be there but for a proposal from Picard in 2004 to open a comic-book store of their own. He even found the building. They called it Studio 9 because they envisioned it as a gathering place for artists and comic art is considered the ninth art.

Labels: comics retailers, comicshoptalk, Quebec