Friday, June 22, 2007  
Weekend Quick Links

:: Posted by Bryan @ 6/22/2007 05:07:00 AM

A short list of links to Canadian comics-related articles/news for the weekend:

-Robin Bougie's Cinema Sewer mag gets a mention in this Georgia Straight article about the cult film culture of Vancouver

-Tom Spurgeon reviews Hello, Me Pretty

-this University of Saskatoon exhibit on Dief the Chief contains some cartoon content

-Dominique Desbiens' Il manque aux humains un predateur was launched last night in Montreal

-editorial cartoonist Serge Chapleau has come under fire for alleged antisemitism in a caricature of Quebec politician Mario Dumont

-you can now read the Full Text of Jeet Heer's review of Invaders from the North --the article is a great short history of Canadian comic books and a criticism of superhero comics

-courtesy of Eric Theriault, Valium on Youtube

-the latest issue of the comic/fanzine Mensuhell is now on sale, including comics stories by EdLAB, Patrofskynoff, Jean-Marc Pacelli, Victor Brideau, 'El Quesnel, Nicolas Plamondon, Kurt Beaulieu, Jacques Boivin, Guert, Sirkowski, & Karl (link via BDQ Forums)

-one of my favourite things in the world are comics by young fans and Janet Hetherington (a comics fan from the 70s who has made a career in comics for herself as an adult) has just posted an old romance comic she created as a youngster on her new blog

Labels: , , , , , ,

   
         - Stumble It!  - Leave a comment!| 0comments  -  - we honor OpenID - 



   Friday, April 20, 2007  
Vampirates!

:: Posted by Bryan @ 4/20/2007 02:22:00 AM
The Cape Breton Post profiles Kelly Barry, aka Jones (not one of the Jones Boys), creator of the manga webcomic Vampirates.

"It's about these vampires who end up stealing one of the Newfoundland ferries and they're going to take it to Saskatchewan," Barrie said. "They haven't really thought about how the St. Lawrence doesn't make it all the way to Saskatchewan but they'll cross that bridge when they come to it."

Labels: , , ,

   
         - Stumble It!  - Leave a comment!| 0comments  -  - we honor OpenID - 



   Monday, April 02, 2007  
Comic Shoppe Talk: 8th Street Books, Saskatoon

:: Posted by Bryan @ 4/02/2007 12:02:00 AM
This week's Q & A is with Pat Thompson of 8th Street Books and Comics in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Pat also hosts Comic Chat with Theo and Pat heard o­n CFCR radio, FM 90.5, Friday at 6 and Monday at 6:30p.m.

My thanks to Pat for taking time out to answer these questions.

----------



Q. What is the general age/gender breakdown of your customers?

I have a full range of ages but the largest demographic is the 18-25
range.

Q.What do you sell more of by volume, graphic novels (including trades and manga) or monthly comic books?

Monthly comic books by far but the dollar value is close.

Q.What are your bestselling non-manga graphic novels?

Watchmen, 300 (once the movie was announced), V for Vendetta, Kingdom
Come, Ultimate Spider-man (all), Bone (all), Batman: Dark Knight
Returns, Batman: Long Hallowe'en, Batman:Dark Victory, Sin City (all)

Q. What are your bestselling non-superhero graphic novels?

Bone, Sin City, Archie Americana, Sandman, 300, V for Vendetta,
Books of Magic (the original), Star Wars any, Elfquest, Hardy
Boys/Nancy Drew

Q. What do you see as the major trends in graphic novels and comics retailing over the next year? The next 5 years?

I have expected for a long time that the big companies would switch
focus from monthlies to GN's but that hasn't happened. I hope/expect
more European stuff to start arriving in TPB form.

Q. What comics do you find yourself recommending the most?

I recommend many titles. Whenever a new customer comes in and asks about comics I find out what they are most interested in and then recommend with that in mind. No sense trying to sell Girls to a super hero fan.

Q. What are your favourite comics?

No favourites. I really enjoy anything well-written. Okay, maybe not manga for the most part and I do pick up super hero stuff first but I do read True Story Swear to God and Strangers in Paradise every month the same way I read Amazing Spider-man.

Q. Why are you a comics retailer?

I actually accidentally fell into this job. I really enjoy retail work and I'm a big fan of comics. It is what I want to do for a living and it is as close to having a hobby as I come.

Q. What bothers you the most about the current comics industry?

Hollywood having the rights to play with comic book characters and
change the characters to fit what some fool thinks is the best choice
for some fictional demographic. And that isn't even in the industry but
it is a significant driving force for getting new and lapsed readers
into the stores and these arbitrary changes don't make selling our
product any easier. In the industry I would have to say my largest
bother would be how Marvel treats retailers.

Q.The Can-Con question.

I guess the most prominent of the Canadian comics (consider Canadian as
any comic that has a Canadian involved in the creative process) is Zemo
by Tom Grummett. Not because it sells really high numbers but because
Tom is Saskatoon's most published comic artist. Pat Davidson who is a
rising star at Marvel in the inking department has quite a few books on
the shelves here at the store. Check his work in Cable Deadpool and in
the upcoming Marvel version of Treasure Island . Expat Kaare Andrews
(He lives in Vancouver -- I think he moved to escape the weather) just
wrapped up the amazing Dark-Knight-esque Spider-man reign. Even though he has
never lived in Saskatoon, Calgary's Cary Nord is doing amazing work on
Conan. There are of course many great Canadian artists and writers out
there and I don't have the knowledge and time to list them all here.
Locally we have some self-published comics that are worth the read.
Unfortunately the production has fallen off lately. Huw Evans and his
sons put out one issue of Tri-focal. Hopefully more to come. Lucas
Bradford has moved to Victoria so no more copies of brain pain have hit
my shelves in the last few months. Elaine Will has been concentrating
on art school so she hasn't put out anything new in way too long. Jesse
McGibney and Adam Kirk are both in school at Sheridan College in
Ontario so nothing from them until their work load is reduced.
I'm out of time. Comics are here and I'm one staff short. I love
Wednesday.

Q. Any upcoming events/signings/sales?

Just had a big sale for my file customers last Friday evening. Big
signings for FCBD. Every Wednesday is a big event. We call it new comic
book day.

8th Street Books & Comics
1010 8th Street East
Saskatoon, SK
S7H 0R9
phone: (306) 343-6624

Labels: , , , , , , ,

   
         - Stumble It!  - Leave a comment!| 1comments  -  - we honor OpenID - 



   Wednesday, February 14, 2007  
Shuster Webcomic Deadline

:: Posted by Bryan @ 2/14/2007 12:01:00 AM


Friday is the last day to submit an url to the Shuster Awards webcomics committee. No one has submitted Vampirates yet. You know Vampirates --the nicely-drawn manga serial about vampire pirates from Newfoundland? One of the few comics ever to feature undead characters who seriously discuss a journey to Saskatchewan. The mysterious "Jones" has created the beginnings of a memorable strip --there must be more OEL maple leaf manga online, no?

Vampirates!

Labels: , , , ,

   
         - Stumble It!  - Leave a comment!| 0comments  -  - we honor OpenID - 



   Monday, December 11, 2006  
Bus Griffiths 1913-2006

:: Posted by Bryan @ 12/11/2006 01:36:00 AM

Bus Griffiths (1913-2006)




Logger Cartoonist Created one of Canada's First Graphic Novels

Gilbert Joseph (Bus) Griffiths, a cartoonist, logger and fisherman, died of prostate cancer in Comox, B.C., on Sept. 25, 2006. Griffiths was best known as the creator of Now You're Logging, a 119-page graphic novel about the 1930s logging industry in BC.

Born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Griffiths was raised in British Columbia, first in Penicton and then in Burnaby. As a teenager he was interested in cartooning but was unsuccessful in finding work in the newspaper field. As a young adult he illustrated catalogues for Massey-Harris but left that job to work as a logger during the 1930s Depression.

Giffiths specialized as a faller, a logger tasked with dropping trees so that they do not cause damage to or become entangled with neigbouring trees. By his own account, Griffiths was very good at his job and loved every aspect of the industry, even though it was seasonal and prone to lay-offs, especially during the 1930s. His logging career began in the Fraser Valley and the Mainland coast of BC, but he eventually migrated to Vancouver Island.

After a decade in the bush, Griffiths married his wife Maragaret in 1940. He also managed to find jobs as a cartoonist, creating work in the 1940s for Vancouver's Maple Leaf publishing, one of the short lived Canadian comics publishers that sprang up during World War II. At the same time, he produced an 8-page children's comic book about logging for the BC government. An editor for BC Lumberman magazine encouraged Griffiths to submit strips about logging to the magazine --a project that would eventually lead to the creation of a much longer work.

Giffiths retired from logging in 1961 and began working as a fisherman out of Fanny Bay, where he had moved in 1944.

In 1972, at the urging of his wife, and using her as a model, Griffiths began working on a longer comic book about logging in his spare time. This was published in 1978 by Harbour Press as Now You're Logging.

The book concerns the adventures of two young loggers in the 1930s who learn the ropes from an older camp-boss. Full of period detail, Now You're Logging is almost a primer on the basics of the business from the days before the advent of the chainsaw, and contains many lengthy explanations of the techniques and tools of the trade. Graphically, the book looks something like a cross between a textbook and a love story illustrated by a heterosexual Tom of Finland. Griffiths cartooning combines muscular figures with tightly rendered machines and landscapes to charming effect.

Shawn Conner, writing in the Comics Journal in 1996, characterized the book as "a true anomaly: written and drawn by a man with decades of experience in the woods, it's a book with no clear antecedent, more intent on documenting a way of life than telling a story (though it does that, too)," noting that, "it might just change your perception of what comics are, what they can do, and why we need them."

Indeed, although published during the same period that U.S. based cartoonists were beginning to refer to their long-form comics as graphic novels, Griffith's book seems totally divorced from the world of North American comics of the time. In this sense it has more in common with other sui generis graphic novels of the past, such as The Four Immigants Manga or Frans Masereel's woodcut novels.

Now You're Logging went through 3 printings but is now out of print. In later years Griffiths continued to pursue artistic endeavours: he illustrated a few other books about BC subjects and several of his oil painting hang in local museums. At the end of his life he was preparing a series of short prose stories about his logging career.

According to Grant Shilling's Globe and Mail obituary, Griffiths "was a small man with a big chest, a lovely lilt in his voice and a twinkle in his eye. He was built more like Popeye, with well-developed forearms grown strong from working a saw and an axe for a living."

Griffiths experienced a stroke in 2003 and had been living under extended care since then. He is survived by his wife Margaret, two sons, five grandchildren and three great grandchildren. A memorial service was held October 21.

Further reading:

online:

Globe and Mail obituary (08/12/06)

Georgia Straight Profile by Grant Shilling

illustrated article by Gordon Hak

Publisher's Website


in print:

Shawn Connor, "Beyond the Grid, Later, up in the woods...," The Comics Journal, 187 (May 1996), 111-2. (the same issue also includes an interview with Giffiths and samples of his work)

Labels: , , , , ,

   
         - Stumble It!  - Leave a comment!| 0comments  -  - we honor OpenID - 



   Thursday, October 12, 2006  
Chester Brown Western Tour Day 2

:: Posted by Bryan @ 10/12/2006 03:17:00 AM
Yesterday Chester Brown was in Winnipeg (sorry, missed it)

Today he is in Brandon, Manitoba to continue promoting the paperback release of Louis Riel, his comic strip biography of the father of Manitoba (this historical fact I learned from the back cover of a Captain Canuck comic circa 1978).

Thursday, October 12th - Brandon, MB
3pm - 5pm: Signing at Pennywise Books. Location: 1031 Rosser Ave, Brandon
7pm - 9pm: Event at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba. Location:
710 Rosser Ave, Brandon

Tomorrow he is in Saskatoon.

Labels: , , ,

   
         - Stumble It!  - Leave a comment!| 0comments  -  - we honor OpenID - 



   Friday, September 08, 2006  
Chester Brown on Tour

:: Posted by Bryan @ 9/08/2006 05:59:00 AM
According to THE BEAT, Chester Brown will be touring the Western part of the country to promote the paperback release of Louis Riel. The tour really gets started with Chester being interviewed by Seth next Thursday at the Wright Awards, but the rest of the tour, beginning with a stop at McNally-Robinson in Winnipeg, doesn't get properly underway until October:

Wednesday, October 11th Winnipeg, MB McNally-Robinson

Thursday, October 12th Brandon, MB Pennywise Books

Friday, October 13th Saskatoon, SK McNally-Robinson

Saturday, October 14th Calgary, AB Calgary Wordfest

Monday, October 16th Edmonton, AB Greenwoods Bookshoppe

Tuesday, October 17th- Saturday, October 21 Vancouver, BC Vancouver
International Writers Festival (exact date TBA)

Sunday, October 22nd Victoria, BC Bolen Books

Labels: , , , , , , , ,

   
         - Stumble It!  - Leave a comment!| 0comments  -  - we honor OpenID - 



   Tuesday, August 15, 2006  
Lynn Johnston vs White Ninja

:: Posted by Bryan @ 8/15/2006 07:26:00 AM
The Saskatoon Star Phoenix writes up the reader survey in advance of its announced shake-up of its comics page today, with some surprising suggestions. Beyond the usual contradictory responses (ie, something like Cathy is usually loved and hated in equal numbers), the most interesting letter includes the suggestion that For Better or For Worse be replaced by the locally-produced webcomic White Ninja. There are not many Canadian-produced comic strips in print but it is always interesting to see these surveys, in part to try to figure out just why some strips continue to exist (I'm talking to you, Get Fuzzy), or who actually reads newspaper comic strips (people without computers?).

Comics, as with art, all in eye of beholder

Labels: ,

   
         - Stumble It!  - Leave a comment!| 0comments  -  - we honor OpenID - 



   Monday, July 24, 2006  
Danish Cartoons Fallout Update

:: Posted by Bryan @ 7/24/2006 03:05:00 AM
Media in Saskatchewan are reporting that the student paper at U. Sask is not guilty of violating the province's Human Rights Code for a cartoon by Jeff MacDonald responding to the controversial Jyllands-Posten cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed:

Offensive cartoons published in the University of Saskatchewan student newspaper last March did not violate the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code.

The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission has ruled that cartoons of Jesus performing oral sex on a pig were within the realm of freedom of expression under the Code and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Janice Gingell, staff solicitor, says members of the commission didn't condone the cartoon's content.

Gingell says there was several factors considered in the decision, such as the actions taken by the Sheaf's board of directors to limit the damage after the cartoon was published. The fact that the cartoon was published in a university environment, where the free flow of a range if ideas is accepted, was also considered.


650CKOM Saskatoon --Saskatchewan's Information Superstation

Labels: ,

   
         - Stumble It!  - Leave a comment!| 0comments  -  - we honor OpenID - 



   Thursday, June 22, 2006  
Cree comic launched in Saskatchewan/BC

:: Posted by Bryan @ 6/22/2006 02:25:00 AM

The CBC reports on Darkness Calls, a comic about a young boy who solves his troubles with the help of the superheroic Wesakechak, the motorcycle-riding trickster-figure from Cree legend. The comic is the brainchild of Steve Sanderson, a Vancouver animator, who created the book "to address the epidemic suicide rate among First Nations youth. It was a project designed to introduce kids to the subject in a medium they might be more familiar with."

CBC Arts: Revamped Cree legend fights teen suicide in new comic

Labels: , ,

   
         - Stumble It!  - Leave a comment!| 0comments  -  - we honor OpenID - 



   Tuesday, March 14, 2006  
Sheaf cartoonist not sorry for uproar

:: Posted by max @ 3/14/2006 07:49:00 AM
Catching up a bit on the still smoldering flares related to the Danish Cartoon Controversy. The article below is a follow-up to a min-controversy over cartoons in a Saskatchewan student paper:

Sheaf cartoonist not sorry for uproar

"The ousted editor of the University of Saskatchewan's campus newspaper, the Sheaf, apologized Thursday for the "unintentional" publication of a cartoon depicting Jesus Christ performing a sex act on a pig.

But cartoonist Jeff MacDonald remained unrepentant when contacted Thursday by a Saskatchewan News Network, and in a letter to the Sheaf."

Labels:

   
         - Stumble It!  - Leave a comment!| 0comments  -  - we honor OpenID - 





Archive by Region
Alberta - British Columbia - Calgary - Gatineau - Halifax - Moncton - Montreal - New Brunswick - Newfoundland - Nova Scotia - Ontario - PEI - Quebec - Saskatchewan - Saskatoon - Toronto - Vancouver - Victoria - Winnipeg -

Archive by Month
August 2002 - September 2002 - October 2002 - November 2002 - December 2002 - January 2003 - February 2003 - March 2003 - April 2003 - May 2003 - June 2003 - July 2003 - August 2003 - September 2003 - October 2003 - November 2003 - December 2003 - January 2004 - February 2004 - March 2004 - April 2004 - May 2004 - June 2004 - July 2004 - August 2004 - September 2004 - October 2004 - November 2004 - December 2004 - January 2005 - February 2005 - March 2005 - April 2005 - May 2005 - June 2005 - July 2005 - August 2005 - September 2005 - October 2005 - November 2005 - December 2005 - January 2006 - February 2006 - March 2006 - April 2006 - May 2006 - June 2006 - July 2006 - August 2006 - September 2006 - October 2006 - November 2006 - December 2006 - January 2007 - February 2007 - March 2007 - April 2007 - May 2007 - June 2007 - July 2007 - August 2007 - September 2007 - October 2007 - November 2007 - December 2007 - January 2008 - February 2008 - March 2008 - April 2008 - May 2008 - June 2008 - July 2008 - August 2008 - September 2008 - October 2008 - November 2008 - December 2008 - January 2009 - February 2009 - March 2009 - April 2009 - May 2009 - June 2009 - July 2009 - August 2009 - September 2009 - October 2009 - November 2009 - December 2009 - January 2010 - February 2010 - March 2010 -