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We lived with the comics growing up -- we loved them. My grandfather and my father would analyze them, and my father was quite a good cartoonist but never pursued it. So all my life I remember looking at the comics not as an entertainment, but rather as a piece of art. I loved comic books too, [especially] any one where the female character was believable or strong. I liked Little Dot, Little Lulu, and of course I liked Peanuts, because even though Lucy was kind of a crab, she was strong.

Labels: comic strips, interviews

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Labels: cartoonists, comic jams, events, Quebec

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The crowd, estimated at 400, is different from the usual Comicon attendees. "We get a lot more art students, a lot more women, and a lot more people interested in comics more as art than a graphic narrative," says organizer Leonard Wong, reached by phone in Vancouver. Dealers stock their tables with Love & Rockets graphic novels, R. Crumb memorabilia, and the latest from Daniel Clowes and Julie Doucet.

In the '90s, Wong began bringing in Seattle artists like Jason Lutes and Ed Brubaker. But "it honestly confused a lot of the people who were coming to the shows for Batman comic books and whatnot," Wong says. It was spun into "a once-a-year thing, with the focus on independent creators".

This year's Comix & Stories, at Heritage Hall, features Farel Dalrymple. The Portland-based artist writes and draws his own title, Pop Gun War , and is illustrating the upcoming Omega: The Unknown , from an obscure 1970s Marvel comic. Novelist Jonathan Lethem ( The Fortress of Solitude ) is writing the series. Local guests include Robin Bougie, publisher of cult-film 'zine C inema Sewer ; Camilla d'Errico, creator of the manga series Avril Lavigne's Make 5 Wishes and Nightmares and Fairytales ; and the Straight 's own Josue Menjivar ( Everyday Things ).

This will be Libicki's third year at Comix & Stories. "It's a pretty neat community," she says. "They're all great people. And we're all doing completely different things."

Labels: British Columbia, events, Vancouver

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WEBCOMICS COLLECTIVE TRANSMISSION-X EXPANDS PROGRAMMING


Toronto-based webcomics group Transmission-X (http://www.transmission-x.com) has added four new ongoing comics to its daily schedule. In addition to the five comics that launched the site – Karl Kerschl's Ragni: The North Sea Epoch and The Abominable Charles Christopher, Andy B's Raising Hell, Scott Hepburn's The Port and Cameron Stewart's Sin Titulo -- Transmission-X is now proud to announce the debut of Ramon Perez's Kukuburi, Arthur Dela Cruz's Kissing Chaos: Til I Die, Brian McLachlan's The Princess Planet, and Michael Cho's Papercut.

Kukuburi, written and illustrated by Ramon Perez, is the story of a motorcycle courier plucked from her mundane existence and thrust into a bizarre, dreamlike world where anything can (and does) happen. Perez is the co-creator and illustrator of the popular webcomic Butternutsquash, and has illustrated comics and role-playing games from publishers such as DC Comics and Palladium Press.

Kissing Chaos: Til I Die, written and illustrated by Arthur Dela Cruz, is the latest, all-new installment of his Eisner Award-nominated series about doomed romance, originally published by Oni Press.

The Princess Planet, by Brian McLachlan, is the long-running fantasy-humour strip appearing at www.theprincessplanet.com. McLachlan is a writer and cartoonist whose work has appeared in Owl Magazine, The Toronto Star, and Nickelodeon Magazine.

Papercut, by Michael Cho, is an ongoing anthology of short stories by the acclaimed illustrator, whose work has appeared in dozens of magazines and children’s books. Papercut will update on the 15th of every month with a complete, original story.

Also making its debut at last weekend's Toronto Comic Arts Festival were the first installments of TXTV, a weekly video podcast filmed and edited by Brenden Fletcher that features a behind-the-scenes look at the life and work of all the Transmission-X creators. TXTV will be available for weekly download beginning in September.

Transmission-X is found on the web at http://www.transmission-x.com and is updated daily with free, original content. Media enquiries can be sent to signal@transmission-x.com.

Labels: comic strips, Ontario, publishing, Toronto, webcomics

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What: Vancouver Comic Jam.
When: Saturday, August 18th, 2007. 8pm until midnight.
Where: Original Joe's (Broadway and Cambie)
Who: Anyone who is of legal drinking age is invited.
How Much: Free. Bring your own pencils/pens. Paper is provided.

RAV line construction is taking place on Cambie, so keep that in mind if you need to park. There should be plenty of parking available on the side streets.

Crosspost as you see fit.

Upcoming Comic Jam dates have been posted here: http://community.livejournal.com/vcj/profile

Visit us on Comic Space: http://www.comicspace.com/vancouver_comic_jam/

Comment or email me edbrisson[at]gmail[dot]com to be added to the mailing list.

Labels: British Columbia, comic jams, events, Vancouver

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Bell had discovered the comics while searching an estate sale for antiques and collectibles suitable for his shop, Affordable 2nd Thoughts. Bell believes that the deceased owner of the items had once owned a bookstore, but he wouldn't give any other information about the man.

When he opened the box of comic books, he was so amazed by their pristine condition he thought they might be reproductions. When he realized the comic books were originals - they had been meticulously stored between newspapers and left untouched since 1955 - he felt his heart race.

"I made them an offer and that was only after seeing the first few books on the stack," says Bell. "I was beside myself because you don't normally see this type of quality materialize. ... I made an offer of whatever I had on me, which was just over $3,000. [The sellers] were absolutely ecstatic, and pretty much thinking I was insane, because that is still a lot of money for a box of comic books."

Labels: auctions, British Columbia, comics retailers, international, Vancouver

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SUPER AMIGOS (Canada/Mexico) This absorbing documentary also employs some comic-book-style animation to tell the story of several Mexican activists who assume superhero personas, in the tradition of lucha libre wrestlers, to fight for social causes. Super Barrio helps residents fight evictions, Super Animal fights to save bulls from being tortured in bullfights, Super Ecologista combats environmental pollution, Super Gay battles homophobia, and Fray Tormenta stands up for the poor. It becomes clear these super amigos cannot surmount all the obstacles they face, but their resilience, accomplishments, and effort remain inspirational. Cinemark Tinseltown, August 17 (5 p.m.), and Vancity Theatre, August 23 (9:45 p.m.)

Labels: British Columbia, comics on film, international, Vancouver

When ordering in for a quiet night at home, what's your favourite place for take-out or delivery?

I hate to say it, but lately it's been Pizza Pizza (various locations -- you know the number). They've got a new Tikka-Masala sauce on their pizzas that my husband loves and so any time ordering-out comes up, he just smiles at me and I know we're having Pizza Pizza.

Labels: barely comics, food, Ontario, Toronto

I think comics are a great medium. In a way, I think they are better for telling history. I read a lot of biographies, but six months after reading them, the details have already faded about that person's life. If I wanted to quickly refresh myself it wouldn't be as easy as picking up a comic book and reminding myself about the events that happened because pictures convey the story so quickly. Assuming I didn't write this (Chester thumbs through a copy of Louis Riel), if I wanted to review the incidents of the story, I can gleam through them pretty quickly, after already having read the book. I think comics are a good way of telling history in that way for conveying information and then making it convenient for a reader after finishing the book.

Labels: graphic novels, interviews

Stuart and Kathryn Immonen, long time collaborators and malcontents, are pleased to announce the first printing of their year-long web project Never As Bad As You Think (978-0-9780216-1-0, Trade paperback, 64 color pp, $5.95 US).

Based on the weekly word choice provided by the heavily trafficked web-based drawing project Illustration Friday and inspired by a range of fluid story-telling strategies from the Surrealists to Richard Linklater, NABAYT tracks the (mostly) failed relationships of paranoid urbanites, murderous wait staff, talking cats and dogs, dissatisfied ambulance drivers, mariachi bands, people who like cake and many who wield knives for a variety of purposes.

This full color printing contains all 52 strips as well as a new introduction written by Nickelodeon Magazine Senior Editor Chris Duffy. Never As Bad As You Think will be making its debut on August 18 at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival and will then be available exclusively through http://www.immonen.ca/store/.

Labels: Ontario, publishing, Toronto, webcomics

The other is Comic Book Magic, targeted to graphic novelists. This automates colouring and adds some basic movement to frames, like billowing smoke or a waving hand. This one will go for less than $100.

"For people who do comics, their main concern is dialogue. They don't want to spend too much time on drawing," Vogelesang said.

This new program also responds to the comic book's emancipation from ink and paper. Web-based comics have enjoyed cult followings since the Internet's inception. A "Publish" button in the program asks the user to which medium the work is destined: iPods, PlayStation Portables, YouTube or mobile phones.

This also gives Toon Boom a passage into the Web, one of the last remaining strongholds of a rival program, Macromedia Flash.

The company is confident. Chief operating officer Stephen Chu said the most frequent comment he heard from test volunteers was: "With this I don't need to use Flash anymore."

Labels: let's get technical, Quebec, tools of the trade

In the coming weeks she'll find out whether a Cartoon Network show she's created will get the green light.

Meanwhile, plans are in the works to give manga-drawing workshops at Max the Mutt Animation School (maxthemutt.com), in Toronto, for teens and adults.

Not bad for someone who was tired of animation after college and didn't know exactly what she was going to do.

Chmakova freelanced here and there after graduation, and fed her manga passion in her spare time.

Bitten by the comic bug while a youngster in Russia, Chmakova fell in love with any cartoon book she could get her hands on. But it was the Russian translation of a Japanimation book called ElfQuest, which she read in 1993, that set her mind on fire.

Labels: comics on tv, international, manga, Ontario, Toronto

Professor Manuela Costantino is one prof who's teaching it in her English Lit course at UBC this summer. And she's not alone. The book is on reading lists in over 100 colleges in the U.S. and is on the approved curriculum for elementary schools in France.

But when Costantino explains the book's success to her students, it's with a sense of incredulity. "She's touring the U.S. reading in public libraries," she says, eyebrows raised, disbelief in her voice. "It's just a comic book."

Labels: comics in school, international

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

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Gaudin had a hunch the troops would appreciate it. Taking a seat on stacks of comic catalogues, two years worth of his own comic covers peeking out from the rack behind him, Gaudin tries to recall how many subscribers he gets in his shop. He figures it's 200 overall. More than a quarter of those, he says, are in the army and navy.

He half-jokes that a few of them will pass through the shop in the next 10 minutes. Many, he hasn't seen in months. "The people who've mysteriously gone missing are probably still there (in Afghanistan)," he says.

"Knowing these guys who are all happy-go-lucky, cool guys that come in the store, and these are friends of mine. And it's hard to think they're in the desert bored out of their minds. That's a job I don’t envy. What I can do is send some comics," he says.

About a month ago, he started asking his military customers if they thought it was a good idea.

Leading seaman Jason Aucoin was one of those guys. His emphatic response: "Oh, yeah."

Aucoin regularly brings a stack of comics with him when at sea, including Gaudin's titles. "You don't get a lot of time to yourself. If you can climb in with a book and escape from everything else, it's a nice little vacation, even if it's only for 20 or 30 minutes," he said.

Gaudin's printer, South Island Print Services in Sidney, B.C. was also impressed by the idea. They agreed to make up the order, gratis.

Labels: British Columbia, comic strips, comics retailers, international

Playing Doctor

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Labels: events, manga, Montreal, Quebec, webcomics

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This book straddles the line between comic anthology and art book but also contains essays to give historical context to the art. Rick Trembles provides a tribute in comic form to movie director Ray Harryhausen. Mavreas contributes a feature on Inuit artist Alootook Ipellie. There is Joe Ollmann's comic on the history of his drawing implements and Andy Brown's essay on the significance of the publishing history of one of Jack Kirby's final comic series. Bernie Mireault provides a comic about a horrific poker game while Patrick R. Burger writes about German pulps from the 1930s which were set in Africa. Of course the book also includes many monster drawings including those by Fiona Smyth. Other contributors include: John Mavreas, Carlos Santos, Jesse Bochner, Tessa Fenger, Jennifer MacIntyre, Shawn Jefferies, Guy Boutin, Helene Brosseau, Leyla Majeri, Rupert Bottenberg, Howard Chackowicz, Sean McCarthy, and Shawn Cheng.

Labels: anthologies, graphic novels, publishing

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Stephens drove home that day feeling like he had a target on his back.

"But since then I've heard dozens of stories of Canadian professionals who have travelled for years without a problem then (were) suddenly harassed in the same manner before being turned away."

The immigration lawyer told him Homeland Security answers to no one.

"He said a flag on your passport from Homeland Security is permanent. The guards are told to be extra, extra careful. I wonder if I caught the border guard on a bad day."

He says it didn't bother him that much, but it upset his family.

"My kids told all their friends that we'd be moving to L.A. for the summer and I had to say, 'Sorry kids, daddy's illegal now so we're not going anymore.' Although, this show is making thousands of Americans rich, it hardly seems fair that I can't even go into the U.S."

Porchlight Entertainment and the Cartoon Network were expecting him to be there and he said it was pretty humiliating when he couldn't go.

Labels: international, real world

The real question is whether the convention, in its current format is beneficial for the comic books as an art form? The comic book is at the cornerstone of this yearly event. In a sense, it's easy to make comic books more acceptable by colluding them with related media and activities, like games, action figures and films. In the greater scheme of things, it's all the same some would say.

I can't help but feel sorry for the artists sitting in Artist Alley. They are like old dinosaurs that cannot be ignored.

Labels: events, international

Labels: comic jams, events, Montreal

A comic book launch featuring two very different visions of the end days, spanning the political spectrum:

Claudia Dávila's spOILed is a peak oil parable about a world without petroleum. A peek at that here.


Salgood Sam and Jim Munroe's THEREFORE REPENT! is a post-Rapture graphic novel about a world without God. preview here on comicspace


The creators will be in attendance, and their original artwork from the comics will be on display. Books, original artwork and silkscreened posters will be on sale. This event kicks off the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, which culminates in the weekend fair of international artists on the U of T campus.

Thursday, August
16th, 8pm-10pm. Free.
Tequila Bookworm (512 Queen St. W., upstairs)

(The Bookworm's new location is ten doors west of their old place, and the upstairs features lots of cozy rooms and an outdoor patio to enjoy their local brews.)

BIOS

Born in Santiago, Chile, Claudia Dávila moved to Canada in 1973 and grew up in the culture-rich cities of Montreal and Toronto. She began drawing and painting at an early age, and was fortunate to attend art-focused public high school Wexford C.I., followed by York University for Visual Arts. She emerged to develop a multi-faceted career of graphic design, art direction, illustration, painting and cartooning. Five years were dedicated to the award-winning children's magazines Chirp, Chickadee and Owl, first as Associate Art Director and subsequently as Art Director. She is presently creating a book-art piece relating to survival in Toronto after the end of petroleum energy, for which she received a Toronto Arts Council grant. Claudia's art is informed by her various interests, such as the environment, social politics, yoga, vegetarian cuisine, ayurveda, and metaphysics, as well as the issue of the end of fossil fuels, and as such is a member of the Toronto Peak Oil Discussion Group.

girloftheknowing.blogspot.com/
me@claudiadavila.com

Salgood Sam is Maxim Douglas backwards: Toronto-born, Montreal-based artist and author. Since the early '90s he's worked professionally for Marvel, DC and other commercial comic publishers as well as in the alternative world of zines and underground comix. In recent years his work has appeared in a variety of comics, such as Terminator 3: Before the Rise (Beckett Comics), the bloody swashbuckling Sea of Red (Image Comics), and Revolution on the Planet of the Apes (Mr Comics). In 2005 he was nominated for the Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent for his self-published book RevolveR, and in 2006 he received a grant from The Canada Council for the Arts to complete another graphic novel currently in the works. He's also worked in animation and as an illustrator, but his first love has always been pictures that talk with balloons.

http://www.salgoodsam.com/
salgood@gmail.com

Jim Munroe had his first novel Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask published by HarperCollins. Despite their interest in his second book, he was uncomfortable with the corporate ownership and went back to his indie press roots. He founded No Media Kings, named in dishonour of right-wing media magnate Rupert Murdoch, and published his next book in Canada himself - it sold just as well, made him more money, and drew attention to the issues of media consolidation and the alternatives to it. His do-it-yourself publishing resource website created an international network of people through which he was able to found The Perpetual Motion Roadshow - a volunteer-run circuit that sent a hundred people on seven-city tours. He recently released a lo-fi sci-fi no-budget movie he wrote and co-produced called Infest Wisely.

nomediakings.org/therefore_repent/
jim@nomediakings.org

Labels: book launches, can-con, conventions, events, Ontario, Quebec, Toronto

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