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Amazing Challengers of Avril Lavigne ![]() It's been widely reported that Canadian teeny-punker Avril Lavigne is lending her likeness to a book from Del Ray Manga. Unfortunately, the U.S. publisher has been scooped by several months by Evan Munday's self-published comic book series, The Amazing Challengers of Unknown Mystery. The series, set in Waterloo, follows the adventures of Canada's greatest superhero team since the Chaos Corps. The first issue saw the team rescue the pop star from a deranged fan who also happened to be the ruler of an underwater kingdom located at the bottom of Lake Ontario. (The Beat has the lowdown on the manga story, including comments from Napanee neighbor Jamie Coville.) - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Debbie Ridpath Ohi ![]() BlogTO's regular webcomic feature, WebcomicTO, presents an interview with Toronto's Debbie Ridpath Ohi conducted by Ryan Couldrey. Ohi is the cartoonist behind Will Write for Chocolate, a webcomic about writing, publishing and blogs. Taking the maxim "write what you know" to heart, Ohi has set herself the unenviable task of coming up with topical gags about the life of a freelance writer and aspiring novelist and manages to produce an intelligent strip in a breezy modern style with only the occasional lapse into sub-Guisewite angst. The interview also covers her other cartooning and blogging activities (she did a popular strip about waiting in line to see The Lord of the Rings), as well as various extracurricular activities like being in a band. Labels: interviews, people, webcomics - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 2comments - Tuesday, January 30, 2007 Claude St. AubinHalifax fan and comics historian Phil Latter interviews Canadian cartoonist Claude St. Aubin at Silver Bullet Comics. St. Aubin has been contributing to U.S. mainstream superhero and adventure books for years (and is winding up a run on Penny Farthing Press' The Victorian), but long-time fans may remember his contributions, as Jean-Claude St. Aubin, to the 1970s incarnation of Captain Canuck. Back then, St. Aubin inked George Freeman's pencils and pencilled and inked "Beyond", the lushly-illustrated, well-remembered, early sword-and-sorcery back-up strip in Captain Canuck. A career-spanning interview, of sorts. Labels: comics history, Halifax, interviews, Nova Scotia, people - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Monday, January 29, 2007 Toronto Comic Jam: Tuesday, January 30, 2007Dalton invites us to the first Toronto Comic Jam of the year:
Labels: comic jams, events, news, Ontario, Toronto - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Links1. New blog for Butcher: so what if he seems to talk more about Japanese comics than Canadian --the revamped comics212.net promises to continue with sharp retailer insights and detailed reviews from the longtime Beguiling staffer Chris Butcher 2. Joe Matt: he's not Canadian but alot of his comics output has been set in Toronto. That's why this review of Matt's Spentat BlogTO is interesting. 3. Deal with IT! The Halifax Chronicle-Herald profiles a series of books for kids that contain work by Canadian cartoonists. Labels: blogosphere, Halifax, links, misc, Nova Scotia, Ontario, reviews, Toronto - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Comics Sales: Monet's Top 10 of 06Over at the BDQ forums, Michel Viau posts the bestsellers from the past year, courtesy of the Montreal bookstore Monet. 1- Paul t.5: Paul a la peche, de Michel Rabagliati, La Pasteque Also included is the store's choice of best books in 3 categories: adults, kids and manga/manwha. Google trans Labels: comics retailers, Quebec - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Sunday, January 28, 2007 the Montreal Monthtly Comix Jam January 31Hello Every One! Yes the Montreal Monthtly Comix Jam is still around! Therefore the next one will be held at our usual lair of Sala Rossa's Spanish Restaurant, 4848 St-Laurent, this Wednesday, January 31 at 8.PM. There will be a lot of talkin' and some drawin' and beer testing. So don't forget your pencils, pens, paper, clipboards and imagination. Bonjour a tous! Eh Oui! Le Comix Jam de Montreal existe toujours! Le prochain jam aura donc lieu dans notre repaire habituel du Restaurant Espagnol de la Sala Rossa, 4848 St-Laurent, mercredi prochain, le 31 janvier à 20hres. Au programme, beaucoup de discussions, un peu de gribouillage et sirottage de bière. Alors n'oubliez pas vos crayons, stylos, papier, carton épais et votre imagination. Jane Jam High Priestess Grande Pretresse de Jam Labels: comic jams, events, news, Quebec - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Friday, January 26, 2007 Shuster Webcomics AwardDiana Tamblyn writes: Who is Canada's top web comic creator? The Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards Association, the non-profit group that organizes the annual Joe Shuster Awards, is pleased to announce the creation of a new honour for our third year. The inaugural Outstanding Canadian Web Comic Creator Award will be handed out during ceremonies on Saturday, June 9, 2007 in conjunction with the Paradise Toronto Comicon. Now we need your help! The nominating committee for this award is already hard at work looking at dozens of candidates whose work was posted in 2006, but are also seeking submissions and suggestions for possible contenders. For the purpose of the 2006 Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards web comics are defined as follows: Web comics, also known as online comics and webcomics, are comics that are available on the Internet. They do not have to be exclusively published online, they may be published in print but must maintain a web archive for either commercial or artistic reasons and they need to have been published on the web first, before any other medium. Web comics encompass the stratum of traditional print comic book formats, tiered comic strip pages and longer form graphic novels. Also included are formats such as horizontal web comic pages, vertical layout formats, irregularly formatted pages with horizontal and/or vertical scrolling and infinite canvas' but does not include multi-media presentations, motion graphics or flash animations. Mediums used can be traditionally drawn art, photographs, 3D Art, digital images, pixel art, clip art, found art and other conceptual web comics. Submissions in the form of a URL can be sent to: joeshusterawards@yahoo.ca If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to contact us at: joeshusterawards@yahoo.ca. Labels: awards, news, Ontario, Toronto - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Weekend Reading ![]() Links from hither and yon: -Newlywed Game: cute kid interviews Hope Larson and Bryan Lee O'Malley in Halifax attic -Stuart Immonen finds a letter from Mort Weisinger in a Jules Feiffer book -Dave Sim announces the nominees for the 2006 Day Prize, an award given to U.S. minicomics creators by Dave Sim in honour of his friend Gene Day (1951-82), a Canadian cartoonist who worked mostly for U.S. superhero comics companies but was also an underground and fanzine pioneer. No word yet on the role Sim's former partner Gerhard, who used to help pick and present the award, has in this year's nomination process. The winner will be announced at the annual SPACE Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo happening April 21-22 in Columbus, Ohio. -Darwyn Cooke interviewed about his take on Wil Eisner's The Spirit -Chris Butcher posts his schedule for the coming year, including hints about TCAF, a Bryan Lee O'Malley reading in T.O. and the second issue of the anthology/free comic book day giveaway, Comics Festival. -Chip Zdarsky's digitized penis invitation to a New York party Labels: Halifax, links, misc, news, Nova Scotia - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Thursday, January 25, 2007 Sim, Gerhard SplitsGo with me, like good angels, to my end: And, as the long divorce of steel falls on me, Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice, And lift my soul to Heaven. According to Heidi at THE BEAT, Dave Sim's longtime companion, friend and background artist has severed his connections with the Aardvark-Vanaheim, the publishing company founded by Sim that is responsible for printing the various Cerebus graphic novels. Gerhard apparently owns 40% of the company and Sim is in the process of buying out his former partner's shares. Full announcement, courtesy of Jeff Tundis, at the Yahoo Cerebus board. Labels: graphic novels, news, people, publishing - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Wednesday, January 24, 2007 Rand Holmes Exhibit ![]() Underground comix historian Patrick Rosenkranz writes to remind us that an event celebrating the life and work of cartoonist Rand Holmes is being organized at his family's home and studio at False Bay, Lasqueti Island B.C. An open call has gone out for fans and friends to lend artwork to an exhibit of the thousands of pages of comics and paintings the Holmes family has stored away. Holmes was an important member of the underground comix movement of the 1960s and 70s. He produced tons of comix for U.S., Canadian and European publishers but is perhaps best known for his character Harold Hedd. Holmes' Hitler's Cocaine featuring Harold Hedd was an early graphic novel. Described by Rosenkranz in a recent Comics Journal article, Holmes was "the quintessential anarchist cartoonist" responsible for art that appeared in comics like Fog City Funnies and Death Rattle, and The Georgia Straight and Vancouver Sun underground papers, among many others. Holmes died of Hodgkin's lymphona in 2002. The exhibit is planned for the fifth anniversary of his death: St. Patrick's Day Saturday, March 17, 2007 False Bay, Lasqueti Island British Columbia Ferry service is availiable from the mainland at Fench Creek from Vancouver Island. Labels: British Columbia, comics history, events, news, undergrounds, Vancouver - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Tuesday, January 23, 2007 TM Maple ![]() T.M. Maple was one of the most widely published comic book letter writers of the 1980s. His real name was Jim Burke and he was, of course, from Canada ("The Mad Maple" was his official name). He also published his own fanzines and contributed to many others: his column "The Canuck Stops Here" was a regular feature of Gene Kehoe's seminal It's a Fanzine. Sadly, T.M. died in 1994 of a heart attack. Over at The Comics Journal Message Board, older readers and fans share memories of him, including a comic strip. --- Other TM Maple links Selection of Letters T.M. Maple on Superman Is the Simpsons' "Comic Book Guy" based on T.M.? The Fallcon in St. Paul, Minnesota holds all of its guest panel presentations in the "TM Maple Edutorium"! Labels: comics history, links, people, zines - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Monday, January 22, 2007 Reviewers from the North1. Writing for the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, Alex Good tackles John Bell's Invaders from the North: How Canada Conquered the Comic Book Universe. He notes, For the most part, Bell's text is long on information -- names, dates and titles -- and short on close analysis. 2. Writing in the Whitehorse Daily Star, Andrew Hoshkiw profiles dj and graphic novelist Kid Koala, who is appearing in that Northern city. The turntablist doesn't talk about his comics which makes me wonder why I'm linking to the article... Labels: comics scholarship, profiles, reviews - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Fund for Afghan Cartoonist's FamilyThe Hamilton Spectator provides a pair of articles following up on the death last week of Said Rahimi, the Afghan cartoonist who was struck by a train while delivering pizzas in Hamilton. There was a huge turnout of 500 people for a memorial service at Rahimi's mosque yesterday and a fundraising effort has been started for his wife and six children. According to the Spectator, a Canada Trust bank account has been set up and donations can be deposited directly to Hamilton's Barton Street East TD Canada Trust account number 1026339535. Donations can also be made to the Ibrahim Jame Mosque, 678 King St. E. in Hamilton. Labels: charities, news, people, political cartooning - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Sunday, January 21, 2007 Comics Industry Night at the Vic on the 25th CANCELLED!Informal monthly Toronto event "Industry Night at the Vic" has been cancelled for Jan 25, but will resume February. Organizers Walter and Sean are sad, and they apologize. But they will be happy again soon enough, no doubt. Labels: events, news, Ontario, Toronto - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Comics Scholar Bart Beaty's new book Unpopular Culture now available Comics scholar Bart Beaty- associate professor in the Faculty of Communication and Culture at the University of Calgary, as well as a columnist for both The Comics Journal and The Comics Reporter - has published a new book from University of Toronto Press, Unpopular Culture: Transforming the European Comic Book in the 1990s.Gene Kannenberg of ComicsScholar.org is very happy to be offering this book on their blog at 20% off the cover price, directly from the publisher. Here's a link to the publisher, where you'll find great press such as: Here's a bio of the well respected Mr. Beaty; here's a query of his name on Sequential, and here is the book on Amazon. Labels: Alberta, Calgary, comics history, comics scholarship, links, new books, news, Ontario, Toronto - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Saturday, January 20, 2007 Therefore Repent! in the winter issue of Taddle Creek magazine Hi all, Salgood Sam here, this time with something of my own. First I've posted some more art from my current work in progress, Therefore Repent! on my flickr site. And I've gotten quite a few visits from taddlecreekmag.com ever since the book was featured in their latest winter issue.Here's something Jim just posted obout this over on NMK, Check it out! Labels: graphic novels, people, preview - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Friday, January 19, 2007 Supreme Court Denies Little Sisters Appeal ![]() Various news media are reporting that the Supreme Court of Canada has refused to grant funding to Little Sister's Book and Art Emporium, the Vancouver bookstore that has been fighting Canada Customs. The bookstore had taken Customs to court over the repeated seizure of 2 S&M books and 2 Meatmen comic books. Little Sister's argues that Customs is censoring these books arbitrarily --something the Supreme Court said should not be done way back in 2000. Despite the strength of their case, Little Sister's can't pursue it because they don't have enough money. The Canadian legal system is set up to advance money to litigants in special cases but this case has been stymied, first by the B.C. Court of Appeal and now by the highest court in the land. The decision by the Supreme Court is really a huge blow to Charter Rights in Canada, not least because the majority of Customs' targets are gay and lesbian books. As reported in the Globe and Mail: The ruling all but chokes any possibility of advance funding in future cases, University of Toronto Law Professor Brenda Cossman said. "In order to get advance costs, you have to show that your case is unbelievably, totally special," she said. "If this case wasn't exceptional, I don't know what is. In a press release, Little Sister's discusses the case:
--- other links: Meatmen Comics available from Amazon dykes against harper blog Vancouver Sun Macleans CBC 365gay.com/Canadian Press top: Captain Censored by our own Salgood Sam Labels: British Columbia, censorship, links, news, Ontario, Toronto, Vancouver - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 2comments - Said Shiraga Rahimi, 1971-2007 ![]() Said Shiraga Rahimi, 1971-2007 Said Rahimi, an Afghan-born cartoonist living in Canada, was killed early on the morning of January 15 in Hamilton. Rahimi had recently emigrated to Canada with his family and was working as a pizza delivery man while studying English and preparing an exhibit of his cartoons. He was killed on the job when his van was hit by a train at a railroad crossing at approximately 1:30 am. Rahimi was born in Kabul, Afganistan but lived in Iran and Azerbaijan during the reign of the Taliban. He published political cartoons in several Iranian magazines and also submitted cartoons to international contests. His cartoon output and opinions made both countries inhospitable to him and he brought his family to Canada in September 2005. His ambition was to work as a forensic artist. A funeral was held at a Hamilton mosque on Tuesday and Rahimi was to be buried at Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens in Stoney Creek. Said (Saeid) Rahimi was 35. He is survived by his wife of 21 years, five daughters and two sons. --- Hamilton Spectator Toronto Sun Addiction cartoon contest entry Labels: news, obituaries, Ontario, people, political cartooning, Toronto - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 1comments - Wednesday, January 17, 2007 Manitoba Metis plan Riel comicThis piece of news just in from Regina's Leader-Post: Manitoba Metis plan Riel comicThere's no mention of Chester Brown's comic-stip biography Louis Riel. It is to be a 50 page 'graphic novel' - though novella may be more appropriate - but I suspect it will be chiefly a teaching aid. Here's the link to the article. - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 2comments - Tuesday, January 16, 2007 Writing for Animation, Comics, and Games Montreal-based fps magazine reviewer Cynthina Ward reviews Writing for Animation, Comics and Games by Christy Marx, a "veteran writer, story editor, series developer and game designer with more than 25 years of experience in the fields of animation, comics, and videogames." She writes:Appropriately, Writing for Animation, Comics, and Games is divided into three sections, one each for feature and television animation; for comic books and graphic novels; and for computer and console games. Each section is well-organized, divided into chapters and subchapters that focus on script formats, terminology, agents, breaking in, trade shows, unions, jobs, freelancing, where to live, copyrights and trademarks, getting paid, and so on. This detailed, practical book offers much information you can get only from an industry insider—information that few other insiders have publicly shared. Labels: Quebec - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Monday, January 15, 2007 Canucks in NYTThe New York Times covers the current crop of U.S. strip reprints and several Canadians (including reluctant honourary member Joe Matt) weigh-in with a few opinions. Jeet Heer, Chris Oliveros, and Seth are all quoted and the writer of the new Charles Schulz biography says some of the nicest things yet about Seth's designs for the collected Peanuts (and don't forget, the 14th episode of Seth's new GN, George Sprott, is now online at the NYT).
Comics Reprints - New York Times Labels: can-con, comic strips - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Jeff LemireI missed this when it was posted a few weeks back: The Torontoist blog reviews Xeric-winning Toronto cartoonist Jeff Lemire's new book, Tales From the Farm. Lemire is also creating a sci-fi strip for U.R. magazine. Very expressive cartooning with lots of bold blacks. Labels: graphic novels, news, Ontario, people, Toronto - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 1comments - Delisle in Ottawa CitizenGuy Delisle is profiled in an Ottawa Citizen article about the growth of graphic novels that also quotes Chris Butcher and includes the top ten 2006 GNs as chosen by "the staff of The Beguiling":
Labels: graphic novels, news, Ottawa, Quebec - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Invaders from the BinAvi Weinryb reviews the new book of Canadian comics history, Invaders from the North, over at Comic Book Bin: If you get past the freaky cover art, you will discover that Invaders from the North is an astounding addition to the slow-growing pile of books that focus on comic book criticism and history. An added boon is the fact that this micro-tome pins its focus on Canadian contributions to the comics world... Labels: comics history - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 1comments - More on Zombi-fication of FBOFWThe Ottawa Citizen (subscription needed) covers some of the negative reactions to Lynn Johnston's decision to continue her comic strip For Better of For Worse in a hybrid form past its announced end-date. Some related discussion, including a Chip Zdarsky pastiche, can be found here, here, and here,. You can also join the Yahoo FBOFW discussion group (400-odd messages so far in January) to get the low-down from fans. Labels: comic strips, Lynn Johnston, Ottawa - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Sunday, January 14, 2007 ShapetionaryNadia sends over this email, to ponder:
Labels: links - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Friday, January 12, 2007 This WeekendThe monthly Pop Culture Collectibles Fair is on at the Croatian Cultural Centre, 3250 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, B.C. Labels: British Columbia, events, Vancouver - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Inkstuds: Dan NadelDan Nadel was the guest this week on Inkstuds, the Vancouver radio show hosted by Robin McConnell. Last week the guest was Dave McCaig, a local comic book colourist. You can hear podcasts of the show here. Labels: British Columbia, people, pod casts, Vancouver - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Thursday, January 11, 2007 Quebec Comics 2006BDQ 2006 ![]() Over at the BDQ forums, comics journalist and scholar Michel Viau has released his annual assessment of comics production in Quebec. Viau's Bilan BDQ 2006 (google translation) is along the lines of the report on the market in France released by Gilles Ratier last week. In discussing the number and type of bande dessinee published in Quebec, Viau in part answers the prayers of Bart Beaty from his discussion of the Ratier report at Comics Reporter, as well as my own question about numbers in Canada. Some of the distinctions Viau makes might seem confusing to readers outside Canada (for instance the anglo publisher D&Q is referred to as a publisher of Quebec comics/BDQ despite being basically a translator; ditto the publisher of French-language Garfield collections), but it's easy if you think of BDQ as "comics from Quebec" rather than "Quebecois comics" --that is, as a very broad category encompassing everything comics-related published in the province, which is what Viau's catholic article does. Viau lists every album published (excluding zines and magazines) and includes a general discussion about genre, target audience, trends, etc. with tons of statistics. One of the issues the report makes clear is the general fragility of the publishing industry: although it has grown, many publishers last only a few years, statistcally. For the academic-minded, Viau also lists separately 5 books about comics published in 2006. What we don't really have are sales figures. C'est la vie! Still, a very thorough report! My own rough translation of the first part of Viau's excellent overview:
Labels: analysis, news, Quebec - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Wednesday, January 10, 2007 Star Covers Johnston Non-retirementThe Toronto Star picks up on Lynn Johnston's plan to continue with a hybrid zombie form of her popular For Better or For Worse strip. The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon is quoted: Internet chat rooms and discussion groups continue to buzz with opinions about the strip, particularly about the romantic future of Elizabeth Patterson, who has three suitors: former high school boyfriend Anthony, new love interest Paul, a policeman, and dark horse Warren, a helicopter pilot. Labels: news, Ontario, people, Toronto - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Hamilton Spectator cartoonist Wins PrizeHamilton Spectator policart Graeme MacKay won a Citation of Excellence from the United Nations Correspondents Association Ranan Lurie Political Cartoon Awards. The Citation, for a cartoon published last July on the crisis in Palestine and Israel, is not to be confused with the $10,000 first prize (or second or third). Hamilton Spectator - News - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Tuesday, January 09, 2007 FBOFW to StayThe big news in the Canadian and International comic strip world is that Lynn Johnston has decided to keep producing new For Better or for Worse strips after the previously announced date for the strip to end. As reported in Editor and Publisher (link courtesy of Tom Spurgeon) yesterday, the strip will remain in papers as a hybrid, a combination of new framing sequences and classic strips from the past 28 years. Johnston had previously complained of the grind of researching and drawing a daily strip for over a quarter century and had announced she would be ending the strip over the next year after winding up her current continuity with the intention of working on other projects and taking a few trips (and maybe returning to the characters off and on in other formats). According to E&P: In the hybrid, many previously published "FBorFW" strips and scenes will be reprinted. The jumping-off point for those comics (which could include some redrawn and recolorized content) might be Michael looking at old photos or scrapbooks. While the move may please many longtime fans, many other young cartoonists who may had been anticipating the massive hole in the daily comics page worldwide, with an eye towards greater syndication for their own strips, will now be disappointed. Blog reactions to this "rerun" news have been slow in coming out but Sequential will keep you posted. - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Best of 2006?As I mentioned in the previous post, it was harder than ever to keep up with comics published in Canada in 2006. And Canuck books faced quite a bit of competition for my attention from the surfeit of US, Japanese and Euro comics that have been flooding the market the last few years. For the most part, I have been spending a lot of time with the big classic strip reprints of Popeye, Gasoline Alley, Peanuts and Krazy Kat and neglecting contemporary comics outside of this linkblog. That being said, I can recommend a few good books that I didn't get around to reviewing in 2006. The best "graphic novel" I read was Joe Ollman's collection of shorts, This Will All End In Tears. I can also recommend the teen angst OEL manga Dramacon by Svetlana Chmakova as an affecting work from a very promising young talent (Jamie Coville reviews the latest volume here). Lastly, the smartest strip collection (and the best political cartoon) this past year was Weltschmerz by Gareth Lind. Besides Joe Ollman, lots of other comics, French and English, came out of Quebec in 2006. Sequential correspondent Pierre-Andre Dery weighs in with his picks for "some of the best of 2006 in Quebec": Quelques Pelures (Augmented reprint) by Jimmy Beaulieu (Mecanique Generale) Paul a la peche by Michel Rabagliati (La Pasteque) Rapide-Blanc by Pascal Blanchet (La Pasteque) Troglodytes by Paul Bordeleau (Webcomic to see print later in 2007) Ojingogo by Matt Forsythe (Webcomic) And that's it --see you next year! - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Monday, January 08, 2007 2006 in Review2006 in Review by Bryan Munn Let's see what I forget... 1. Publishing 2006 was quite an impressive year for comics actually published in Canada. Besides the predictable demise of Toronto's ill-fated Speakeasy, the year was generally positive for publishers and, by extension, the cartoonists they publish. While I'm sure most of these outfits are struggling and very few cartoonists (can you name more than twenty?) actually make a decent living from comics and must make ends meet with illustration gigs, teaching, etc, the ability of a large group of small presses to relatively thrive is news in itself. 2006 saw the surprising continued survival of Mr. Comics, one of the few publishers to try appealing to the traditional superhero/adventure comics monthly pamphlet market. In 2006, Hope Larson became a publisher and several more established presses produced a huge amount of books. L' Oie de Cravan, Mecanique Generale, Conundrum Press, Les 400 Coups, and Drawn and Quarterly all had banner years in terms of quality and quantity of published comics. Toronto's Kiss Machine and a variety of self-publishers, mini-comics engines, webcomics sites and tiny boutique presses also published some interesting work. So much is going on it is sometimes hard to keep track: were there more than 100 comics published in Canada in 2006? 200? 300? I have no idea. 2.Cartoonist milestones While the major story continues to be the seemingly ever-increasing respect that comics and cartoonists in general are getting from readers and the media, 2006 was a pretty good year for a select group of cartoonists. Off the top of my head, creators like Michel Rabagliati, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Mark Bell, and Seth all achieved high profile publishing deals, coverage and recognition that would have seemed like pipe- dreams a few years ago. As well, many of the cartoonists and writers who toil away in the traditional world of U.S. genre comics continue to carve out (some quite successfully!) viable careers for themselves --see the massive list put out by the Shusters people last week to understand the amount of work being done for that market. Maybe J. Torres and Darwyn Cooke exemplify the heights that have been scaled there. 3. Awards Sequential did its best to link to coverage of the major comics-related awards in Canada in 2006: Shuster Winners Political cartooning Prix Bedelys Expozine Bedeis Causa Doug Wright Awards 4. Passages 2006 saw several cartoonists pass away, including editorial cartoonists Ed Franklin and Sid Barron. 1940s Canadian Whites cartoonist Michael "Bud" Riley and pioneering graphic novelist Bus Griffiths also passed away. 2006 also saw the deaths of Winnipeg-born Playboy magazine cartoon editor Michelle Urry and comics scholar Lillian Robinson. 5. Censorship and cartoon criminality Unfortunately 2006 did not see the end of comics censorship in Canada. Canada Customs continued its practice of blocking the import of comics on obscenity grounds using an arbitrary and ignorant system and hassling many legit retailers and average consumers. Lost Girls was the most high-profile case but there are many more examples. One case we didn't link to was Elizabeth McClung's ordeal trying to bring some manga into Canada, as she documents on her blog Screw Bronze!. The government did have some luck in finding some seemingly real comics contraband in a few cases. Censorship wasn't limited to government agencies in 2006. Bookseller Chapters/Indigo was lambasted over its refusal to carry an issue of US magazine Harper's because of controversial content related to the Danish Cartoon Controversy. General fallout over the Danish controversy (the biggest comics story worldwide for the last few years) continued well into July and still hasn't abated in some quarters. On a related note, Sequential covered several other international stories with a Canadian connection, including the trials of Iranian exile Nik Kowsar and of Mana Neyestani. Sequential also interviewed Marc Pageu, the only Canadian cartoonist who wanted to have anything to do with Iran's ridiculous and generally hateful Holocaust cartoon contest. --- That's about it. Sequential tried to be a daily (well, at least every weekday) guide to all that was newsworthy or at least interesting in the world of Canadian comics and cartooning in 2006. We didn't always catch everything and sometimes our linkblogging was a little late or amateurish but we hope that some of the things that turned up here were of use (or maybe just entertaining) to some part of our tiny readership. Here's to a better and more professional 2007 for Sequential and team Canada comics! Labels: links, Manitoba, news, Winnipeg - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 2comments - Tyler Dorchester and the BrotherhoodVancouver's Xtra West profiles local cartoonist Tyler Dorchester and his comic strip chronicle of queer life, The Brotherhood: "In fact, he reserves his sharpest criticism for the body conformity and materialism pressures of the queer party scene. Labels: Alberta, British Columbia, people, Vancouver - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - BC Conservatives Touchy about Political CartoonsWriting for the Abbotsford News, Neil Corbett documents the surprising increase in complaints about the cartoons of Adrian Raeside and Ingrid Rice now that their targets are no longer members of the Liberal party: People should understand that these cartoonists do not work out of an office here in Abbotsford, and take direction from News editor Rick Rake. Rather, they are in syndication and published in numerous newspapers. Labels: British Columbia, news - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Thursday, January 04, 2007 Catching upA few news links from the past few weeks: -Colin Upton switches from Blogspot to Livejournal and sums up the past year in one of his first new blog posts -Hamilton Spectator political cartoonist Graeme MacKay chooses his faves from his own batch of local cartoons of 2006 -Comic Book Bin profiles Rosena Fung, creator of the comic strip Soap Box -Ottawa Citizen cartoonist Cam Cardow looks back at the year in editorial cartoons and talks about free speech and how funny politicians are, etc -The Edmonton Journal reviews a batch of recent graphic novels, including Guy Delisle's SHENZHEN. -Miles Fielder writing for Living Scotsman.com provides a review of Wimbledon Green that declares "some kind of childhood's end informs the bittersweet tone of the book" -Dave Sim compares Cerebus and Lynn Johnston's For Better or For Worse in a recent blog post: "My own opinion is that Lynn Johnston's For Better or Worse is probably the closest analogue because it's also done in comics form and it's also a rare instance where comics characters actually age and change. A lot of people will tend to roll their eyes at that because For Better or Worse is not seen as a particularly sophisticated (as opposed to populist) strip and certainly if you were to try and read the entire history of the strip it would far more resemble a soap opera than it would a novel, but in terms of large narratives it is a very large narrative and it does strive for realism and the sense of being a document of actual lives, as opposed to the latest try at breathing life into an old trademark." Labels: Edmonton, links, news, Ottawa - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Wednesday, January 03, 2007 Shuster Awards: The Big 2006 ListHappy New Year! Kicking off a week of coverage of the year that was here at Sequential. First up is a request from the Shuster Awards team for additions to their giant master list of Canadian creators from 2006. Diana Tamblyn writes: "We are putting together a list of all works by Canadian creators for 2006 for consideration for the Shuster awards." You can see the list here. It's quite impressive. In the next few days we will try to catch up with recent news about Canadian comics and cartooning. We will also try to offer a few thoughts on the "best of" 2006 and try to recap some of the significant events we covered at Sequential over the last year. - Stumble It! - Leave a comment!| 0comments - Archive by Region Alberta - British Columbia - Calgary - Gatineau - Halifax - Moncton - Montreal - New Brunswick - Newfoundland - Nova Scotia - Ontario - PEI - Quebec - Saskatchewan - Saskatoon - Toronto - Vancouver - Victoria - Winnipeg - Archive by Month August 2002 - September 2002 - October 2002 - November 2002 - December 2002 - January 2003 - February 2003 - March 2003 - April 2003 - May 2003 - June 2003 - July 2003 - August 2003 - September 2003 - October 2003 - November 2003 - December 2003 - January 2004 - February 2004 - March 2004 - April 2004 - May 2004 - June 2004 - July 2004 - August 2004 - September 2004 - October 2004 - November 2004 - December 2004 - January 2005 - February 2005 - March 2005 - April 2005 - May 2005 - June 2005 - July 2005 - August 2005 - September 2005 - October 2005 - November 2005 - December 2005 - January 2006 - February 2006 - March 2006 - April 2006 - May 2006 - June 2006 - July 2006 - August 2006 - September 2006 - October 2006 - November 2006 - December 2006 - January 2007 - February 2007 - March 2007 - April 2007 - May 2007 - June 2007 - July 2007 - August 2007 - September 2007 - October 2007 - November 2007 - December 2007 - January 2008 - February 2008 - March 2008 - April 2008 - May 2008 - June 2008 - July 2008 - August 2008 - September 2008 - October 2008 - November 2008 - December 2008 - January 2009 - February 2009 - March 2009 - April 2009 - May 2009 - June 2009 - July 2009 - August 2009 - September 2009 - October 2009 - November 2009 - December 2009 - January 2010 - February 2010 - March 2010 - |