Archive for the "C-List" Category

04.Jun.2013 The C-List: Let the Summer Postin’ Begin!

You may have noticed (and if you have, god bless you, loyal Sequential reader!) that the posts have been few and far between. Both Max and I have been busy ever since TCAF and so I’m taking this Sequential down-time to start Summer early. Traditionally, posting around this blog takes a downturn in quality and quantity during the warm months (I have been spending additional stolen time on my terrace stocking up on vitamin D like Clark Kent), highlighted by the onset of the “Summer Postin’” tag. We’ll try to bring you breaking news and some surprises over the next little while (including a possible addition to the Sequential family of bloggers) but for the most part we will have to settle for the occasional C-List link round-up and event postings.

So let’s get to those links!

Item! Conundrum Press news: Publisher Andy Brown sends along the news of a new book deal. Photobooth: A Biography is a graphic novel project by newcomer Meags Fitzgerald about the history of photobooths, due from Conundrum in pring 2014. Andy also has a great report about his trip to Montreal for the second year of that city’s comics festival, FBDM. The report features a couple fantastic group shots of fantastic Montreal cartooning talent, especially that last one with Pascal Girard, Ethan Rilly, Phillippe Girard, Joe Ollmann, and Howard Chackowisz.

Item! The Toronto Fan Expo, which runs the weekend of August 22, has just announced the addition of something called The Lolita Style World Event to the show, a series of events focused on the popular Japanese fashion trend/lifestyle. They’ve also added some hotels and other celebrities to the mix. I think Mike Mignola is the big name American cartoonist, but former Marvel Comics dialogue writer/current paid spokesperson Stan Lee will also be returning. I’ll have full listings closer to the show here on Sequential.

Item! This weekend is the Niagara Falls Comic Con. The con will feature a panel devoted to Canadian Comics History, including contributions from Ivan Kocmarek (Canadian comic historian and columnist for ComicBookDaily.Com, Hope Nicholson (Associate Producer of the upcoming Canadian Comics documentary Lost Heroes), Richard Comely (creator of Captain Canuck) and Kevin Boyd (Joe Shuster Award committee member and owner of Toronto’s Comic Book Lounge). There’s an interesting line-up of U.S. comics names scheduled as well. I think today is the last day to buy tickets online?

Item! Pretty pictures Dept.: The great Connor Willumsen has some great unused Wolverine pages from his Marvel gigs I think?

Item! Craig Fischer looks over Michel Rabagliati’s complete ouevre for The Comics Journal: “Recently, after hearing that a new Paul book was on the way (Paul Joins the Scouts, forthcoming in English from Conundrum), I re-read all of Rabagliati’s books, and liked them much more. Optimism and simplicity do characterize his comics, but I discovered complexities there too, especially when I traced connections among the various books. Although each graphic novel stands alone, the entire Paul project is Rabagliati’s ongoing, thinly fictionalized autobiography, with each book focused on a particular period in his life. The Paul books all share the same chronology and many of the same characters, and across multiple volumes Rabagliati’s autobiography gradually assumes a greater density, closer to that of life itself. I’ll explore this density by talking about the organization of one individual Paul novel, Paul Goes Fishing, before sticking my toe into the deeper sea of networked motifs and narrative strategies in the series as a whole.”

Item! Now you can buy a $5 pdf version of Robin McConnell’s Inkstuds book, a collection of 30 interviews with cartoonists taken from his radio show. The original hardcover print edition was published some years ago. On the latest show, Robin talks to Fantagraphics’ Eric Reynolds and Philip Nel about the long-awaited first edition of the Collected Barnaby comic strip, a 1940s all-time American comic classic.

23.May.2013 The C-List: The Last of the Red Hot TCAF Reports

by BK Munn

Finally! I’ve been back from TCAF for a week, but I’ve been basically sleeping and trying to make a living, with only moderate drinking (really!). And there was a long-weekend holiday in there somewhere. Excuses are the province of a slave mentality. Anyway, let’s get this fucker started.

Item! Every year, people ask me, “What was the first TCAF comic you read after you got home and could use your own toilet?” This year that honour went to Mere by C.F. I find C.F.’s comics scary sometimes, but mostly I take them in the spirit of dumb fun they seem to be intended. Perfect toilet reading, full of short comics about motorcycle-riding ghouls, it looks good right next to my Herman collections. I got C.F. himself to sign the book. At first I just thought he was some bearded guy sitting with Dan Nadel at the Picturebox table, maybe somehow helping out with the Gengorah Tagame signing, but then I figured since he had a pile of C.F. books in front of him, it must be the author himself (later I figured the loud annoying guy in the plaid jacket taking photos and blocking Tagame’s table was probably Chip Kidd). Anyway, it was kind of surreal to get both Tagame and C.F. to sign their new books, in utter silence, neither cartoonist speaking, with the swirl of the big comics fest all around.

Item! So, Sequential’s TCAF coverage was pretty nonexistent this year. In previous years, with better, more writer-ly contributors active on the blog, we had some good roundtables and interviews. This year I only managed to fart out a single C-List previewing some of the comics I thought would be interesting to check out at the show and then at the last minute I hacked out a trio of reviews of three graphic novels from Conundrum I feared might get lost in the chaos of the weekend. But that’s about it. Where is it written that a blog devoted to Canadian comics culture should thoroughly cover the biggest comics event in Canada’s biggest city in the entire year? What do you want from me? I’m just a man. I put my Alpha Flight Underoos on one leg at a time, just like anyone else. I’m not your work-for-hire bitch: this is a volunteer joint, all content copyright me (except when it’s by someone else). You want responsible, timely journalism? As the C-List’s governing spirit Stan Lee might say, go fuck yourself, true believer.

Item! On a personal note, I just want to say I love you, Sequential reader. I really do. And I think we have something special here. We have a lot in common. A lot. We both love comics. And. And. Um. We’re both pretty good looking. Sexy, even. We both probably drink too much and don’t call our mothers enough. And we can be stronger together. We just gotta work at it. Please don’t stop reading! Come back! I’m begging here!!!!!

Item! With that out of the way, I have to recommend Jamie Coville’s site. I saw Jamie at TCAF for a minute and he is the real deal. He has a nice camera and actually takes notes in a little notebook. It’s pretty fucking impressive to see, I want to tell you. He has an exhaustive collection of photos from the event and managed to record quite a few of the panels and interviews. Inkstuds Robin McConnell was in the thick of things as usual and has a great photo-laden TCAF diary that can be read as the yin to Coville’s yang (or maybe, to put it in terms you face-fronters and merry-marchers better comprehend, Jamie is the Giant-Sized “Man-” to Robin’s “Thing”). Robin is kind of like a beautiful braying butterfly; a true comics uniter.

Item! Festivals like TCAF are the new headshops, minus the incense, bongs and rolling papers. And instead of being open 7 days-a-week in the disreputable part of every major town, they happen in libraries and churches once a year. They are the major system of underground comix distribution in the world, and they are vital vital vital. I don’t live in Toronto and don’t attend any of the other North American small press shows, so TCAF is my only way to immerse myself in the world of the wider self-published and mini-comics world. A sort of one-stop shopping that is a pleasant, if harried, alternative to navigating individual online shops, mail-order, and tumblr. (Sure, some of this stuff ends up at the Beguiling after the show, but those are LEFTOVERS! Dirty, stinky, LEFTOVERS!! And not every town has or can support a Beguiling.) At TCAF you get to buy comics direct from the creators and get to actually hold the books in your hand before handing over your cash. I really appreciate the opportunity, since so much of the online hype about these comics amounts to clubby logrolling and backscratching from fellow cartoonists, with very few actual reviews or criticisms available about the vast majority of comics published, making it hard to come to any conclusions about work I haven’t seen big chunks of previewed online or in some other iteration. I think TCAF does a good job curating the show, making sure that only books of a certain level of quality are on hand (they can’t always account for uninvited tablemates and quickly dashed-off minicomics, and yet these are occasionally the best part of the show), but I still found it a tough job winding my way through the crowds, peering at book covers and sometimes artistically-decorated-to-the-point-of-illegibility nametags for things I’d heard of or previewed online. The map included in the program helped, but I still missed alot due to crowds and the tiny tablespace most exhibitors were allotted. (Needless to say, I didn’t plan out my visit ahead of time.)

Item! I’m a TCAF dilettante. A done-in-one, Sunday browser. TCAF is a two-day (plus!) show, but I wonder if most attendees who are not guests or otherwise invested in the show (including non-locals, volunteers, paid journalists, and friends or non-exhibiting artists who attend for social reasons) visit both Saturday and Sunday. Anyone? It’s hard to take in the whole show in one day, and impossible to really experience a full-cross-section of what the show has to offer (panels, art shows, the exhibitor sales floor, and parties) in a single afternoon. That being said, you could do worse than hit a few of the headline signings and then shop around for a few hours. That’s basically what I did during my visit on Sunday, and I ended up buying a ton of books and having a few serendipitous run-ins with friends, casual acquaintances, total strangers, and idols. That’s just the way the show is, a social swirl of comics people from near and far, endlessly circulating. I ran into (separately) Sean Rogers and Chris Randle, two of my fellow Wright Award organizers/nomination committee members, and received good reports about the show the previous night, including Chris’s tale of sharing a flask at the awards with a few editors from one of the big newspapers. (Sequential’s Salgood Sam captured the Wrights on video. Everybody’s still talking about Pigskin Peters-winner David Collier.) Later, while looking through Michael Kupperman’s original art (while he chatted with blogger Tom Spurgeon, I think), I noticed I was standing next to comics deity Gilbert Hernandez, temporary free from his signing duties to wander the floor, and was just able to summon the strength to shake Beto’s hand and mumble something about how I loved his comics and how the swinging dicks of Love and Rockets saved my life before he got the fuck away from what was obviously ground-zero of the fanboy apocalypse. The next moment, the charming pair of festival co-founder/Beguiling-owner Peter Birkemoe and award-winning journalist Nathalie Atkinson were jostling me from behind for their own chance to buy a piece of the Kupperman magic. The only reason I was at Kupperman’s table in the first place (besides my love for his comics) was because I got to chatting with a fellow art collector while waiting to have a book signed by Hong Kong artist Chihoi and the Conundrum table (it was nice to see Chris Butcher waiting in Chihoi’s line as well, and to briefly chat while waiting with Joe Ollmann who has another classic on his hands with his new GN Science Fiction), with said collector pointing me towards the Tales Designed to Thrizzle creator’s portfolio. That’s kind of the way things worked for me. Chance and recommendations.

Item! On the other hand, there were a lot of missed connections and regrets at the show, but even those were moderated by transformative new experiences. When someone (Robin McConnell?) showed me the elaborate cross-hatched sketch that Eric Lambé had decorated his book with, I rushed over to Bill Kartoupolis’ Rebus books table in the Beeton Auditorium (aka “The Sweaty Room”), only to find Lambé temporarily AWOL. But because I was there, I was able to pick up Rebus’ Barrel of Monkeys by Ruppert and Mulot, some books from Revival House Press (including something by a Toronto creator I’m totally blanking on and had never heard of before), acquire the long-coveted Shitbeams on the Loose #2, browse some Finnish comics, and meet Flu Hartberg from Dongery who was selling the massive anthology collecting the complete output of his Norwegian collective that I had read about on the Comics Journal.

Item! Other people I bought original art from were Keith Jones and Pat Aulisio. Jones was hawking the artwork from his latest magnum opus Morons. He is serializing the graphic novel over nine issues and, inspired by Patrick Kyle’s Distance Mover project, he is taking subscriptions. I think this is a big trend with self-publishers now, an old school form of crowdfunding that’s having a comeback, not least because they help inspire creators to pace themselves and finish projects that might otherwise languish without cash incentives and eager readers. The issues cost $10 each and a subscription for 9 issues is $80 including postage, so you save $10 on the deal and get to read this epic in the privacy of your own bathroom as soon as each issue is printed. Jones has quite the little merchandizing empire going on, with his own restaurant, bookbags, and even little plastic figurines of his characters. Mr. Entrepreneur! A room away, Pat Aulisio was selling art from his various Bowman comics (published by Retrofit and Hic & Hoc). Bowman is sort of an unauthorized psychedelic sequel to the movie 2001 and Aulisio seems to be having as much fun with the material as Jack Kirby did back in the 70s. The only drawback of browsing through Aulisio’s art was that I had to listen to horrible jokes and ideas for new Google products (Google Trucks?) from Aulisio and his tablemates, cartoonist Lauren Barnett and Hic & Hoc publisher Matt Moses. (Just kidding. It was pretty funny. And I bought Barnett’s Me Likes You Very Much, the Barnett-edited Journal of Humor, the Aulisio-edited Marvel Comics Presents #6 (Josh Bayer!!), and more.)

Item! Speaking of non-English-language comics (and I was a few items ago), let’s talk about some of TCAF’s strengths and weaknesses. I think the festival does a super job of showcasing work from foreign artists to a largely Anglophone Toronto audience. Every year they bring in an increasingly large group of cartoonists and publishers, many of whom are unknown in Canada, and through the simple effort of placing them alongside their North American peers, give them a chance at a wider readership. Most of these European and Asian guests are featured in a panel or two, sign books, etc. But for the most part, I can’t help but feel that the format of TCAF doesn’t really work in a way that sufficiently rewards their attendance (but then I read that Ulli Lust loved Canadian enthusiasm, in contrast to the Vulcan stoicism of her native land?). Foreign and Anglo-American cartoonists alike must struggle for attention in the same marketplace, sitting behind their tables and signing books, but it’s not really a level playing field, with the language barrier and relative novelty being a major hindrance. Authors with translated books and the support of local publishers of course do better and TCAF tends to focus on bringing in foreign exhibitors with at least one English entry point, but it still must be a tough slog if you are not a featured guest, especially one with a special exhibit or bestseller to help pave the way for you. Still, what TCAF brings to your table that many other literary festivals with a foreign component might not is the promise of tens of thousands of potential readers parading by, open-minded and eager for novelty. So, your choice, non-Anglo guests: wait for a solo Toronto signing/book tour during the regular year, or experience the orgasmic avalanche of TCAF.

Item! Once again, the Beeton Auditorium exhibitors were some of the most hidden-away vendors. (At least the folks in the Wowee Zonk pavillion have those great windows.) And I barely made it upstairs, as usual. Priorities, I guess. But to return to my point, how awesome would it be if, when walking into the festival, you saw a giant sign over a maybe 10 x 10 block saying “Finnish Comics” or “Comics from Quebec”? A featured show-within-the-show sort of thing with art and video. Again, one of the drawbacks of the library space and the 2-day show. Harder/impossible to set-up and integrate on-site art displays/museum-quality exhibits.

Item! I ran into cartoonist Jimmy Beaulieu and publisher Luc Bossé, the man behind Editions Pow Pow. Both were pretty down on the festival as a place to sell French-language comics from Quebec. Although Pow Pow wasn’t an exhibitor, Bossé was there as an observer, checking out the action at the tables of fellow publishers La Pasteque and Colosse, and those two were not exactly setting sales records, apparently? I think there were three French-language Quebec publishers at TCAF: Colosse, La Pasteque, and Editions TRIP. Luckily, some of their authors (Michel Rabagliati, Julie Delporte, Jimmy B) have English or bilingual books available, but for the most part, the average monolingual TCAF browser could only stare in ignorant wonder at the pretty pictures of the wares on display. That being said, I actually bought a very nice hardcover from the La Pasteque folks. It was Le Havre – New York by Cyril Doisneau, a Frenchman living in Montreal, and I couldn’t resist since its design reminded me a bit of Miroslav Sasek’s kids books (This Is New York, etc). While Doisneau is better known for his personal nonfiction comics, this is a sort of sexy, adults-only Marx Brothers-meets-Laurel and Hardy by-way-of Tintin romp.

Item! It was nice to actually meet Julie Delporte. I enjoyed her recent Journal and was able to see her coloured pencil artistry in action when she signed one of her new comics for me. She also tried to explain the play on words involved in the French title of her childrens book, Je suis un raton laveur. Ultimately, I think it’s one of those things I’m not meant to know. And as always the team from Delporte’s Journal publisher Koyama Press were very gracious and generous.

Item! Caught up with some other acquaintances at the show. Dropped by Salgood Sam’s table for our semi-annual meet-up. Salgood lives in Montreal and is the publisher of the Sequential blog and also the genius cartoonist behind the Revolver anthology and the upcoming Dream Life graphic novel. He had a good show, which I understand to mean his rent is paid up for a few months, with tons of print sales. The best-seller was the upcoming cover to the next Revolver, “Monster of Montreal.” Because I was waiting to talk to Salgood, I ended up buying a comic by Josh Neufield and copies of Annie Mok’s James Joyce comic for friends. So, the power of TCAF. Also dropped by Marc Bell’s table to trade him an NWA record for his latest, Cowabunga Schnauzer. Also bought some other comics and zines from him, including his Dongery tribute (featuring Tom Devlin) and the Amy Lockhart/Mark Connery joint, Castration Fantasies. Very late in the show (at the end!) I also finally met Wright Award winner and Facebook-friend Nina Bunjevac. So, good times!

Item! Signage is still a problem at TCAF, but what to do. Signs can be bigger but maybe hanging from the ceiling presents an impossible logistics problem. Volunteers were nice and helpful, with the exception of the poor youngster I asked about a line I was standing next to. Who was the cartoonist signing at the end of the line, I wondered? The volunteer drew a blank, but he had probably supervised a dozen such lines all day, so I forgive him. I didn’t even remember to bring a bottle of water, myself! (It was internet sensation Boulet!)

Item! Every year, I come away from TCAF feeling that I was just part of special event almost tailor-made for me: a comics festival with hundreds of cartoonists and like-minded readers who appreciate the exact same mix of wild, weird and wonderful cartooning. I feel this even though I never see the entire show and I know there are whole giant swaths of it that potentially would bore, repulse, embarrass, puzzle, or frighten me. I feel the same way at large book fairs, art shows, and film festivals while still managing to enjoy myself and experience great art, and that’s a sign that TCAF really has achieved something world-class. I don’t expect those larger events devoted to other art forms to please me in all their aspects but I do expect to have a fulfilling experience at them, to be challenged and entertained in equal measure. And events like the Toronto International Film Festival, Luminato, International Festival of Authors, and Word on the Street do that. TCAF does it too. But TCAF does it largely without outside funding and if it wants to grow it will have to do something about that. Right now, besides the small fees paid by exhibitors to table, Peter Birkemoe and the Beguiling bear the brunt of the costs of TCAF, with a few publishers and local media ((Owl, VIZ, Now), and various foreign governments and embassies contributing in very specific ways. Since moving to the Toronto Reference Library, the cost of the main festival space has been absorbed by the library (really, the city), and with the addition of a $10,000 grant this year from the Toronto Arts Council, the City of Toronto seems to be the major institutional funder. Now it’s time for other government funding agencies to step up and take some of the responsibility for this major event that brings so much to Toronto and to Canada. Both the province of Ontario and the Canada Council provide funding for events and festivals and should be pursued so that TCAF can move beyond a volunteer-run event managed by a handful of busy employees of a comic shop, however successful said shop may be. Smaller events like Montreal’s Expozine and the tiny Toronto storytelling happening FOOL receive money from the federal government, so TCAF should be getting some of that love as well.

Item! A focus on funding is especially important in light of the post-TCAF debate over the festival’s programming this year. Heidi MacDonald, Tom Spurgeon, Dustin Harbin, and Chris Butcher have already covered this ground, of course. I have nothing to add, especially since I hardly ever get to attend off-site events, panels, or special signings at TCAF. Priorities, I guess. I will just note that, despite being on several TCAF-related mailing lists, Twitter feeds, and Facebook groups, and constantly looking for content for Sequential, my awareness of the programming this year was really low. It did seem fairly last minute. I’d love to hype all the events and panels here but the lead time just wasn’t there. I think I finally saw a tweet about the programming on the Wednesday or Thursday before the show, not really enough notice for busy show-goers or pseudo-journos like me to respond in any way. The full programming slate is printed in the TCAF Guide newspaper everybody gets when they walk through the front doors of the library, but by that time it’s kind of late to plan your weekend when the temptation is there to dive right in to the main site.

Item! After the show, Salgood Sam and I took a cab ride in a hail storm/tornado back to his place and went for a bite at the Lakeview Diner (where the sun was shining!). We went to Lakeview because it was close to where he was staying and because it is the official home of Captain Canuck (bizarre-ly, the Canadian superhero is featured prominently on the restaurant’s menu and kids dishes). We talked about plans for this website, how I have to get my shit together, diabetes, how gardening is good for depression, our relationships, New Mutants, the animation industry, ADD and the autism spectrum. Salgood went off to the TCAF afterparty and I went to see some non-comics friends and then a very late-night dinner date at another diner (sentimental favourite Fran’s!).

Item! Spent the rest of the week in Toronto, combining business with pleasure. Ate and drank at greasy diners and swanky bars. Bought more comics and tons of records. Hit the BMV. Discovered a new contender for world’s smallest/weirdest comic shop at Kensington Comics aka Mr. Comics, located in Kensignton Market. New owners have just taken over this second-floor shop with a door located down an alleyway, hoping to transform it from a weird “a million comics at a dollar each” hole in the wall into an actual store with a Diamond account. In the meantime, I bought Destroyer #3 by Steve Ditko for $1. A bizarre insular artifact and my prize from the week, with maybe the first volume of Fantagraphics’ new Barnaby being a close competitor (I bought a huge pile of new comics from the Fanta table at TCAF, including the new Dash Shaw books, but I’ve been waiting for that Barnaby book for 30 years, ever since I bought the old paperbacks in a used bookstore in Guelph as a teenager.)

Item! The show had Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly (Jeet Heer debuted his book about Francoise!) and the Hernandez Brothers and David B. and Lisa Hanawalt (I think I frightened her at the end of the show before I could tell her how much I enjoy her Baby Geniuses podcast (the first half at least, before Expert Hour) and Boulet and Tayio Matsumoto and Ivan Brunetti and Chester Brown and Frederick Peeters and and and and AND! You guys that is an awesome list right there! A list for the ages.

Item! So, TCAF. I hope they do another one and I hope I go. Still sorting through my piles of comics. Lots of beautiful people. Lots of comics enthusiasm. One of the best weeks of the year so far, followed by one of the best bowel movements,followed by one of the best C-Lists (you just read it, effendi!).

09.May.2013 The C-List: TCAF Preview

by Bk Munn

The Toronto Comic Arts Festival runs this weekend, May 11-12, at the Toronto Reference Library. Admission is free and there will be tons of unique world-class cartoonists (and their books and art!) on display. Let’s see, what last-minute news is out there? Julia Wertz and Blutch will not be in attendance, it seems. Cosplay and anxiety are actively discouraged.

What else?

TCAF is traditionally the place where many hotly-anticipated books are debuted, with artists working all year, right up to the last minute, trying to have a new book ready for the fest. TCAF trumpets a massive list of debut books on its site, including many from their international slate of headline guests, but I thought I’d highlight a selection here on Sequential, based on a few posts and tweets I’ve seen around the net and the odd email that creators have been nice enough to send my way. I’ll be posting a separate list of short reviews Friday of TCAF debuts I’ve actually seen and read, but here are some of the lesser-hyped unseen artifacts that you might want to check out at the show:

Item! Marc Bell will be exhibiting as part of the Wowee Zonk-curated small press section at TCAF. The latest thing from Bell’s Half World Books imprint is the just-published Cowabunga Schnauzer, which reprints in part a selection of full-colour strips he did for Maisonneuve magazine last year, as well as “several thoughtfully arranged details from new artworks including ‘Mr. Giant Stroller’, ‘Lucy Honeychurch’, ‘On/Off Solo Schnauzer Live!’” and “a modified version of Marc’s appearance in the March 2013 issue of Esquire UK.” In addition, Bell has hinted in correspondence with Sequential that he is “also making two others that may or may not happen. One is a tribute to [Norwegian comics collective] Dongery made with Tom Devlin.”

Item! I’ve enjoyed Roman Muradov’s comics in the NoBrow anthologies but I’m not that familiar with his other printed comics work. In preparation of the show, he has just completed the third issue of his The Yellow Zine, which you can see previewed here and read digitally here. Muradov will also be in the Wowee Zonk space at TCAF.

Item! Montreal’s Dan Kim is known for being recognized by a Japanese prize for his manga-inspired NNN webcomic and for an astounding kickstarter fundraiser for the same book that raised $40,000 over its $6000 goal. All of his comics have an atmospheric painterly inkwash look, great pacing, and bravura character design. Kim will have a number of poster prints and maybe even some actual print versions of his shorter comics for sale at the show.

Item! Nina Bunjevac, jewelry designer: “A little while ago I teamed up with the Toronto-based jewelry designer BBJ to create a small but exclusive collection of pendants, brooches and key-chains that feature my art. This year the festival falls on the Mother’s Day weekend, so come by and pick up something nice for that special lady in your life.”

Item! Some PR from UK outfit Great Beast Comics about cartoonist Adam Cadwell’s “Northern Slacker Vampire series” Blood Blokes the third issue of which will debut at TCAF: “Blood Blokes #3 sees Vince awaken in the vampire house with more than a few questions. When he discovers the hard way that going home isn’t an option he finds the life of a vampire to be alarmingly familiar, yet Vince still longs for a certain someone.”

Item! Russian mystery-man Uno Moralez is the feature artist in the first issue of Frontier, a new monograph art and comics series from Ryan Sands’ Youth in Decline publishing house: “Frontier #1: Uno Moralez is the first print collection of the mysterious and tantalizing work of talented Russian illustrator, Uno Moralez. Includes a number of full page spreads, narrative comics, and GIF art in printed form. (32 pages, Risograph-printed in black, fluorescent pink, burgundy, and teal ink.) Moralez is not at the show, I don’t think, but Sands is sharing a space with NYC’s Benjamin Marra.

Item! Wowee Zonk co-founder Patrick Kyle self-publishes under the Mother Books umbrella but has just made as far as I know his first venture into publishing the work of others with this new series by Keith Jones. I like Mr. Jones’ stupid plots and even stupider cartoon characters quite a bit. Described as containing “Jones’ newest work ‘Donut Daze’ where rival drivers clash in a garbage encrusted drag race through a post-apocalyptic roadside donut den. Scrawled masterfully in Jones’ unmistakeable erratic style” (24 pages, Colour Risograph, $5). I’ve seen someof this previewed on Jones’ tumblr and am very excited to get a hold of a print copy. His work is also on display in an ongoing art show (“Budsies”) at Capital Espresso (1349 Queen Street W) and at the take-out joint he owns, Hot n’ Dog (216 Close Ave off of Queen St. W). It looks like publisher Kyle will also have some of his own new comics, smartly titled New Comics, on hand for the show.

Item! I thought the first issue of Eric Kostiuk Williams’ Hungry Bottom Comics was a smart and sophisticated autobio comics debut and was part of the team that nominated it for a Doug Wright Spotlight Award. The second issue of Williams’ series is set to drop at TCAF. I think this might be one of the included pieces? Worth checking out, especially if candid, academically-tinged, and graphic youthful ruminations on relationships in the Toronto gay dating scene are your bag.

22.Apr.2013 The C-List: Links from Fan Expo Vancouver, 2013

Fan Expo Vancouver totally was a thing!

I was totally unaware this event was happening, sorry. That didn’t stop it from actually happening, though, and happen it did, this past weekend, April 20-21 at the Vancouver Convention Center, 1055 Canada Place, Vancouver. There was a cohort of local comics creators (James Stokoe, Ian Boothby, Pia Guerra, Camilla d’Errico, Ed Brisson, David Boswell, and many more) on hand, but I haven’t seen much yet from that front. Instead, we have these items:

Item!One of the big comics guests was Stan Lee. I ranted a bit in the comments section of a Global tv news report about how Stan is usually written about in the popular media “Correction: Stan Lee is not ‘the man behind Spiderman’ (sic). The character was co-created by artist Steve Ditko and dialogue writer Stan Lee. Ditko created the design of Spider-Man, including the costume and all the supporting cast and villains (Green Goblin, Sandman, Dr. Octopus). He also wrote the plots and drew all the stories for the first years of the comic book. Ditko gets very little credit and no money. Ditko lives in poverty in a New York City apartment. Stan Lee is a millionaire. Stan Lee was the cousin of the owner of Marvel Comics and hogs much of the credit for the creation of Marvel.” Lee was also interviewed by CTV and The Vancouver Sun.

Item! On the other hand, the fight for creator’s rights is mentioned in this Stuart Derdeyn interview with Neal Adams for the Vancouver Province: “he sought the return of original artwork from publishers to the artists so they could use it to earn additional income through sales. In 1987, he won his battle. Subsequent changes to the industry meant that legends such as Jack Kirby and Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster received long-overdue remuneration and more.”

Item! The podcast Dread Media covers the show (episode 295): “Robin Bougie from Cinema Sewer joins us to talk exploitation cinema and hot grandmas. Artist Jason Copland stops by to talk about Kickstarting the printed version of his popular webcomic Kill All Monsters. We talk with artist Nat Jones of Image Comics’ ’68 about the resurgence of Vietnam in film and literature and Frank Frazetta. Finally, the master of modern realism in comic books, Neal Adams, tolerates Desmond’s fanboy drooling for several minutes!”

Item! The only traditional con report I’ve seen comes from the blog Geek Badge, written by Wyatt Fossetts, including some negative critique: “A major downfall was Saturdays clusterfuck of security lines, dopey hosts, and general disarray by all parties involved. For some strange reason, Hobby Star (the people who brought us the event) think that they can oversell and underestimate. Last year’s show was in a building at least 150% of the size of this year, yet there seems to be twice as many people here. It’s outstandingly frustrating Making interviews, proper panel viewing, and general uncomfortable feelings all around an issue.”

Item! 3 minute Youtube video.

Item! Massive photo set.

Item! Cosplay set from Comics Blend.

Item! Costume parade via radio station Newss1130.

Item! Facebook photosets: here and here.

18.Apr.2013 The C-List: Cow Town is Comics Town

I love comics news. Do you love comics news?

Do you spend all your spare time reading google news and rss feeds about comics? Or ignoring family and business obligations, pathetically trawling social media sites for tidbits about obscure minicomics, fanart, and cosplay pics? Me too! Maybe we should go out sometime!?(I’ll be the guy wearing the too-small Nard ‘n’ Pat t-shirt and holding a rolled, impossibly soiled copy of Cap’s Bicentennial Battles.)

Item! Did you know that the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo is taking place next weekend, April 26-28, 2013 at the BMO Centre, Stampede Park (in Calgary)? Comics guests include Marvel spokesman and former dialogue writer Stan Lee, cartoonist Neal Adams, and a metric tonne of Canadian talent including David Finch, James Davidge, Camilla D’Errico, and Michael Cho. U.S. comics industry gadfly Erik Larsen will also be on hand. (Did you know that I have sworn a bloodfeud with Larsen because he dared insult the genius of Freddie Mercury and Brian May? Well, I have.) It’s actually quite a good show for non-comics guests, with 90s tv film goddess Gillian Anderson headlining along with all-time great director John Carpenter, etc, etc.

Item! Comicer Ian Daffern reviews Calgarian Bart Beaty’s Eisner-nominated Comics vs Art book for Quill and Quire: “In the not-so-distant past, the humble comic book found itself elevated to its own distinct category in bookstores: the graphic novel. However, as University of Calgary professor Bart Beaty points out, this distinction privileges the “novel” over the “graphic” aspect, praising the form for its literary qualities. Conversely, despite being intrinsically visual, comics have not only failed to achieve recognition as works of art, they have been in conflict with the art world for their entire existence.”

Item! In non-Clagary news, it appears that Chester Brown has entirely re-written his first graphic novel, The Playboy for a new paperback edition (via TCJ): “The Playboy has been reformatted and RELETTERED by Chester. He’s also rewritten a couple balloons and taken out a few panels (panels that he shows in the now patented Chester end note section which, of course, is all new and AMAZING!) Paying For It remains the same, just softer.} {UPDATE: Chester rewrote The Playboy in its entirety. POV shifted, tenses changed, conversational tone dropped. PHEW!!}”

Item! Speaking of D+Q and TCJ, Naomi Fry interviews Geneviève Castrée for the Comics Journal, which includes a shout-out to pioneering autobio cartoonist Sylvie Rancourt. Don’t you think the original Melody needs to be reprinted in English? “I don’t know what everybody thinks of my book, but a big chunk of the people who have given me good feedback on my book are women who can relate to it. And I assume it’s because the mother/daughter thing is not something many men can relate to. But I guess the reason why I’ve been feeling this duty to archive these women comics is, I do think that there needs to be more of a readership. I feel like it’s so easy to find an incredible woman cartoonist. I could go into a bookstore and I could find you so many women writers and cartoonists, and it wouldn’t be a big deal. But to find a group of women who are interested in comics, that’s a problem. I see some of these women’s books as masterpieces, for instance that book I was telling you about, Mélody, I think of it as this incredible thing, and also Ulli Lust’s book is a masterpiece. And I feel like, why aren’t these people more successful than they are, why weren’t they made a bigger fuss over when they were making these books I’m freaking out over?”

Item! I’ll post a separate link to this as we get closer to the date, but it’s worth noting that Conundrum and Koyama are planning a joint Montreal launch for two translated comics: “Koyama Press presents JOURNAL from Julie Delporte and Conundrum Press presents THE LIBRARY from Chihoi at Librairie Drawn & Quarterly on Tuesday, May 14, at 7PM.”

Item! As an organizer of the Wright Awards, I have a conflict of interest mentioning this item through a purportedly objective journalistic linkblog like Sequential, but one of this year’s Wright Award jurors, Natalia Yanchak, has written a short article for the Huffington Post about her experience with the awards so far: “Not since my teenaged years have I read so many comics. Back then I toyed with the notion of becoming an illustrator myself, but made the fated choice to move to Montreal and study creative writing instead. Then I joined a rock band and was overtaken by touring and helping manage The Dears. The wisened me can now appreciate the craft of artists so much more. These nominees are not just illustrators but writers, too — conjuring a narrative through words and images, a careful balancing act of both showing AND telling.”

Item! Emily Carroll and Brandon Graham have both done cover versions/interpretations of a Dan DeCarlo Betty and Veronica story, with interesting results. As you can imagine, Carroll’s is spooky and Graham’s is a little bit more light-hearted and sexy. You can see their versions and the original at Graham’s blog. What I like about both is that they were done as a lark, as “quick” riffs. That both have the capacity to fit multi-page, full-colour exercises into their regular work schedules speaks to their abilities as artists, and a balanced dedication to craft and experimentation that maintains a sense of fun.

Item! Finally, Michael DeForge has a new weekly webcomic, to be published every Sunday: Sticks Angelica, Folk Hero

08.Apr.2013 The C-List: April Showers of Comix

It’s sunny here at Sequential HQ but it’s pouring comic books!

Item! I think these have been announced in various places already but Conundrum Press has listed all of the books it will be debuting at TCAF in one handy place. Authors include Philippe Girard, Lorenz Peter, and Michel Rabagliati.

Item! Speaking of TCAF, the Toronto festival has updated its guest list, adding Ivan Brunetti and subtracting Joe Decie and John Porcellino. Other people/additions we haven’t mentioned at Sequential yet include French creators Frederik Peeters and Boulet, Patrick McEown representing his publisher SelfMadeHero, and the debut of Tibonom by Billy Mavreas (Éditions TRIP).

Item! Speaking of Patrick McEown, Robin interviews the artist at his Inkstuds podcast and has this to say about the Hair Shirt creator: “I have been a fan and reader of Patrick McEown’s work for most of the time I have read comics. From his humble early days on Grendel War Child to working on variety of short stories for Vertigo, Dark Horse and Fantagraphics. His groundbreaking short story No Escape, published in the Dave Cooper series, Weasel, is a high point in comics making.”

Item! There are a couple posts about the Captain Canuck Indiegogo fundraiser launch from a couple weeks back, including one from The Mind Reels and another from the Geek Hard podcasters. With 50 days left, the effort is less than 1/5 of the way towards its goal, (possibly because the minimum buy-in is $25?) and probably could use a bit of a hand.

Item! Speaking of fundraising, the Kickstarter for Dracula: Son of the Dragon, by Mark Sable and Sequential’s own Salgood Sam is halfway to its stated goal with only 8 days left, and the Dumb goes to CAKE Indiegogo campaign that Georgia Webber launched last week has exceeded its modest goals with another week left. Two worthy self-published efforts. Please send us more…

03.Apr.2013 The C-List: Return Those Library Books!

Item! As he does four times a year, Seth covers the latest issue of CNQ, Canadian Notes and Queries. This issue (Winter 2013) is about libraries and Seth provides a gorgeous wrap-around cover of strange creatures lining up to return library books at the night depository. Besides a plethora of articles and reviews about book collecting and other literary pasttimes, there is an article by Jeet Heer on imaginary books and libraries and a 2-page “classic comics” style adaptation by the great Aaron Costain (Team Society League, Entropy).

Item! Montreal’s Georgia Webber has launched an indiegogo campaign to print the first two issues of her Dumb comics series, chronicling her year of not speaking because of a throat ailment. The aim is to print comics to finance a trip to the CAKE festival in Chicago: “In October of 2012, after a vague doctor’s assessment and much googling, I decided to stop talking for all but 15 minutes a day. See, usually my throat pain goes away quickly, but this pain showed up in May, and it stayed. Over the summer it got worse, and worse, and worse, until it was constant and unbearable.[...]In order to get better as quickly as possible (and to not be in pain), I stopped talking. I stopped singing. I stopped everything.[...]Take a moment to imagine what this would be like for you. How would you feel? How would you communicate with your loved ones, friends, coworkers, neighbours? Could you do it? [...]If you want to find out what I did, pitch in a little to help me bring the first two 20-page comics of DUMB into existence.”

Item! Tickets for this summer’s Fan Expo Canada have just gone on sale (with a few hitches) and the con has announced that former Marvel Comics editor, co-plotter, and dialogue writer and current paid spokesperson Stan Lee will be in attendance once again.

Item! The Beguiling in Toronto is hosting an event for U.S. cartoonist Brian Wood on Saturday April 13 at 3 pm. Facebook event page.

Item! The new Shuster Awards director Tyrone Biljan has made his first official statement as fearless leader: “To me the position is all about collaboration with like minded individuals to promote and celebrate great Canadian talent working in the comic book industry. I’m very proud to contribute to the ongoing celebration of these great creative talents, as well as looking back at our Canadian heritage when comic books were in their infancy.”

Item! This short article wonders if the rennaissance in French-language graphic novel creation in Quebec has stalled due to lack of demand. Jean-Paul Eid is among the commentators:

(google translation)

“L’Affaire Radisson avait mis en relief avec éloquence le mal-être dont semble être affligée la bande dessinée populaire. Rappelons que Glénat Québec avait prématurément mis un terme à la série de Jean-Sébastien Bérubé, refusant dans un premier temps de publier le quatrième et ultime ouvrage de la série, prétextant un déclin des ventes. Décision sur laquelle l’éditeur est rapidement revenu.

La question est lancée.”

22.Mar.2013 The C-List: Comics That Will One Day Be Available For You To Buy

news and links from around the web on the subject of Canadian comics:

Item! Mike Winters comics appear in Edmonton’s VUE weekly, Vice Canada, and online under the “Cartoon Machine” banner. Now he has a comic book compilation coming out, featuring his totally unsympathetic cast of characters and mini-strips like the frankly-disturbing Chubb, the slacker adventurers of Daggers and Dexterity, and Toronto hipster Wonderdick. National Post interview from last year.

Item! Chris Randle interviews Geneviève Castrée for Random House’s Hazlitt literary magazine: “Maybe there are cartoonists out there who work really hard on perfecting their style. It’s hard for me to relate to, I just sit down and although it comes out better as the years go by, I don’t really practice. Whenever I try to draw from life I feel like I can’t shake off the way I draw, my personal quirks. It just comes out that way. If anything I feel like I have more control over my hand-writing. That has changed more over the years.”

Item! D+Q has scheduled the next giant issue of Seth’s Palookaville series for the Fall and promises “This issue features 30+ pages of “Clyde Fans”, 30+ pages of an autobiographical sketchbook story called “Nothing Lasts”, and the debut of Seth’s rubber stamp diaries (Seth has been keeping a diary for a few years now and since he realized that he might be redrawing some of the same figures over and over again he created rubber stamps as a time-saver.” You can read a preview of the new autobio strip from the issue here.

Item! Patrick McEown’s debut graphic novel Hair Shirt, originally published by UK outfit SelfMadeHero in 2011, now has North American distribution through Abrams and hits book stores and comics shops this month. My memory of the pdf I read of this two years ago is quite pleasant and I look forward to revisiting its dream-like imagery and great colouring in the flesh.

Item! Artist, zinester, roller-derby champ, and part-time comic shop clerk Ange Drystek talks about her vision for the re-christened Kazoo Print Expo, for which she is the chief coordinator, to the University of Guelph’s Ontarion newspaper: “As far as the tablers go we have zine artists, comic artists, print makers, screen printers, there’s people with small art-books and photo art-books,” said Drystek. “There’s an illustration art magazine from [Guelph-Toronto] coming called Carousel [and] there’s Impress, a small comic-illustration company based out of Toronto that do a lot of art-books [...] I went to school for studio art (I just graduated last spring) [...] and the whole process was aiming for me to be a fine artist and I really had this disconnect,” said Drystek.” The way that I see art is not white gallery walls and pristine [work] and things sold for thousands and thousands of dollars. I really don’t like that gallery systems. What I want is for art to be more accessible, a little more practical and maybe a little bit more commercial. This gives people the opportunity to sell their work on a smaller scale.”

Item! My new favourite cartoonist is Connor Willumsen. While you may know his Marvel Comics work (Punisher Max), he is becoming better known for his sci-fi, pseudo-surrealist online and small print-run comics. Most recently, Willumsen finished up a highly-recommended mind-blowing cyberpunk insta-classic. As he notes, it’s “published in a scroll format at the Study Group Comics website, which was arranged by Zack Soto [...] I started this comic while taking Frank Santoro‘s Comic Book Correspondence Course for Comic Makers last year.” Willumsen is also interviewed at Sam Weber’s Your Dreams My Nightmares podcast.

17.Mar.2013 C-List: Spokescreature Bun Toons and other fun things

Been a busy week in a busy month in a, well you get the idea. Work on Dream Life still fills my days but not for much longer! And the wheels are up for the Dracula kickstarter on Monday. Busy busy. Glad for the occasional distractions from my friends. Such as these.

Item! Ty has new Buntoons! “Now that DC Comics has replaced their nearly-always-dead-Robin the Boy Wonder with Casper the Friendly Ghost, I thought it might be a nice opportunity to look back at a few other corporate, and institutional, mascots that have been replaced over the years.  It’s a fascinating history.”

Item! COLOSSE NEWS! “SHOCK REVELATION: the new COLOSSUS is called HOUBA PLUS”.

It contains new comics by Catherine Lamontagne-Drolet, Francois Samson-Dunlop, Carlos Vezina, Sara Hache, Sophie Bédard, Tuan Bui, Samantha Leriche-Gionet, David Turgeon, Vincent Giard and Luc Bossé. The limited run collection is dedicated to Mael Rannou.

Item! Gerhard reveals the cover of the Cerebus comic book that Oliver Ho and Sam Noir are contributing to.

Item! Colin Upton would like you to check out his tumblr. He’s posting a great deal of his back catalog there now.

Item! Rick Trembles shared an alternate version of the Motion Picture Purgatory strip he just did for Lech (Born to Lose: The Last Rock & Roll Movie) Kowalski’s new anti-fracking doc, DRILL BABY DRILL: “This is how revolutions start” -director Lech Kowalski

Item! Bernie Mireault has started a tumblr too!

“I plan to show the comic art I’ve done here but for a first post I’d like to put up a collaborative effort put together between 8 Montreal cartoonists years ago for a slick color magazine commemorating the redesign of the Austin Mini automobile, of all things! - I got to color the whole thing as well as contribute a sequence and I think it’s a successful collaboration that deserves to be shown again.”

Item! Andy Belanger got all Artsy on InnerSPACE hanging Shakespeare.

Item! Dave Cooper hanging in New York!

11.Mar.2013 The C-List: Post Toronto ComiCON Link Roundup

The Hobbystar/Fan Expo Toronto Comicon was this past weekend. A few links to coverage from the event:

Item! There are some links to stories at the con’s own facebook event page.

Item! Toy hunting on Saturday: Ed Campbell says more sci-fi than comics, no comics panels.

Item! Scott Vanderploeg covers the comics artists beat at the show.

Item! Comic Book Daily Photo Parade

Item! Con staff member shines bright light in eye of blogger.

Item! Photo blogger has all the cosplay pics.

Item! The creators of the Wexray digital comic blog about the show.

Item! The Geek Chic Elite blog focuses on the tv/sci-fi guests but has some points about the show setup/logistics: “The first signs of disorganization were the lines that zig-zagged through one vacant hall to let us in; winding around about nine times before the entrance where everyone funneled in. There were still vendors setting up at 11 when people arrived too, so it looks like they weren’t given the luxury of setting up the night before, or it was too chaotic in the morning to load everything in on time.”

UPDATES!
we got more:

Item! Amy Chu crosses the border to cover the con for The Beat, and ends up writing mostly about what she ate. She does post one non-food tidbit that I got wrong (because I don’t research this blog, duh) when I posted here about show guests last week: “Artist/writer Katie Cook (Gronk, My Little Pony), illlustrator Agnes Garbowska and I gathered at a nearby Thai restaurant with Craig and his friends Mike Del Mundo (Marvel cover artist) and Marco D’Alfonso (Deadpool). It was perhaps the opposite of Emerald City’s barcon, in that the server could only find three bottles of Sinha beer for the table, less than what many people have in their fridge. The conversation turned to talk of ponies and Bronies. I was astonished to find that Cook goes to 15 cons a year. Many comic fans are surprised to find out she is the writer on IDW’s hit My Little Pony, and not the artist. As Cook explained, it was the humor from her webcomic Gronk that got IDW’s attention.”

Item! Former FanExpo employee/current Comic Book Lounge owner Kevin Boyd had a good experience, reported via Facebook, as an exhibitor/retailer: “Financially satisfied with sales at the show…”

Item! The view from the Comic Book Shoppe.

Item! Scene Creek highlights video.

Item! The Toronto Nerd does a walkthrough vid.

Item! This video has what looks like a bald Riddler cosplayer checking his wantlist.

Item! Con-central podcast.

Item! Writing for the Toronto Standard, Tiffy Thompson sources the con’s popularity in The Big Bang Theory.: “The geeks have won.”

03.Mar.2013 C-list – all the pretty pictures

Max here, thought i’d put in a post, we’ve been slow with the updates lately. Maybe a good time to also mention we’re always open to context appropriate guest blogging here at Sequential, if you’re interested in generally unpaid writing opportunities check out our about page to get out mandate and let us know if you have a story.

Item: Starting off this line up of links underlining the update we made a little while ago to our post about Joe Ollmann‘s next book, now called Science Fiction, previously Burden. Now being published by Conundrum, previously D+Q. The book moved from D+Q to Conundrum and re-titled ”Science Fiction” after D+Q backed out. Joe noted on his blog, “my latest book called Burden was supposed to come out from Drawn & Quarterly in January. It didn’t. They feel this book is not a good follow up to Midlife and decided not to publish it. I think Burden is a good book which is decidedly more serious in tone than the farce quality of Midlife, but it’s the book I want to do right now. So, the book is now being published by my old friend the good Andy Brown at Conundrum Press, and should debut at TCAF in May. As the book was already listed in catalogues and websites, we decided to change the name to simplify the publishing process.” – Kind of surprising D+Q backed away from something more serious? I guess i’ll have to reset some of my own assumptions about them. I’ve got a preview of the new book from Joe and plan to sit down with it soon with posting a review in mind.

Item: Three [1][2][3] sweet panels out of 4 from The Happy Undertaker, by written and illustrated by Drazen Kozjan.

Item: Rick Trembles says Happy 80th birthday King Kong! A film produced by a great, great great? Cousin as it happens.

Item: A clipping of a profile of Valium in the french press about his 35 years making art. Posted here first.

Item: Alan Bunce shared The Exciting Conclusion of his latest Funny Forest series! You can go read the whole 87 pages now!

Item: The Comic Book Lounge & Gallery, just after it’s 1 year anniversary of opening, threw lots of parties, and have really established themselves as one of the prime comics masons of Toronto in a very short time. Happy birthday and a bit guys.

Item: On youtube my old buddy George sat down with Jeff Lemire to discusses his approach to Animal Man and his work on Superboy.

Item: Over on the Fredcast, Fred had a great talk with writer Conor McCreery, of Kill Shakespeare fame.

Item: Once a great curmudgeon about the internet, Colin Upton has a tumbler page now!

Item: Nina Bunjevac posted the cover for the new french edition of her book, Heartless, to appear in April from Ici-Meme, and some more examples of her great rendering skill with this shot of Zemun, Serbia.

And there you have it. Keep up with all the little bits here on our page on Facebook, most of this was all posted there first. And in case you haven’t already follow us here on twitter.

For my own bit I’ve been busy, Dream Life comes very near being done, had the pleasure of illustrating something connected with Dr Daniel Levitin! Cool. Also had fun taking a swing at Lichtenstein for the IMAGE DUPLICATOR show being put on by Rian Hughes. Check this FB group to see more about that. See you after the page turn! – max

01.Mar.2013 The C-List: Cartoonists on Ice (Julie Doucet Edition)

Item! Over at the Toronto-based Comic Book Daily website, collector and researcher Ivan Kokmarek has started a regular column on the subject of 1940s Canadian comic books and so far they have been excellent, chock-full of scans of ancient Canadian superheroes, comic books about hockey, and profiles of forgotten artists and publishers. There’s posts about the great cartoonist George M. Rae, the adventure hero Brok Windsor (drawn by John Stables), the mystery of a lost title brought to light through correspondence with Dave Sim, a portrait by Tedd Steele of himself and fellow artists Leo Bachle and Ross Saakelele as hockey players, and an attempt to put together a superhero team from Bell Comics’ stable. Worth checking out.

Item! Happy 90th birthday to Saskatoon cartoonist Margaret Vavra who drew cartoons about a cat named Sassy for the Star-Phoenix newspaper from 1948 to 1968! The cartoon character was a fixture of the paper’s weather report and was later adopted as the mascot of a local bomber squadron: “Saskatoon’s No. 406 auxiliary squadron christened seven Mitchell bombers” in 1952, including one with a decal featuring “a high-stepping Sassy holding a bomb above its head with the left arm.”

Item! In a short interview with Frederik Byrn Køhlert for the Lemonhound blog, former cartoonist Julie Doucet talks about her recent zines and collages and rebuffs some questions about making comics: “there is a progression and a thread uniting all of it, the starting point being comics… It’s words into pictures, or words used in a visual form one way or another. Most of the time as a narrative. Some would insist that it is all so close to comics that I am obviously Still into it… but no, I sure don’t feel like that’s what I’m doing. I would say that what I’m doing is closer to poetry, if you have to put a word on it. I don’t really like the word poetry, but I think that’s what it is.” (thanks to Brad Mackay for the link!)

Item! For TdotComics, Adira Rotstein interviews Ty Templeton about Toronto’s Comic Book Embassy, a new school and studio for burgeoning comics pros: “The Comics Embassy was started as a result of some friendships and
 professional associations among people who were working together in my Boot
 Camp courses. At the end of the year we do this self published comic called “Holmes
 Incorporated” and the end of the year about six or seven people decided they 
wanted to keep the energy going after the project was finished, so they wanted to
get a studio space together so they could continue to work together. That’s what this was–
a place for them to get together and retain that energy. The space they found 
to rent had a fairly sizable room in front. I needed a new location for running
 my boot camp and so it just worked out very nicely.”

Item! Julie Doucet shows up in this blog post from the Drawn and Quarterly bookstore blog about the launch for Geneviève Castrée’s Susceptible graphic memoir. There’s a super-awesome photo of Doucet with Castrée and cartoonist Diane ‘Obom’ Obomsawin. (is also curating an art show that includes Doucet at Anchor Art Space in Anacortes, near Seattle.

Item! New on the Inkstuds podcast: an interview with Michel Rabagliati, whose The Song of Roland was one of the big graphic novels published in Canada last year.

Item! The collected edition of Daniel Shelton’s long-running comic strip Ben has landed at La Pasteque after a period being published by Editions 400 Coups. Kubert-school-grad Shelton has placed the strip, about a senior citizen couple and their family relations, in a ton of papers and has recently landed a gig creating strips for a yogurt company’s packaging –kind of like the old Bazooka Joe except instead of a one-eyed kid the mascot is a zombie named Freddie.

Item! Julie Doucet and Simon Bossé have started a Tumblr blog to share the crazy mail art they have received over the years. Here’s one Bossé got from Marc Bell:

21.Feb.2013 The C-List: Cartoonists Doing Stuff

News and links from the world of Canadian comics and beyond. As always, you can see even more stuff via our Facebook page.

Item! Comics superstar Jillian Tamaki has illustrated a 150-page book included with a special edition of the debut album by U.S. music video director and musician Woodkid.

Item! And speaking of great gigs, fashionable man-about-town Marc Bell recently landed the job as go-to artist for a Prada campaign seeing print in Esquire UK. Other cartoonists include Bell’s spiritual peers Basil Wolverton and Rick Griffin. Full details at the link.

Item! I haven’t mentioned here that the Mark Laliberte-edited magazine Carousel has a tumblr strictly devoted to its comics section. The section is called 4 Panel because it features full-colour four panel comic strips by a large variety of Canadian and international cartoonists. You should really check it out, some great work there.

Item! One of the few truly working-class superheroes was my childhood fave Underdog, whose secret identity was a shoe-shine boy. The co-creator of Underdog, William Watts Biggers, died last week.

Item! Cartoonist and IDW cover artist Dave Sim talks about auctioning the artwork from his High Society graphic novel and other aspects of his doomsday plans. Some of those pieces are some of the most memorable Sim has ever done and I feel about them the same way Sim feels about Barry Windsor-Smith’s Red Nails: “But I saw it when I was 17 so I’ll always see it as a 17-year-old would see it. ‘THIS IS BLOWING. MY. MIND.’”

Item! I’ve been getting into the work of manga legend Shotaro Ishinomori lately. Ishinomori was the creator of Skullman, Kamen Rider and Cyborg 009. After Tezuka he was probably the most famous mangaka and his work in the Japanese superhero genre is comparable to Jack Kirby in influence. Many of his works are available digitally through Comixology and through this new app I just discovered. Animaru is a manga publisher whose “localizations” or manga translations are exclusively available through Facebook. They are currently publishing Ishinomori’s Mutant Sabu series.

Item! A Truro, Nova Scotia entrepreneur is pitching a comic book featuring the stars of the CBC’s smash tv show Dragon’s Den: “Johnston got the idea of featuring each of the dragons as superheroes. Johnston hired a 28-year-old single mother to draw the caricatures, as well as North River’s André Myette to help with the art and graphic design..” It’s a pretty hilarious pitch, but I think the top 10 Canadian tv shows that should be comic books are: Rocket Robin Hood, The Littlest Hobo, The Beachcombers, Mr. Dressup, Don Cherry’s Grapevine, Degrassi Junior High, Kids in the Hall, Slings and Arrows, Road to Avonlea, and 1 Girl 5 Gays.

Item! And finally, U.S. cartoonist Gabrielle Bell gets into some serious praising for Canadian artists in an interview for the Comics Journal conducted by Dan Nadel:

NADEL: Who were your — who are your work buddies these days?

BELL: I don’t know; I’ve been a bit more isolated lately. I go out sometimes with Richard McGuire and Leanne Shapton, and that’s pretty fun. I think those two are really fun.

NADEL: Yeah, Leanne’s a really interesting person. We should’ve interviewed her a long time ago.

BELL: You should. Yeah she’s smart.

NADEL: Yeah, a very interesting storyteller.

BELL: Yeah. A great artist. I loved her book.

NADEL: Which one?

BELL: Swimming Studies.

NADEL: Yeah I haven’t read that yet. Is it really good?

BELL: She’s very careful with her work. She’s so disciplined. I think I like these Canadian writers. [Laughs.]

NADEL: Alice Munro.

BELL: Well I’m Canadian, too. My grandmother is Canadian, and there’s a certain kind of Canadian sensibility I really like. It’s not too self — not too advertising of one’s self, I guess. And there’s something careful or something about it.

NADEL: Right.

BELL: Not to just generalize about a whole country. [Laughter.] But yeah, I’ve been kind of isolated lately. I met Geneviève Castrée recently on my tour. She’s cool. We have a similar sensibility. Another Canadian artist.

NADEL: Yeah. A really good artist.

BELL: Yeah.

14.Feb.2013 C-List: The L in List is for Love

some quick links, for the love of comics

Item! The great Lizz Hickey has posted her True Romance comics, about her marriage to cartoonist and hot-dog impresario Keith Jones, all in one place. Very funny and beautiful.

Item! 8-bit Captain Canuck? 1981′s most popular Canadian video game.

Item! Dean Motter’s Mr. X at Dark Horse preview.

Item! Speaking of: a colour version of that Dean Motter/Seth photo Max posted on Monday, courtesy of Lost Heroes on Facebook.

Item! The D+Q crew at Angoul-ew.

Item! Art Spiegelman in Vancouver.

09.Feb.2013 C-list in the snow

Max here, waiting for the sun to come up so I can see how bad the balconies are and dig them out. We’ve been spotty getting back into posting the C-lists, here’s a summery of things we’ve posted on our Facebook page that are still relevant/current…

Item: Much as William Moulton Marston was in his day, Dr Will Brooker was tired of seeing female characters in pop culture that fell short of his ideals, overly relied on tight cloths, high heals and physical attributes. So he set out to invent a new icon. ‘My So-Called Secret Identity‘ [site is not up yet but their Facebook page is], drawn by Suze Shore, is the tale of Cat Abigail Daniels, the smartest person in Gloria City. She remembers everything she reads, sees how everything connects. And she’s getting tired of pretending, hiding, acting dumb to save other people’s feelings. If they won’t take her seriously as Catherine Abigail Daniels, the student and cop’s kid, maybe they’ll take her seriously in a costume. Looks pretty good, I like the primes and goals a lot.

Item: Due to the SNOW, Sherwin’s Toronto launch of Serial Villan has been postponed until March. He spent the evening playing video games in his hotel room. Sounds like his idea of a nice evening off!

Item:  In the bigger picture of north american comic, CNET posted “Bizarro world! Print comics boom as digital sales rise. The common wisdom is that as a medium goes digital, the physical sales plummet. But when it comes to comic books, the common wisdom needs a new guru.” – read the full story here.

Item:  On counterpoint to some extent, Robin at Inkstuds has a fantastic interview with teacher writer and comic artist Stephen Bissette. They talk for three hours, broken up into two parts about a lot of things. In all seriousness this is one of the best big picture views of the highs and lows of making comics today. Between his own time working at DC to his front row seat watching the current generation of creators he helps to train at CCS, If you want to make comics go listen to this. If you already make comics, go listen. If you gave up, yeah, go listen. Part 1 – Part 2.

Item: In Afin de subventionner adéquatement les auteurs, ”To adequately subsidize authors”, du Journal Montréal’s DB blogger Jean-Dominic Leduc posted last month about the so far unsuccessful attempts of Voro to get backing for a comics project relating to the province of Quebec. The post is mostly an open letter to ACC & CALQ, requesting an increase in funding of their grants for the medium. Check it out, and if you’re a fan or practitioner of comics in Quebec, consider writing your own letter, emails are provided in the post. More funding for comics! It’s a good idea. More posts by Jean-Dominic can be found here.

Item: Thumbs up review here from CBR for the big finally of the Rotoworld storyline, and Andy Belanger’s first DCU story/job. I had the pleasure of reading it a day early while scanning some old art and suffering a sugar crash. I haven’t been following the books so it was a bit of being dropped smack in the middle of madness, Andy should have played me some of his metal i think!  Would have gone well with this.  Art is good stuff, solid as always. Colors a bit heavy handed, did not help in distinguishing the detail in Andy’s stuff. First are always a little disappointing. I’ll bet they had to be done in a week or something. Crazy. Yanick Paquette’s Cover art looks really nice on the review site, unfortunate about the ‘graphics’ on the printed edition. Congrats for a very respectable first DC headliner Andy!

Item: Editions TRIP are proud to announce they will publish Billy Mavreas latest book : TIBONOM, 80 amazing pages of wordless comics for all ages. Featuring an introduction by, Joe Ollmann.

Item: Kevin A. Boyd on the Shuster blog posted this link to an article for the Hamilton Spectator, about Aram Alexanian’s contributions to Canadian and American Golden Age Comics before he went to work for the family carpet business. It includes a discussion of the Canadian Whites Walter Durajlija & Ivan Koczmarek.

Item[s]:  A positive review of Salgood Sam’s [yes that's me!] Revolver Quarterly, from Rachel Fenton, a reader of the digital edition in New Zealand. All places equal distant on the internet. Éric Thériault has a new facebook page to like,  Jai Granofsky posted some fun new doodles on his blog, George Todorovski posted a cool ‘Regulators’ trailer for Visionary Comics; A comic he worked on “a while back”.  Kalman Andrasofszky joined a collective! This is from their most recent show. Sleeping Lion Heart. Acrylic and silver leaf on wood. 3′x4′ – with the plywood collective for their “HEROES” exhibit. Ramon Perez sightings at Angouleme! Here and here. Having fun doing a victory lap in the EU. Check out this cool set of photos by and of David Boswell: Cartoonist, Photographer, Illustrator, Jaded Roué. Oh hey, it’s the Comic Book Lounge’s 1st Anniversary Minicon and Industry Night today! Congratulations guys!

Ok, sun is up, time for some food and morning exercise! Keep up with us on our facebook page here.

01.Feb.2013 The C-List: Cross-Canada Links for Comix Frinks

Item! The latest issues of Robin Bougie’s annual comics porn anthology Sleazy Slice and his long-running Z-movie magazine Cinema Sewer are now available. Sleazy Slice #6 features a cover by David Paleo & Rebecca Dart, a long story “about roving gangs of lesbian gangs that hunt the post apocalyptic wasteland for sniveling victims” by Maxine Frank and Bougie, and contributions from SCAR, David Paleo, Rebecca Dart, Wes Crum, Aaron Lange, and J.B. Cinema Sewer #26 has a cover by James Stokoe and the usual articles about old movies and pornos. The books will be launching February 9th in Vancouver. Details here.

Item! The Angouleme comics festival is underway in France right now and there is a healthy contingent of Canadians attending. Professor Bart Beaty is blogging about the festival for The Comics Reporter, as usual. Publisher La Pasteque is there and notes that its Red Ketchup series was singled out for a double-page profile in the special issue of the Liberation newspaper devoted to the festival. Also, Chester Brown is in attendance for the first time, pimping the Cornelius translation of his Paying For It memoir. Other Canadians? Delcourt has Guy Delisle and Zviane under its tent; L’Apocalypse has Genevieve Castree; La Pasteque has Real Godbout and Pierre Fournier; and there are more I’m sure.

Item! Writing for the University of Western Ontario’s official paper, David Scott relates the history of cartoonist and London resident Gord Johnston, whose “It Happened in Canada” strip was a big hit in the late 60s and early 70s. (I thought I posted a Jeet Heer article about the strip on Sequential years ago but I can’t seem to find it.): “In the early 1970s, Canadian cartoonist and former Western employee Gordon Johnston of London created the comic It Happened At Western, a campus history spinoff of his national comic success It Happened in Canada, launched in 1967 to mark the country’s centennial and published in more than 60 newspapers at its peak. The Western comic panels appeared regularly in the Alumni Gazette from 1971-79.”

Item! I don’t remember posting about this before, but the Strange Adventures store in Halifax is moving locations according to owner Calum Johnston: The move relates to redevelopment plans by the owner of the building where Johnston leases space for his shop. (Additional details on the redevelopment of the site were not available when this story was written.) “A renovation of the building means a loss of the relatively low rent we’ve enjoyed here,” said Johnston. So the search is on for a compatible 1,600-square-foot location with reasonable rent. Johnston said he believes it is more important for a comic book shop to have extra staff available to help customers rather than spending more money on rent.

Item! Guy Delisle’s Pyongyang graphic travelogue has been optioned as a film and I think some sort of production has already got under way? Hollywood has already tacked on an espionage/mistaken identity plot to heighten the Kafka-esque farce level: Steve Conrad, who scripted The Pursuit Of Happyness and most recently the Ben Stiller-directed remake The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, is writing the screenplay. The film is about outsourcing run amok when a young animator sent to North Korea is accused of espionage.”

Item! The Joe Shuster Awards crew would like to remind you that they are still accepting submissions for the Gene Day self-publishing award. The $500 prize could go to anyone who put out their own comics in 2012: “Copies can be sent to the Comic Book Lounge in Toronto where they will be gathered for review by the Gene Day Award Coordinator and the Jury for this award. The comic had to have been released (but not distributed through Diamond or any official channels) between 1/1/2012 and 12/31/2012. Deadline to submit is May 16, 2013.”

Item! Finally, the video from last Fall’s 12hrZineMachine event that was part of Nuit Blanche. It includes quite the roster of Toronto cartoonists, including Fiona Smyth, Chester Brown, and people associated with Koyama Press and the Toronto Comics Jam:

25.Jan.2013 The C-List: Comix News from Canada and Other Places They Make Comix

Item! This is for Robert Pincombe: New Zealand’s answer to Nelvana of the Northern Lights seems to be Snooper Girl, the creation of cartoonist Ross Gore. (link via Dylan Horrocks on facebook)

Item! Montreal bookstore Monet interviews cartoonist Luc Bossé, since 2010 the micro-publisher behind the dynamic Editions Pow Pow. Bossé talks about the transition from the zine world to books and the difficulties of editing your own comics. He also mentions the upcoming slate of 2013 graphic novels from Pow Pow’s already established stable of creators: Pierre Bouchard and Francis Desharnais are preparing the third volume of Motel Galactic for April’s Festival de bande dessinée francophone de Québec, Samuel Cantin is preparing Vil et misérable for June’s Festival BD de Montréal, Sophie Bédard will release the third volume of her Glorieux printemps for the end of Summer, Zviane will release Les deuxièmes alsdo for the end of Summer, and Michel Hellman’s Nunavik will appear in November. The publisher will also release its first full-colour work, by new-comer Jean-Claude Aumais, as well as a new volume chronicling the continuing adventures of Bossé’s and Alexandre Simard’s Yves character, Yves, fidèle à lui-même. Google translation.

Item! If you have ever wondered about the market for French-language comics in Quebec, Monet also has posted its bestsellers for 2012, with Guy Delisle’s Jerusalem travelogue placing quite high in both the overall and more-specific bd lists.

Item! According to Reuters, head of Disney/Marvel, CEO Robert Iger, got a 20% raise in 2012, earning $40.2 million. “Iger, who turns 62 in February, succeeded Michael Eisner as CEO in October 2005. His reign has seen acquisitions of filmmaker George Lucas’s Lucasfilm Ltd and its “Star Wars” franchise, “Toy Story” creator Pixar, and the comic book powerhouse Marvel. Disney’s stock has more than doubled since Iger took over at the helm. It jumped 33 percent in 2012 alone. The company earned $3.07 per share, excluding items, on revenue of $42.28 billion for its fiscal year ended September 2012.”

Item! Through a haze of nostalgia, National Post columnist Dave Bidini reflects on the new Black Canary cafe attached to Silver Snail comic shop (I always thought the Jet Fuel cafe was the city’s comics coffee shop): “the Canary as not only a true comics cafe, but a Yonge street portal, maybe the only place on the strip to sit and drink and watch Toronto; a new Toronto; new and fast and lively and busy.”

Item! The Inkstuds podcast has kicked off 2013 with three great interviews: Nate Bulmer, Chris Wright, and
Nicole Georges. Robin is also posting crazy out-of-print weirdness, including some lost Marc Bell, on his Canadian Comics Archive tumblr.

21.Jan.2013 The C-List: Widening the Circle

Another delayed C-List coming ‘atcha.

by Robert Pincombe
[edited and reformatted by max,
"good lord who let
the cyberweasels loose
with the style guides?!"] 

Items! I had a chance to pop by Ty Templeton’s Comic Book Boot Camp and the Comic Book Embassy’s 24-Comic Event, hosted by the Comic Lounge and Guerilla Printing.

The turnout was most impressive with over thirty people working at the halfway point. There are several round ups and links for a lot of the diverse new work created. Alice Quinn has a video report over at tdotcomics.ca. And over at Mr. Templeton did a Bun Toon tributes to 24 hour cartoon warriors! And in the notes on Quinn’s clip you’ll find this excellent list as well! Keiren’s post on the event (all the participants). 24 hour comics online: Christopher Yao & James Cooper’s Sad Robot. Rodrigo Bravo: The Last Day. Brice Hall’s  Two Hapless Chaps. Aaron Feldman and Rebecca Slack’s Space.  Ricky Lima’s Huma Am & Adam Gorham’s malevolent spider.

Item! Speaking of the Comic Book Lounge. This week they held their first Ladies Night. But given the success, we doubt it will be their last.

Item! Brian Lee O’Malley’s “Sex Bob-Omb”, Scott Pilgrim’s cartoon band, was honoured by Now Magazine as one of Toronto’s Best Fake Bands.

Now let’s get the heck out of Toronto for a bit…

Item! Victoria’s Times Colonist writer, Robert Amos, interviews artist Lyle Schultz (www.lyleschultzart.com)

Item! San Francisco’s Berkely Rep Theatre stages comic book style play.  We’ve seen this approach before. Does not always work though.

Two cartoony items from across the pond of note:

Item! The Telegraph profiles about an exhibition at the Cartoon Museum of London, England honoring Canada-born cartoonist Wally Fawkes (Trog).

Item! www.planetslade.com, the website of journalist and essayist Paul Slade, offers an extensive history and summation of the life and work of Reg Smythe, creator Andy Capp. Slade argues convincingly that Andy Capp is one of the most successful comic strips ever and Smythe is unfairly overlooked. Grab a coffee and maybe a sandwich. It’s a long read but well worth the time.

03.Jan.2013 The C-List: Robert Pincombe Greets You

Welcome back for a new year of comics news and reviews at Sequential. This round of links is courtesy of Sequential contributor (and very busy animation writer/producer) Robert Pincombe. It was supposed to be the last C-List of 2012 but because I was a little busy over the holidays up to New Year’s (mostly digging a bunker to hide my comics in, in case the Mayans were off by a few weeks), it is now the first C-List of 2013.

Take it away Robert:

Item! Diana Tamblyn has started posting her personal Best of 2012 on her blog, starting with Brian K. Vaughn and our own Fiona Staples.

Item! Dave Lapp’s latest book People Around Here, gets more love from InsideToronto.com.

Item!Toronto’s Comic Book Lounge, Ty Templeton’s Comic Book Bootcamp and the Comic Book Embassy are sponsoring a 24 Hour Comic Challenge at the Lounge on Sat. January 5. the announcement is a Facebook page.

Item!This extra webby Christmas gift making the YouTube rounds (and spotlighted on ABC News apparently) was partially filmed at Toronto’s shared Comic Book Lounge and Guerilla Printing shop.

Item! Kingston collector Sheila Marsh is interviewed in Kingston Business Today by a reporter who knows nothing about comics.

Item! St. Catherines Standard’s Health Reporter and writer of a twice monthly anti-stupid rant, cites 1950’s anti-comics crusader Frederic Wertham as part of his don’t blame gaming for violence argument.

Item! The Economist talks webcomics, including a shout out for Kate Beaton.

Item! Robot Roulette plays six questions with Faith Erin Hicks.

Item! Need a belated Christmas Gift or some New Year’s non-football viewing? You couldn’t’ go wrong with Ron Mann’s seminal comix documentary, Comic Book Confidential’s 20th Anniversary release, reviewed here at whatdvd.net.

13.Dec.2012 The C-List: Jingles on the Way

some brief news links in advance of the seasonal slowdown:

Item! As Salgood Sam has reminded us on facebook, Ryan North’s To Be or Not to Be choose-your-own-adventure-style book project has become the #1 most funded project of all time on Kickstarter, measured by how much it has exceeded its asking goal.

Item! Vancaf, the Vancouver Comic Arts festival, has just sent out its 2013 exhibitor invitations and is asking for RSVP from the artists and groups who have been accepted. The festival is scheduled for the weekend of May 25 and 26, just two weeks after the Toronto Festival event, and a small contingent of local guests have already been announced, including Rebecca Dart and Camilla d’Errico.

Item! The great Spain Rodriguez died last week and tributes are all over the net, but my favourite is this giant series of mysterious murals that appeared in the artist’s hometown of Buffalo.

Item! UK comics publisher Nobrow, the people behind the super-accessible Hilda comics by Luke Pearson, have officially announced a new kids comics imprint, Flying Eye Books. According to an article from The Bookseller, the imprint will “publish 12 new titles in the next year, with a mix of débuts, work from established authors and illustrators, and a range of work in translation. Company director Sam Arthur said: ‘Nobrow has created a few titles aimed at children before, but because our list is mostly adult, we found that a lot of places weren’t really interested in stocking us. It made practical sense to create a dedicated imprint and make it that much simpler.’”

Item! Does this mansion owned by Quebec Premier Pauline Marois look like Captain Haddock’s Moulinsart (Marlinspike Hall in English translations) in the Tintin comics?

Item! Robin McConnell blogs (with pictures!) about the Horror Hangover art show he curated in Vancouver. The work from the show is available in a limited edition zine and some of the originals are still for sale.

Item! Finally, and in reference to the image up top, Nina Bunjevac has sold out the Serbian edition of her Heartless graphic short story collection.