Labels: comic strips, Edmonton, Ontario, political cartooning, webcomics

Lynn Johnston to headline the 2008 Doug Wright Awards for Canadian Cartooning

Event to be held at Toronto Reference Library

The Doug Wright Awards for Canadian Cartooning is pleased to announce that Lynn Johnston, the award-winning cartoonist behind the long-running strip For Better or For Worse, will be the guest of honour at their 2008 awards ceremony.

Organized in partnership with the Toronto Public Library, the free event will take place Friday Aug. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Toronto Reference Library during which time Johnston will be inducted into the "Giants of the North"; the Canadian Cartoonists' Hall of Fame.

Carried in more than 2,000 newspapers around the world, For Better or For Worse has been collected in more than 30 best-selling books since it first appeared in September 1979; making Johnston arguably the best-known and most successful Canadian cartoonist ever.

Over her three-decade career Johnston has received a number of honours including a Gemini Award (for her animated FBorFW TV series), a Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist (the first woman winner in the history of the National Cartoonists Society) and a Pulitzer Prize nomination for her controversial gay storyline in the early 1990s. In addition, in 1992 she became a Member of the Order of Canada.


On August 8, Johnston will join other giants of Canadian cartooning like Peter Whalley, George Feyer and Doug Wright, when she is inducted into the Giants of the North Hall of Fame. The event will feature a retrospective of her more than 30-year career, a moderated Q&A with the audience and a book signing with Johnston.

The ceremony will comprise just part of the 4th Annual Doug Wright Awards, the country's premier comics awards, which recognizes the best in new and established cartoonists and graphic novelists. The 2008 Wrights will see announcement of the winners of the Best Book trophy, Best Emerging Talent trophy and the "Pigskin Peters" award; a new category dedicated to non-traditional or non-narrative cartooning. (To learn more about the 2008 nominees, visit www.wrightawards.ca.)

As usual, The Wright Awards will also play host to the best and brightest in Canada's cartooning community from Chester Brown (Louis Riel) and Seth (Palookaville) to Ho Che Anderson (King) and Mariko Tamaki (Skim).

The awards will be decided by a jury made up of members of the country's arts and cultural community, including: author and film critic Katrina Onstad, cartoonist Ho Che Anderson, Toronto book seller Marc Glassman, writer, performer Mariko Tamaki and Power Plant curator Helena Rickett.

Labels: awards, comic strips, events, Lynn Johnston, Ontario, Toronto

Y'est back!

C'est le Monthly Monkeytown Comix Jam this Monday, June 30 at the Laundromat (corner St.-George and Cameron.)

This will be our big-ass whopping one-year anniversary jam, with literally several moderately talented comix artists likely to show up!!! It's a once-in-a-lifetime-of-unspecified-length event, the likes of which you've never noticed!!!!

Les jams commencent vers 19h/jams start around 7pm. Catch toi there!

Labels: cartoonists, comic jams, events, Moncton

Labels: graphic novels, publishing

Labels: book launches, events, Montreal, new books, Quebec, reading

Labels: cartoonists, graphic novels

Labels: British Columbia, links, Ontario, Quebec, Toronto, Vancouver

Labels: book launches, can-con, cartoonists, events, new books, Toronto

Labels: comic jams, events, Montreal, Quebec

Labels: book launches, Ontario, Toronto

Labels: Halifax, links, Lynn Johnston, Nova Scotia

Labels: awards, international, Quebec

Labels: book launches, comics history, Ontario, publishing, Toronto, trade, U.S. superhero franchises

• Real World: Rising Gas Prices and the Future of Comics.

• Video: the most recent episode of the Space Channel's "Hypaspace" newscast features a look at the KRAZY! show in Vancouver and an artshow put on by Toronto cartoonist/painters.

• The Shusters: Jamie Coville has photos; Kevin Church has the Top Shelf press release for Jeff Lemire's win; Scott Chantler previews his Superman drawing; volunteer Jason Truong has a full report and photos that crashed my poor 10-year-old computer.

• The Critics: 1 2 reviews of Dave Sim's Judenhass; Blake Bell's The World of Steve Ditko; the new Minx book, Mariko Tamaki's Emiko Superstar.

Labels: British Columbia, links, Ontario, Toronto, Vancouver

Labels: awards, comics history, events, floppies, graphic novels, Ontario, Toronto, U.S. superhero franchises

Labels: awards, comics history, Ontario, Toronto, U.S. superhero franchises

Labels: comics retailers, events, graphic novels, Ontario, publishing, Toronto

SEQUENTIAL ART SYMPOSIUM / VISIONS OF AN ICON / JOE SHUSTER AWARDS

JUNE 14, 2008

Lillian H. Smith Library Auditorium, 239 College Street, Toronto

Schedule:

Lobby Reception Area - Opens at 10 am and runs until 5 pm

Joe Shuster Awards table

Constellation Awards table

A selection of graphic novels and comic books by Joe Shuster Awards nominees - past and present - will be on sale courtesy of Allnewcomics.com

Flyers and promotional items for upcoming shows and events.

Room A Opens at 10 am and runs until 5pm

Signing Room --- there will be approx. 20-25 guests in the signing area.

2008 Poster signing with Tom Grummett and Paul Rivoche will take place from 11-12

Room B Exhibit opens at 10 am and runs until 4-4:30 pm

Visions of an Icon: Canadian Visions of the Man of Steel- Art Exhibit

A large array of original art piece by Canadian comic book creators will be on display.

Room C - Discussions start at 11 am and run until 5 pm

Panel Discussions - Topics will run 45-50 minutes and start on each hour (11, 12, 1, etc)

Tentative Schedule:

11 am --- Comics & Kids: Teaching with Sequential Art

12 noon --- Sequential Art on the Internet: Webcomics

1 pm --- Writing for Sequential Art

2 pm --- Darwyn Cooke's Next Frontier

3 pm --- Superman @ 70: 7 decades of superheroes & comics

4 pm --- John Bell's Invaders From The North: Canadians and Comics
with 2008 Hall of Fame Inductees Pierre Fournier and Stanley Berneche


Then it's break for dinner time at 5 as the library closes and everyone goes for a dinner break while we reconfigure the space for the Awards ceremony, which will take place in Rooms A, B & C (wall dividers will be removed to open the full area up).

7:30 pm --- seating for the Awards ceremony begin.

8 pm --- Joe Shuster Awards Ceremony with Master of Ceremonies Rick Green

Labels: awards, comics history, events, Ontario, Toronto

• Jovan Zimzovski contributes an epic-length profile of webcartoonist Ryan North for the York University paper. The gist? The key to making money in comics is selling t-shirts.

• Social media are like comics, according to rabble.ca writer Wayne MacPhail.

• The Comic Book Bin has a pair of articles about webcomics. First, there is a look at "crowdsourcing" --the practice of strip-mining ideas from users-- popular with DC's Zuda and Canada's own Zeros to Heroes. Second, there is an article about adding to comics to facebook.

Labels: links, webcomics

• The amazing Norwegian cartoonist Jason was in Toronto yesterday, and as Ty Buttars notes, his original art is sold exclusively through The Beguiling.

• Kevin Boyd has some "behind-the-scenes" notes about the upcoming Shuster Awards (this Saturday!) as well as links to the Superman-related event the awards-planners have cooked up. As well, Boyd comments on several controversial nominees for the Wright Awards.

• Jian Gomeshi interviews the curator of Vancouver's KRAZY! gallery show about some of the controversial inclusions over at the CBC's Q podcast.

• Speaking of podcasts, Montreal's Billy Mavreas is interviewed by the Inkstuds gang about his new graphic novel. As well, Canadian Underground comix pioneer Marv Newland is interviewed.

• A French-language review of everyone's favourite new character, Burkette.

Labels: blogosphere, events links, Ontario, Toronto

Labels: book launches, Quebec

Labels: events, graphic novels, Ontario, Toronto, undergrounds

Labels: blogosphere, comics history, Quebec

Hello!

I'll be in New York City this weekend for the MOCCA Art Fest.

http://www.moccany.org/artfest-main.html
Saturday June 7 - Sunday June 8th
Hours: 11:00am - 6:00pm
Admission is $10 each day / $15 weekend pass (weekend pass only $10 for MoCCA members)
Located in the historic Puck Building (293 Lafayette St - S of Houston)

I'll have my prints for sale, including brand new ones of the giveaways and the Indian Princess.

Stop by and say hi!
- Alana McCarthy

Labels: art show, canadians abroad, events, events links, festivals, mocca

Labels: awards, events

Labels: British Columbia, comic jams, Vancouver

• Art Spiegleman on the Vanouver Gallery show.

• Can you read your webcomic in this tiny device?

• Heroes in London, ON gets new digs.

• Are most graphic novels "little more than poorly drawn meandering thoughts of self-obsessed people"?[scroll down for the review of Awkward and Definition, Spoiler:the answer is no]

• International: are the 5 cartoon mascots responsible for disasters in China?

• Bestsellers at Fichtre in Montreal.

• New find at last week's Anime North: Camilla D'Errico.

Labels: art show, can-con, comics criticism, comics retailers, links, mascots, Quebec