Labels: book launches, cartoonists, new books, news, tools of the trade, Toronto, trade

Do It Yourself GoreFest:
Special Effects on the Cheap

Indie Artist, Promote Yourself:
A How-to Guide to DIY Promotion lead by indie promoter extraordinaire Trevor Coleman.

Labels: book launches, can-con, Canzine, conventions, events, new books, news, Ontario, small press, Toronto, undergrounds, zine fair, zines

Labels: comic jams, events, Montreal, Quebec

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Labels: book launches, Ontario, Toronto

Labels: events, exhibits, Gatineau, Quebec

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Labels: comic jams, Montreal, Quebec

it's two days until the jam and I have still not been able to secure a venue. I've followed up on all of the leads that have been sent my way but none have panned out - either the place is already booked or they have some sort of event going on already.

I'm still looking, but things are not looking good for this month.

HOWEVER, someone brought to my attention that this Saturday is ALSO 24 Hour Comic Day. So, instead of meeting at one venue, why don't we have pockets of people meeting all over during the day (an idea suggested by someone else here) and then meeting later in the eve at a pub to celebrate. This way, we can have smaller groups pushing each other to create their 24 hour comic.

The easiest thing to do, might be to comment here or go over to the Crown Commission message board (www.crowncommission.com/phpbb2) and discuss in the VCJ October thread. Arrange where you guys want to meet. Suggest pubs and I guess we can all meet up at whatever seems to be the better idea.

As for venues -- I'm still looking. I'm open to all suggestions. I have a couple places that might work for November, but nothing for this month. What I would ideally like to do is find a cafe that is licenced and maybe closes earlier on a Saturday. I could pay for a staff member if they're willing to open up for us. OR, if there is a hall/meeting space/centre/theatre/whatever, that could be rented for a couple hundred bucks (or less) on a regular basis. It would have to be someplace that would allow us to serve booze.

Please, keep the ideas coming.

Labels: British Columbia, comic jams, events, Vancouver

it's the Rendez-vous International de la
Bande Dessinee de Gatineau this week-end. Among the authors present,
you'll find: Christian Darasse, Bosse, Boulet and Emmanuel Lepage (fron
Europe), Francois Miville-Deschenes, Philippe Giriard (phlppgrrd) from
Quebec. And this year, there will be some english-speaking cartoonists
too: Tom Fowler and Bill Slavin.

Labels: events, Gatineau, pr, Quebec

Labels: art show, events, exhibits, Ontario, Toronto, webcomics

Wanna witness the first ever attempt at comics stenography?

Moved by the old American fable that recounts Francis Scott Key's inspiration to write the Star Spangled banner as he watched the bombardment of Baltimore's Fort McHenry during the War of 1812, I've decided to drag a ragtag team of Toronto's best comics artists to Fort York and have them document the city's most famous literary salon and lecture series, Trampoline Hall, with their artistic medium. You'll get to see lectures by non-experts. You'll see hipster girls, who tend to be very cute. You'll drink beer.

All this will take place at Fort York's Blue Barracks next Monday, October 22nd at 8pm sharp (show early, no latecomers admitted!).

Tickets are five bucks and sell out in a heartbeat. Trampoline Hall always sells out. If you'd like to be on the guest list for the show, let me know and I'll reserve a spot or two for you.

Read about Trampoline Hall at http://www.trampolinehall.net

The show has been covered by everyone from the New Yorker to the Globe and Mail to the Toronto Star. This is a great opportunity for the city's comics community to make inroads with the city's literary and visual arts scenes, both of which are heavily involved in Trampoline Hall.

Labels: events, Ontario, Toronto

Award-winning Quebecois cartoonist Pascal Blanchet's graphic novel is a compelling account of the rise and fall of the small northern town of White Rapids. In the first English translation of his work, Blanchet seamlessly blends fact and fiction as he weaves together the official history of the town and snapshots of the quotidian life of its residents. Founded in 1928 in an isolated region of Quebec forest, the town was conceived and constructed by the Shawinigan Water & Power Company to function as a fully-equipped, self-contained living community for workers at the nearby dam and their families. Intended as an incentive to lure workers to the remote and inaccessible region, White Rapids provided its residents with all the luxuries of middle-class modern life in a pastoral setting - until the town was abruptly shut down in 1971, when the company changed hands.

Blanchet's unique, streamlined, retro-inspired aesthetic draws on Art Deco and fifties Modernist design to vividly conjure up idyllic scenes of lazy summer days and crisp winter nights in White Rapids, transporting the reader back to a more innocent time.

ISBN: 9781897299241

$27.95 US / $29.95 CDN

Labels: book launches, c, comics retailers, comicshoptalk, events, graphic novels, Montreal, new books, publishing, Quebec

Labels: book launches, Montreal, new books, Quebec

Chiaroscuro is the story of Steven Patch, an unemployed artist with a single blank canvas. Steven's busy living the introspective, angst-ridden life of your average twenty-something; drinking too much and complaining about his situation while doing little to improve it. A case of mistaken identity pushes Steven into a flow of events that bring him places he'd never imagined and forces him to make a choice between art and mere existence.

Link to the Chiaroscuro on the IDW site, includes a 5 page preview of the story.

Troy interviewed on CBC via youtube

Labels: book launches, can-con, cartoonists, comics on tv, new books, PEI, preview, profiles

Labels: cartoonists, Edmonton, profiles

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This is McCulloch's first graphic novel, but he's had a long history within the comic-book universe. In the '80s, he joined a coalition of comic book enthusiasts, which would eventually come to be known as Strawberry Jam Comics. Through this group, a total of 14 issues of two titles were published in a time that McCulloch refers to as the "black-and-white boom."

"[The boom] followed the advent of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, when all of a sudden, a whole bunch of people at the same time realized that it was actually pretty cheap to publish a black and white comic book," he recalls. "And, as evidenced by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, it didn’t really have to be that good to do very well.

"Following the boom, very quickly there was a bust," he continues. "Unfortunately, our publication schedule was very erratic, and we managed to put out a bunch of them before the boom happened, and a bunch of stuff after the bust happened. So we completely missed the window when there was money to be made."

Labels: comics history, Edmonton, graphic novels

"We can naturally read symbols," said Walker to the small group cluttered inside the Eastern Edge Gallery on Sunday afternoon.

"These artists were aware of comic books and the funnies in the newspaper. They were aware of sequence-based art, and how you can tell a story just in images. It's not a new thing. Even the Egyptians knew it. Cavemen knew it. It's in us."

Some of the earliest works of engraved literature have fallen to the wayside, says Walker, because their art was often leftist and therefore repressed.

But Walker believes we owe a great deal to these early, wordless storytellers. So he selected four stories from his personal collection, edited the original prints in Adobe Photoshop, and reproduced them for the world.

"I said to the publisher, 'You have to reproduce these artists or otherwise they'll fall into obscurity,'" he said.

"They had been the inspiration for other artists who had gone on to create the graphic novels in the 20th century we're so familiar with, like Will Eisnor's Contract With God and Maus by Art Spiegelman, which have made a great impact and brought the graphic novel out of the darkness of being just comic relief and funny paper entertainment, to serious literature," he said.

Labels: comics history, graphic novels, publishing, woodcuts

Several cities, such as Montreal, have jamming sessions organized by local comic book creators. Why not try to schedule one of them during a comic book convention and invite the public to watch how comics are made on the spot? One of the best cross promotion effort I have witnessed was in 2005 at a Montreal fashion and art show with a comic book theme. The problem organizers had was convincing local comic book artists to participate with the organization. They were reluctant to see paintings and sculptures inspired by comic book themes.

Labels: analysis, comic jams, comics retailers, events, publishing, Quebec

Labels: British Columbia, Vancouver

Some months ago, cartoonist Phil Elliott was approached on the street by a teenage girl asking for money. It's a sad but common enough occurrence in cities, but when Elliott refused, the situation became something much different from anything he'd experienced. "A younger kid -- he must have only been about ten -- started swearing at me, 'Give us some ******* money!'" he recalled. "I was then aware that there was another girl filming all this on her mobile phone. What was going on here? Were they trying to provoke me? What happened to the video?"

The incident took on a greater significance for Elliott when writer Thomas Behe contacted him to see if he were interested in drawing a comic he'd written, which explores a voyeuristic underground where profit-hungry youths prowl the streets secretly filming violence and catastrophes with mobile devices. That comic became Contraband, the new digital comic from SLG Publishing, distributed on their online comics site Eyemelt.com.

The four-issue series will begin its serialization in October 2007, and a print collection of Contraband will be published in February 2008. A preview is available here at SLG's website, www.slgcomic.com.

Behe was inspired to write the story after he noticed people worrying about cell phones. "The new concerns were more social-related," he said. "Kids receiving intimidating texts from class bullies. A mate of mine was even propositioned to subscribe to some sort of spy-cam exhibitionist mobi-blog. I had no idea why these folks were secretly filming everyone, but there was tons of stuff on there."

In the near-future society of Contraband, bands of content-hungry amateurs armed with camera phones record violent scenes, some of which they instigate, to satisfy society's demand for ever more shocking on-the-go entertainment. Toby, a self-styled "citizen journalist," is documenting this underground when he is discovered by agents for a cell-phone channel called Contraband. Forced to work for them, Toby is assigned the task of finding a female activist set on sabotaging Contraband and must navigate a difficult path where he must choose between his own safety and the greater good.

Woven throughout Contraband are key elements of modern wireless communication, including text messaging, online blogging, avatars and alerts, gaming and live video broadcast, reflecting Behe's vision of a future society in which people can view customized video content on their mobile phones.This vision was part of what drew Elliott, a respected cartoonist known for his work on Illegal Alien and the SLG graphic novel Tupelo. "Contraband interweaves the controversial aspects of the mobile phone industry with a storyline involving a disparate bunch of characters who find themselves drawn together by the device in their pocket," said Elliott. "Each character has a story to tell and each one of them needs to find a way to come to terms with their predicament."

Contraband is available now at www.eyemelt.com, downloadable in PDF format for only $0.89. New issues will be added monthly. The SLG Publishing print graphic novel will be available for pre-order at comic book stores in December 2007. For more information about comic book publisher SLG Publishing, visit their website at www.slgcomic.com.

Labels: digital comics, new books, webcomics

Labels: anthologies, bd, can-con, cartoon reportage, comics writers, Expozine, Montreal, new books, news, Quebec, small press

Labels: British Columbia, events, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Toronto, Vancouver

Labels: Alberta, British Columbia, Edmonton, links, Quebec

Award-winning graphic novel writer and former Edmonton resident Derek McCulloch will return to his old stomping grounds this October to pass on a little of what he's learned about the blues in his time in America. On Friday, October 5th, McCulloch will appear first at Happy Harbor comics, where he will sign copies of his graphic novel, Stagger Lee. Later that evening, he will appear at the Edmonton Public Library, where he will give a slide show and lecture on the history and myth of Stagger Lee.

Appearing with Derek is local comic historian and professional reviewer Tim Lasiuta who will be signing copies of his book "Brush Strokes With Greatness - Life & Times of Joe Sinnott" and will be available to talk to fans about other great comic legends. You can listen to Tim's weekly, live comic webcast on World News Radio's COMIC ZONE every Wednesday at 2 pm Pacific!

Friday, October 5th, 4 p.m - 6 p.m. - Signing
at Happy Harbor Comics,
10112 - 124 Street,
(780) 452-8211
7 p.m. - Slide show, reading,
Q&A, and signing at Edmonton Public Library,
Centre Core, Centre for Reading and the Arts,
Stanley A Milner Library,
7 Sir Winston Churchill Square,
(780) 496-7000

Labels: book launches, comics in libraries, comics retailers, Edmonton, events, new books, news

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